#7: Talking Heads January 7, 2012

I’m not even sure how it all started.  I think it was the time my dad brought a Stop Making Sense CD on vacation one year. Or maybe it was the time I later found that same CD lying around and decided to load it to iTunes.  Whichever it was, Stop Making Sense was my gateway to the awesomeness that is Talking Heads.  The first couple times I listened to that CD, I only listened to my favorite songs, “Psycho Killer,” “Burning Down the House,” “Life During Wartime,” and later, “Take Me to the River.”  It wasn’t until high school that I started listening to the CD the whole way through (this was also around the same time that I really got into Green Day, like I mentioned yesterday), but once I did, I never looked back.  Literally every single track is a kickin’ song in my opinion, except for “Swamp” (I hate that song).  I listened to that album in high school so much, in fact, that my friend Zach pretty much said that’s all I ever listened to on the bus home (which was probably right, honestly).  At some point, I moved past Stop Making Sense, and started listening to other TH albums.  I’m not sure in what specific order, but I obtained physical copies of Remain in Light, Speaking In Tongues, and Talking Heads: 77 all within the span of four months and fell in love with all of them.

(This is the point in the story where you learn that I may or may not have OCD).  Knowing that I only had a portion of the group’s recorded discography never sat well with me.  By the end of that four month period, I *ahem* downloaded the remaining albums: More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, The Name of This Band is Talking Heads (the other live album),  Little Creatures, True Stories, and Naked.  Having all these satiated my Heads thirst, but only for so long.  It was that summer that I went to *ahem* places online and downloaded as many TH shows as I could find.  I wound up with all kinds of shows, ranging from the early days, to the Stop Making Sense tour, to the bitter end.  It was pretty much a place where nothing ever happens heaven (see what I did there?).  Eventually I downloaded the SMS movie, and later the True Stories film (which is very good, by the way).

(This is the point in the story where you realize that, regardless of my real/fake OCD, I’m probably a lunatic and definitely too obsessed with this band).  My Talking Heads search didn’t stop there, however.  At some point in my freshman year at college, I decided to download everything I could find that the four main members of the band (David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison) ever recorded. This included Harrison’s pre-TH days as a member of the vastly-underrated Modern Lovers and his post-TH, unspectacular solo career; Frantz and Harrison’s continuing adventures as the Tom Tom Club, and Byrne’s journey through music (which is a very interesting study on its own– each album has a different flavor, and if you study them close enough and know a little about him, you can trace where the influences came from, and even who worked on it with him).  It’s a very good playlist, and it even inspired me to do it with a couple other bands/artists I have (I highly recommend this activity if you really enjoy music).  But the point here is that I’m a lunatic and I currently have 451 Talking Heads songs and counting, as well as 284 other songs (and counting) relating to the band.