Album of the Week - Vol. 18

Stop Making Sense: Special New Edition TALKING HEADS (1999)
Week: Tuesday 2nd to Monday 8th March
Format: CD
Producer(s): Talking Heads and Gary Goetzman
Track listing:
1. Psycho Killer *
2. Heaven
3. Thank You For Sending Me an Angel
4. Found a Job
5. Slippery People *
6. Burning Down the House
7. Life During Wartime
8. Making Flippy Floppy *
9. Swamp
10. What A Day That Was
11. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) *
12. Once In a Lifetime *
13. Genius of Love - The Tom Tom Club
14. Girlfriend is Better *
15. Take Me to the River
16. Crosseyed and Painless
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 74:16

Well, this album has a lot of sentimental value for me. I'm 90% sure it was the first CD I ever bought. Well, it was either this or Billy Joel's Storm Front. It was a heady time. I was 13 going on 14, and living in Albany. My dad had taken the plunge to follow the CD revolution in mid-1989 I think. The first CD the household ever had was Jenny Morris' Shiver. I have a feeling that the next three were Cher's Heart of Stone, The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels and possibly Mystery Girl by Roy Orbison. 

Anyway, getting back to this Talking Heads album. I had been aware of Talking Heads in the eighties. I remember Once In a Lifetime playing over the opening credits of Down and Out In Beverly Hills, and I had thought enough of their 1985 single And She Was to buy the Little Creatures album on cassette. I have vague recollections of the movie Stop Making Sense being released, and I think I remember seeing posters, but I never saw it.

In the summer of 1989/90, I was involved in a local production of an original play called Hansel & Gretel. Very loosely based on the famous Grimm tale, my character Humperdinck had four arms, while my two sisters had none. I forget their names now...but I digress! During some rehearsal breaks, and definitely while setting up for a brief run in Mt Barker, a copy of Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense album played over a boombox. This was the way I heard the songs Psycho Killer and Burning Down the House for the first time. I'd always known the former to be a solo acoustic number. When I finally heard the original 1977 single some years later, I didn't recognise it until it reached the chorus. 

Throughout the run of the play I grew quite fond of the album, so I decided to get my hands on it to remind me of that time. My dad was a member of the Australian Record Club, and I gave him some of my pocket money and asked if he could order me a copy of Stop Making Sense. The first CD I ever bought! I'm pretty sure...'bout 82% sure, I think...

Fast forward to the fairly recent-ish present, and I'm revisiting the album for a reason other than sentimentality. As I'd previously mentioned, I never saw the film, but a happy coincidence led me to the video on YouTube! I had hunted for the DVD or Blu-ray for a few years, but never found one. So, it was a mini-revelation to actually watch the movie this album had come from. I was surprised by some slight differences in the versions on the album to the film, but they were only minor. I also learnt that the 1984 record track listing wasn't in the same order as they appeared in the movie. I knew that there were more songs in the movie though, and after watching (and really enjoying) Stop Making Sense, I decided to find a copy of the 1999 Special New Edition, which included all of them!

The original release only featured nine songs, so the extra tracks add nearly 30min to the running time. The album artwork contained several (semi-rhetorical?) questions:

Why "Stop Making Sense"?

Why a movie? Why tour?

Why do the musicians come out gradually?

What will the band do next?

Where do the odd movements come from?

...and so on. It was the third question there that really puzzled me. The musicians come out gradually? The album kicked off with David Byrne playing Psycho Killer on his own, yeah, so far, that seems right. But the second track was Swamp, which sounded like a full band to me. By the third song, Slippery People, I was calling bullshit to that claim. He he he, yeah, didn't realise the album wasn't in order of appearance in the film! That's a big pet peeve of mine. I hate it when soundtracks don't have the songs in the order they appear. Or fail to have all or most of the tracks featured in the movies. Comprehensive soundtrack albums like Marie Antoinette and Baby Driver get a big thumbs up from me! 

Anyway, back to Stop Making Sense. I think this album (and film) is a wonderful document of Talking Heads at their creative and influential peak. To have seen it now, and know that after David finished Psycho Killer, he is joined by Tina Weymouth on bass to perform Heaven is fantastic. The female vocals are sung offstage by backing singer Lynn Mabry, but yes, its just the two of them. Bizarrely, I'd heard this song before, and I was unaware that it was a Talking Heads song! Simply Red cover it on their Picture Book album, which I own. Their version is quite different, and it was only the lyrics that I recognised really. 

Drummer Chris Frantz is then wheeled out to join the pair for an excellent rendition of Thank You For Finding Me An Angel, the opening track of their second album More Songs About Buildings and Food. Completing the core quartet is guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison who comes out to play on Found a Job, also from their second record. Not heard these versions before seeing the film, and I think they're very good. I wonder why the whole setlist wasn't released on the album the first time around? In addition to the Talking Heads band members, there are performances from Bernie Worrell on keyboards, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and the wonderful Ednah Holt and Lynn Mabry on backing vocals. 

It's worth noting as well for those who haven't seen the film, that the first few numbers are performed while the stage is still being set up. It almost feels like the show has started before the venue is ready. As the musicians come out, more touches are added, until it looks like a rock concert, complete with a black curtain backdrop. 

Most of my favourite tracks are from the original nine song album release, particularly Once in a Lifetime, Slippery People and Girlfriend Is Better, the latter containing the lyric "stop making sense". I really like their live version of This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) and I'd not heard Making Flippy Floppy before, but I dig it! Interestingly, David Byrne leaves the stage to allow Chris & Tina to perform Genius of Love, a minor hit for their side-project band The Tom Tom Club. A nice addition, but an unusual choice, I would have thought. The bulk of the set is from their current release at the time, 1983's Speaking in Tongues. 

But yes, this is a great album made better by its re-release. An album full of old and new memories for me, and will I always think of it with a special fondness.

Still from Stop Making Sense