lee's Full Review: Speaking in Tongues by Talking Heads
Imagine yourself living in a small, rural suburban town in 1983. Exposure to the outside world is limited to network TV and an occasional trip to the mall. The U.S. is about to invade Grenada because this tiny Caribbean island is considered to be a "threat to U.S. security" and you're all for it. Your favorite band of all time is Chicago. Basically you're lost. All of a sudden a knock at your door interrupts the drone of your refrigerator coil and an inconsequential daydream. You answer to a strange, awkward traveling salesman/missionary with deep-set eyes and oversized suit. He's holding a CD in his hand and wants you to buy it.
"Lo oka t th ec o ver", he says softly.
You have no idea what he just said, but the album cover catches your eye. The design elements are primitive, foreign to your desensitized sensibilities. Circles and rectangles, beautiful colors. This brilliantly simple picture is not the product of a climate controlled environment. No sir, whoever created this (Robert Rauchenberg) was inspired by a different, higher form of being (perhaps a smashist), one who shirks the conveniences afforded by suburban sprawl for the struggle to derive sense out of the cacaphonous din of cramped diversity. A city dweller. Just then you feel a wave of energy thrust from the CD, and before you know it a crescendo of drums amid several voices led by the awkward traveling salesman/missionary in front of you envelops your inner ear,
"aaaaaaAAAAWatch Out! You might get what you're after/Cool babies/Strange but not a stranger/I'm an ordinary guy."
Ordinary? Hardly, but the powerful rhythm and chanting is persuasive enough to make you abandon your better judgement and believe everything he says. In a moment you realize that your world view is completely deconstructed and that he is here to not only take your money, but to save your soul in the process. For a moment you fight to hold onto your lethargy, but to no avail. In an ironic twist of cultural role reversal, primal forces have invaded middle America and "Burning Down The House" has you stepping in time. "Oh, the horror!", you cry, but it's too late (and Brando you are not). Soon you will have joined the cadence until the last ounce of desire to sit on the couch is finally squeezed from your rear, never to return.
"There's your ticket/Pack your bags/Time for jumping overboard/The transportation is here/Close enough but not too far/Baby you know where you are/Fightin' fire with fire."
As the CD plays, your transformation continues with pulsing, jerky syncopation, and more chanting on "Making Flippy Floppy".
"Girlfriend Is Better" settles into a steady, lurking beat with lyrics that seem to express frustrations associated with being trapped somewhere unfamiliar, somewhere in love, somewhere in a confused mind. Sound familiar?
With "Slippery People" the pace and intensity accelerates back to where the first track left off, and again the chorus consists of call and response between your newfound messiah and the rest of his congregation, yourself included. This time he's actually got you begging for salvation,
"God help us!/Help us lose our minds/These slippery people/Help us understand."
By the time that "Swamp" hits, you no longer control your motor skills. With knees and waist slightly bent, and arms dangling in front of your thighs, the music (now almost with a sinister tone) nudges you into a meditative perpetuating swagger as your savior leads the most intoxicating chant yet,
"Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi"
By this point in the CD you respond to nothing but vibrations and instinct. Your living room has become a portal to time a priori. Beneath this sonic sacred canopy you float; you are nowhere and everywhere at once until a steady delicate guitar plucking faintly emerges behind your left ear. A wave of nostalgia overcomes you as the volume increases, but you know not to what it refers. Just a longing for something in your past. Or is it future? Suddenly your savior's voice can be heard gently singing a lovely melody,
"Home/It's where I want to be/Pick me up and turn me round/I feel numb/Born with a weak heart/(So I)Guess I must be having fun."
When the song ends, you open your eyes and there you are in your climate controlled suburban home, on your way to answer a knock at the front door. You open the door and lo and behold...no one is there. However, the mail has arrived and it appears as though you forgot to return the "Columbia House Selection of the Month" slip because a CD wrapped in brown cardboard lies on your welcome mat. Damn, keep meaning to write them a letter terminating service! But you never know, it might be "Chicago 16". Upon tearing away the cardboard, you grab the CD, see the African looking designs and read the cover:
TA LKI N GHE ADS - SP EAK IN GI N TO NGU ES
World music? Yuk! No way...hey, wait a minute. What's that tingling sensation?
"aaaaaaAAAAWatch out!/You might get what you're after..."
"Speaking In Tongues", The Talking Heads' sixth album finally extricates their music from the tight grip of Brian Eno's sphere of influence, and with it they open up their sound to a wide, wild landscape, into which David Byrne leads a mission to spread his word. It sold more than any of their previous albums.
Listening to the CD it is clear that this is more than just a 4 person effort. The addition of backup singers and huge percussion section to compliment Byrne's seductive, lyrical homily is largely responsible for imparting the sense of unity, cooperation, and togetherness that the songs evoke. This album was truly a community effort. If you've seen the film "Stop Making Sense" you know exactly what I mean. If you haven't and you like what you've read thus far, you might want to rent it after you buy this album. Because with "Speaking In Tongues" The Heads have finally graduated from art school, published their thesis, and began a global lecture series on what it means to live, cooperate, and innovate through music. Amen.
**I actually was fortunate enough to watch "Stop Making Sense" for the first time on it's 15th Anniversary showing at the Castro Theater during the San Francisco Film Festival '99. All four of The Heads and the director Jonathan Demme were there watching with a raucous crowd who were literally dancing in the aisles, doing laps around the theater, clapping, and singing along. The closest I've ever been to a live performance that wasn't actually live. It might as well have been. Pretty amazing.
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