Happy 45th Anniversary to Talking Heads’ third studio album Fear of Music, originally released August 3, 1979.
There often comes a point in a band’s existence when it becomes something different then what it first envisioned. Usually it comes when the group starts to figure out how to channel their voices into, well, something that allows them to retain their core identity but still be more accessible to a wider audience. Listeners can usually hear this transformation play out across the length of song or a complete album. But few transitional albums have been as outright bizarre as Talking Heads’ Fear of Music.
Made up of David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), Tina Weymouth (bass), Chris Frantz (drums), and Jerry Harrison (keyboards and guitar), Talking Heads were a tried and true New York art-rock band. Spawned when three of its members met while attending the Rhode Island School of Design, the group made its bones playing in the punk and rock clubs of Manhattan during the mid to late ’70s.
The band had released the critically acclaimed Talking Heads: 77 (1977) and More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) before beginning to draw some nationwide attention. After performing a cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” on American Bandstand, people really started to take notice. And so the group reacted in the most peculiar way possible, recording and releasing Fear of Music, their third album, 45 years ago.
Fear of Music is an enigmatic album. The lyrics can seem to defy interpretation. Sometimes they are bellowed in thick, affected accents. Occasionally they are literally gibberish. Reading through the lyrics to some of the songs, it’s never quite clear whether or not Byrne is fucking with us. Like, did he really record a serious-minded song warning about the effects of air on human life? And not pollution, but, like, actual air?
Musically, Fear of Music is alternately busy, harsh, chaotic, mechanical, and occasionally stripped down. Both Byrne and famed producer Brian Eno, who had begun working with the group during the recording of their second album, utilized a whole host of studio wizardry to transform the group’s art-rock stylings into something almost unrecognizable.
Fear of Music is a tough nut to crack, and much more talented writers than myself have spent thousands of words trying to decipher it. In 2012, famed author Jonathan Lethem wrote an entry in the 33 1/3 book series about the album. Unlike other entries in the 33 1/3 series, there were no interviews with the members of the band or others involved in the recording process or “making of” anecdotes from inside the recording studio. Instead, the book documents Lethem’s obsession with the group and Fear of Music as a whole, attempting to analyze the album and discuss its significance to Talking Heads’ legacy, as well as his deep and personal relationship to the long player, as it was integral to his musical development. Lethem later admitted in interviews that the album was “a really slippery subject” and just as inscrutable to him when the book was written as when it was originally released.
Listen to the Album:
While I certainly love Fear of Music, I don’t share the same four-and-a-half-decade attachment to it. It came out when I was four years old, and I discovered it about 25 years ago when I began to really delve into the band’s discography. I appreciate it for being not only one of the group’s strangest albums, but also one that served as the bridge between their punk and avant-garde days into their attempts to expand their musical influences.
One such example of the group branching out musically is the album-opening “I Zimbra,” an amalgam of afro-beat and disco. It’s Fela Kuti as filtered through CBGBs filtered through NYU. Or in the reverse order. In a move that represents both the Talking Heads of this period and Fear of Music overall, Byrne, Eno, and the band chant phrases from “Gadji beri bimba,” a poem by Dadaist Hugo Ball.
It terms of subject matter and themes, when they can be discerned, Talking Heads seem to be concerned with exploring different facets of city life and the fear present in these environs. Byrne sings about the overt and beneath-the-surface difficulties that denizens of urban centers face, from existential dread to seemingly mundane minutiae. Many of the song titles seem purposefully bland, (“Paper,” “Heaven,” “Air,” “Electric Guitar,” etc.), allowing Byrne to deal with the topics in either a straightforward or, more often, abstract manner.
“Mind” is one of the album’s early highlights, a rock jam where Byrne vents his frustration with someone who appears completely resistant to change. It features the best guitar work on the album, especially the itchy, echoing main riff. “Cities” plows headlong at a madcap pace, guitars and keyboard charging with reckless abandon. The lyrics seem like a stream of thought on Byrne’s part, vacillating between prosaic and ridiculous. But even as he contemplates the benefits and costs of living in the city, lyrics like, “But it all works out, sometimes I'm a little freaked out” reflects the feelings of uneasiness that many can feel living in the city.
“Life During Wartime” is one of the best-known entries on Fear of Music. One of the group’s concert performance staples, the version that appears on the Stop Making Sense (1985) live album is already one of their most acclaimed recordings. The original version doesn’t have the same intensely frenetic energy, but it’s still an arresting piece of songwriting.
The song is a first-person account of the rigorous life of a Weatherman-inspired revolutionary, attempting to scrape by on an austere existence in the heart of NYC. Subsisting on peanut-butter sandwiches and living without any of the basic luxuries (no headphones or record players allowed), he coordinates with his comrades as they attempt to blend in with the city’s population, while planning and instigating civil insurrection. Lyrics like ”I got three passports, a couple of visas, you don't even know my real name” and “I changed my hairstyle so many times now, I don't know what I look like” are integral in making it seem real and immediate.
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“Animals” is another of the aforementioned “This is a joke, right?” songs on Fear of Music. The song is outright belligerent, with Byrne railing against the untrustworthiness of… animals? “I know the animals are laughing at us / Don't even know what a joke is / I won't follow animals' advice / I don't care if they're laughing at us,” he barks over a driving guitar riff. I’m sure there’s some subtext that I’m missing here, but in the meantime, I can’t make heads or tails of it.
But overall, Fear of Music is at its best when Talking Heads get overtly weird. The creepiness of “Memories Can’t Wait” lends to its awesomeness. Byrne’s vocals are heavily laden with effects as he sings over a menacing guitar riff, as he explores the thought process of someone trapped by his own memories, unable to rest, due to his owns regrets on how he’s lived his life.
“Drugs” is Fear of Music’s true masterpiece in experimental rock and ambient music, with Byrne and Eno taking the song “Electricity,” a staple of their live performances, and turning it into something that’s both minimalist and complex. The story goes that Byrne and Eno worked separately, cobbling together disparate pieces into a darkly psychedelic piece that sonically approximates the feeling of taking drugs. Chimes appear frequently, with other odd elements being incorporated into the piece, such as frogs croaking and disembodied vocals. It’s a fittingly disquieted coda to a truly peculiar piece of work.
In his 33 1/3 entry about Fear of Music, Lethem posited that it was the last Talking Heads album. This, even though the group had seven more releases after this one, including five studio albums and two live albums. However, the general perception is that post-Fear of Music, the group increasingly became a vessel for Byrne’s ideas. Byrne began taking even more overt control of the group’s musical direction, bringing along Eno to help channel his vision.
Talking Heads had its greatest success post-Fear of Music and recorded some of its best material, but there’s no question that their third album reflected the process of the band becoming a completely different animal.
LISTEN:
Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.