David Byrne's role-playing games

An earlier post on the Dire Straits song "Money For Nothing" discussed the device of "role playing" in music: the technique in which singers or lyricists take on personas of characters radically unlike themselves.

This post will look at how David Byrne and the band Talking Heads "role played" protaganists in their songs. It's a trick Byrne used throughout the Heads' career. (We will ignore the Byrne-less "No Talking, Just Heads" disc.) Indeed, Bryne seemed to enjoy playing a variety of characters not only in song, but also on LP covers, on stage and on screen:

• the polite, button-downed egghead of "Talking Heads: 77"
• the bespectacled nerd in the "Once in a Lifetime" video
• the big-suited businessman from "Stop Making Sense"
  
• the deadpan cowboy narrator of "True Stories"

Such characters are incorporated into the Heads music as well. Here are the top three Talking Heads tracks in which Byrne goes into character:

3. "The Big Country," from "More Songs About Buildings and Food." In the album's closing track, Byrne takes on the role of a man on an airplane trip. From his window seat, Byrne's traveler dispassionately describes what the view:

I see the shoreline.
I see the whitecaps.
A baseball diamond, nice weather down there.
I see the school and the houses where the kids are.

Then, in the chorus, he abandons the reportage for a denunciation:

I wouldn't live there if you paid me.
I couldn't live like that, no siree!
I couldn't do the things the way those people do.
I couldn't live there if you paid me to.

The song's power comes from the sudden change from neutrality to judgment. Byrne's character expresses a contempt for the heartland years before the term "flyover country" came into vogue.

2. "Psycho Killer" from "Talking Heads: 77." Beginning with the throbbing bass of Tina Weymouth, this song is one of the signature tracks of New York's New Wave movement. Here, Byrne plays a decidely disturbed man, although the song's title is its main indication of just how disturbed he might be. The lyrics are more oblique, but they nonetheless bring the listener into the mindset of a person who's not all there:

I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I
Can't relax
I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me I'm a real live wire

After establishing his character as one who may be menacing, he spells out his biggest gripe:

I hate people when they're not polite.

Again, Byrne plays with the idea of contrast, taking his lyrics into a counterintuitive direction. The effect is startling, especially when set against the Spartan music. (What was it like to hear this in the era of Foghat, Frampton and the Eagles?)

1. "Life During Wartime" from "Fear of Music." This song became a minor hit thanks to its "this ain't no disco" lyric, even gaining airplay on what were then called Album Oriented Rock stations. But the song is sung from the point of view of an insurgent who's too busy with his cause to engage in dancing or "lovey-dovey."

The track, which Byrne turned into an aerobic workout in the still-brilliant concert movie "Stop Making Sense," conveys a feeling that it could last forever, like a war that never ends. Byrne's character describes a life on the run and incognito, culminating in the darkly humorous line:

I changed my hairstyle, so many times now
I don't know what I look like!

"Life During Wartime" has also proven to be prescient, and it is odd to listen to in these times. Especially creepy is this line, which is more applicable to the U.S. government than it is to urban guerrillas:

We've got computers
We're tapping phone lines
I know that ain't allowed

The difference now, of course, is that our leaders argue that it is allowed.