Talking Heads explored human nature and got lost in the groove on this dark and danceable culmination of their unconventional career. The band had found commercial validation with the pop embrace of 'Little Creatures' and 'True Stories'; but they were restless and ready to experiment again. They went to Paris with producer Steve Lillywhite and a supporting cast of international studio musicians to record 'Naked'.
David Byrne reveals: "We'd done our "song" records; you kinda get bored with anything after a couple of records of it. And we decided it was time to do something else...We cut most of the tracks where Chris would be playing the kit and at least one other percussionist would be playing simultaneously; sometimes two other people. So the groove would be the result of a balance between everybody. It wasn't like - as often happens - the percussion being added on later for spice or sprinkling. In this case it became integrated ... It was very relaxed. It didn't seem exotic. It was very natural and comfortable. In 1979, 1980 or whenever, when we were first playing around and trying to learn some other kinds of things, I think we really felt like students then, although we were often feeling our way on our own. But now I think that there's less of that relationship and more of a direct interplay. Everybody learns from everybody else and whatnot."
Tina Weymouth says: "Some people might get the idea that we were a bunch of white Americans just going to Paris to play with a bunch of Africans - that while we were displaced, so were they. Most of them were into a lot of different kinds of music, had heard our music previously, and also liked a lot of the same things we liked. So we were all sharing the same kind of sensibility. There wasn't a planned thing whereby we said, 'We're going to make African music here.' It just happened that this was the kind of music we were currently jamming on...When we were putting the songs together, we were switching instruments, and I was playing a lot of keyboard parts after the drums were down. But Jerry got a groove happening by playing a repetitive riff that was trance-inducing. I often compare it - because I was a painter in school - to abstract painting, where the first color or line or form you put on canvas suggests what you do next. Because of the kinds of musicians that we are , and because we respect what the other musicians we play with might choose to play, there's a lot of freedom allowed for other things to happen."
Jerry Harrison: "I think the process we choose causes each record to sound a little bit different from the others. Naked was written music, first, and lyrics and melodies, second. In that way, it was similar to 'Remain In Light' and 'Speaking In Tongues'. Because of that, the music flows and interweaves in a different way than when you compose songs with music and lyrics coming at the same time...We try to make the keyboards like the glue that holds the other parts together, because they have the ability to be more sustained."
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"Blind"
Byrne says: "It's pure imagination, but it comes out of reading the daily paper. It's a cry of anguish. It's a man crying, rather than a woman. And I think it's directed at the authorities. Someone has been killed, or badly beaten, and someone else is looking out a window. Terrible things are happening, civil strife. It definitely goes beyond just lack of sight. The more it's repeated, the more references are implied and the more it resonates with all the meanings within that word or phrase. And you're asking yourself and the listener to be aware of all that."
"Mr. Jones"
Byrne explains: "My thought was to take the same guy from Bob Dylan's "Mr. Jones," but now he's having a good time. [laughter] He's at the hotel, there's a convention going on, he's with his friends, he's not on the outside anymore. He walks into a room and it's his friends there instead of a bunch of strangers. He's getting loose, getting down, his pants fall down, he's dancing on the table, and he's having a pretty good time. He's found ... I'm doing it the other way around. He's a traveling businessman, who's usually depicted in songs by people of my generation as not knowing what's going on. A lot of people would stare at Mr. Jones and declare him the ultimate square. I'm saying, 'Okay, now, this guy's breakin' out of that, and he's havin' a good time.' You know, I think the whole generation-gap thing is unique in Western culture. In Japan, the generation gap is there, but it's very small. Here, we often just accept that the generations don't mix as much. Which is a big mistake."
"(Nothing But) Flowers"
Byrne considers: "On the surface, it's a pleasant kind of tongue-in-cheek thing of me talking about giving it all up, throwing everything away and going out to live in the forest or the woods or the jungle, whatever. I guess it's a very common wish – but for the moment not all that likely."
Johnny Marr reveals: "‘(Nothing but) Flowers’ by Talking Heads was tricky because it was so sparse, was touching the track lightly and not getting anything back from it. I actually went for a walk around Paris, saying to myself, ‘You’ve lost it, you’ve got nothing,’ while the other half of my brain was going, ‘Calm the fuck down, man!’ After 25 minutes, hit on this idea that I should start it like my own track. So I pulled out the biggest sound I could – which was my Sunburst 335 12-string – and came up with this really big, kinda Smithsy part ... When I got there they put down some bass and drum tracks. '(Nothing But) Flowers' sounded almost like a Reggae dub track. I wasn't trying to play in an African style - although some people pointed out that I sometimes sound like that anyway! I knew all about King Sunny Ade (performer of Nigerian juju music) and I love Fela Kuti (Nigerian multi-instrumentalist) but really I just played melodies that sounded good in a high range. The intro to 'Flowers' was me playing without knowing the tape machine was on - that's how little attention I paid to any kind of remit! I built that track from the ground up. I was impressed with what David (Byrne) did on it. He worked super quickly on it."
"The Democratic Circus"
Byrne says: "We're actually talking about the electoral process. To me, it's not a democracy as we imagined it. It's disillusioning in a way. But part of that might be because it's not what we would have hoped; it's not what we were led to believe it would be. I like the rain coming at the end, washing it all away, like blood [laughs]. We referred to the song as being a cha-cha."
"The Facts of Life"
Jerry Harrison says: "One of the things I like about "Facts Of Life" is that it has a "musique concrete" quality to it. I think it's a nice contrast to some of the more flowing rhythms on the album. It shows that we have other interests beyond integrating African music into our stuff. This song hearkens back to the more urban music we made when we began."
David Byrne adds: "The four of us had stumbled upon an interlocking improvisation. It was one of those numbers that started from one texture and evolved into another. And it became a challenge for me to write a melody that would bridge that transition in the music. It's almost like going from a factory to a pastoral landscape. Then I locked onto sex and procreation as being mechanistic. We're biological machines. Parents gave us our biological programming, from evolution. And it's monkeys. That's in-built into us. Not so bad, not so bad [laughs]. That's where a lot of good stuff comes from, but we're trying to deny it."
"Cool Water"
Byrne muses: "It's very dark, that song. It's a pretty bleak view of the end of life, of death. A lot of our stuff has been somewhat positive, but this one is pretty much the other side. Pretty bleak, but I think it would be silly to ignore it and to pretend it doesn't exist."
Naked
full album:
All lyrics written by David Byrne, all music composed by Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth.
"Blind" – 4:58
"Mr. Jones" – 4:18
"Totally Nude" – 4:10
"Ruby Dear" – 3:48
"(Nothing But) Flowers" – 5:31
"The Democratic Circus" – 5:01
"The Facts of Life" – 6:25
"Mommy Daddy You and I" – 3:58
"Big Daddy" – 5:37
"Bill" – 3:21 (bonus track)
"Cool Water" – 5:10
"Sax and Violins" - 5:01
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