STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This weekend, Imax theaters are playing an improved version of "Stop Making Sense." It's a famous film culled from three different Talking Heads concerts from 1983. Talking Heads songs were on the radio constantly back then.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PSYCHO KILLER")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONCE IN A LIFETIME")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) How did I get here? Letting the days go by.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Burning down the house.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIFE DURING WARTIME")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) This ain't no party. This ain't no disco.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (NAIVE MELODY)")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Home is where I want to be.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIRLFRIEND IS BETTER")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) I got a girlfriend that's better than that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CROSSEYED AND PAINLESS")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Still waiting.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROAD TO NOWHERE")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) We're on a road to nowhere.
INSKEEP: All that was decades ago, and all four Talking Heads have gone on to separate careers. Then, for this film's rerelease, all four band members met with us in the same studio in New York City.
DAVID BYRNE: David Byrne.
JERRY HARRISON: I'm Jerry Harrison.
TINA WEYMOUTH: I'm Tina Weymouth.
CHRIS FRANTZ: I'm Chris Frantz. And it's been a long time since we've been in the same room together.
INSKEEP: Why? Why has it been a long time?
FRANTZ: Well...
INSKEEP: There's a lot in that one word. Well.
David Byrne broke up the band in the 1990s and later sued the other band members. In 2020, Chris Frantz wrote a memoir saying Byrne demeaned the rest of the group. That was the backdrop when all four sat together and reflected on the past as seen on the rereleased film.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STOP MAKING SENSE")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Everyone wants to explode.
INSKEEP: The film shows a stripped-down stage. The other band members play, while Byrne is constantly doing something unusual. He stares out beyond the crowd. He puts on a giant suit. He dances with a floor lamp.
BYRNE: The first time I saw the new print with the new sound, I'm kind of looking at it and thinking, who is that guy?
INSKEEP: In what way are you a different person now?
BYRNE: Well, I think I'm a little bit more easygoing and a little more comfortable kind of talking to people.
INSKEEP: The drummer, Chris Frantz, wrote that during their days as a band, Byrne was too intense, disrespected them, took sole credit for songs they wrote together and didn't seem to think there was anyone in the world but himself.
Was it hard to decide to come together for events like this?
FRANTZ: For me, not a bit.
INSKEEP: Chris Frantz.
FRANTZ: You know, we have all said things and done things in the past, but right now we're focused on the celebration of "Stop Making Sense" and the music of Talking Heads, which is greater than any one of us individually.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STOP MAKING SENSE")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. You may find yourself in another part of the world.
WEYMOUTH: David was focused, but I saw that in everybody on that stage. And so I had a bird's-eye view. I mean, I had to remind myself to remain focused in the moment. Otherwise, I would forget to keep playing because I was watching. I was a fan of the band.
INSKEEP: At one point in the film, Byrne repeatedly smacks his forehead.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STOP MAKING SENSE")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
INSKEEP: My colleague watched an Imax performance, and there were people standing up and whacking themselves...
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: ...On the forehead, which I guess is a thing for some people. The energy you show on stage, David, is amazing. You're running at one point - running in circles around the stage. You're laying on your back and singing. You seem like you're having an amazing time up there.
BYRNE: Yeah. I am having an amazing time, and I sort of loosen up as the show goes along.
INSKEEP: But I think you've said over the years, looking back on that time, that in some ways you were not enjoying yourself.
BYRNE: Oh. There were - enjoyment is kind of - it's hard - depends on how you define it. I was enjoying the work that we were doing and very proud of it. But I was very intent and focused and kind of single-minded about this is what I want. I see this going this way and - which sometimes doesn't make for the best kind of social relationships.
INSKEEP: Since the group broke up, they've made more music, produced other people's records and, in Byrne's case, even starred in a Broadway show. So I asked them what they've learned across the years, and Jerry Harrison spoke up.
HARRISON: You know, I've been very involved in producing bands, and I've been - seen many, many bands where there is definitely a leader and person who sometimes is intimidating to the other members of the band. And as a producer, I would always try to make sure that anyone who is possibly getting disenfranchised, to try and bring them in.
INSKEEP: Harrison did not say that he learned that lesson in Talking Heads, though it felt related. Looking back, Byrne now thinks he was disconnected from people, in part because he is on the autism spectrum. His distinctive view of the world may also have influenced his lyrics.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AND SHE WAS")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) And she was lying in the grass. And she could hear the highway breathing.
INSKEEP: Let me come back to that question about your creativity. Do you think that there's some connection?
BYRNE: I think you're right. I think there's probably some of those lyrics and things that I wrote - I could never write those kinds of things today.
FRANTZ: I think of the lyrics, for example, to - what's the song about my building has every convenience?
BYRNE: Oh.
WEYMOUTH: "Don't Worry About The Government."
FRANTZ: David came up with that, and I don't think anybody else would have come up with that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) My building has every convenience. It's gonna make life easier for me.
INSKEEP: I mean, what was on your mind when you started writing about a building with every convenience?
BYRNE: I thought, wouldn't we like to live in an apartment that had a bathroom in the apartment, which we didn't have at the time?
FRANTZ: We were living - Tina and David and I were living in a loft on Chrystie Street. We moved there in 1974.
INSKEEP: The city's falling apart all around you.
FRANTZ: Yeah. And now there's a Whole Foods nearby. But we didn't have that then. We had homeless people, and we had very inexpensive prostitutes. We would hear gunfire and congas. It was like...
INSKEEP: OK.
FRANTZ: ...It was not a building that had every convenience.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Working, but if you come visit, I'll put down what I'm doing. My friends are important.
INSKEEP: It was a song about what they aspired to in the years before they shot to fame. "Stop Making Sense," the concert film with Talking Heads, is on Imax screens beginning today.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT")
TALKING HEADS: (Singing) Don't you worry 'bout me.
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