When driving back from Indiana Beach, Nicole and I found ourselves increasingly lost at first, resulting in the trip taking an extra half hour to get home. This was a problem, as I start going comatose behind the wheel once it gets later than 1:00 in the morning. What saved us from a horrible tree maiming demise with much crashing and banging and exploding in a fireball (wooooosh) was that the song "Life During Wartime" came on the radio. I'd heard of the Talking Heads song before, and vaguely knew it was a classic, but it was one of those songs I'd never managed to hear.
Since Saturday night/Sunday morning, the song has now been in my head almost continually. I'm having to constantly drown it out in my head by blasting other random music (currently on Love's Forever Changes, hippy weirdness is a nice counter to hipster weirdness). I'm still glad for it though, because I not only know the song now, I've also witnessed the video above. It's from Stop Making Sense, the famous concert movie. It illustrates why David Byrne will live forever, while all that has come after him will wither and perish.
Rock stars of many stripes seem to think living unhealthily is a necessary part of the role. Hard rockers and metal artists drink like alcoholic sturgeons and abuse themselves. Emo and indie rockers hide from the sun, mope, and generally read a lot. Everyone else and the above take copious amounts of drugs and other illicit substances. On top of that, shock rockers do horrible things to their body just to get a reaction and some publicity.
Byrne exercises, aerobically, on stage while singing, and doesn't drop a beat. This manages to be simultaneously awe inspiring, unsettling, and humorous. Other rock stars destroy themselves at various rates, but Byrne jogs around the stage in complete health. It's why the Talking Heads remain relevant and still have an impact, while lots of scary punks and metalheads have faded away or look ridiculous. David Byrne is a normal looking, healthy, intelligent person that sings like he's just reached the cracking point, and dance like it too. Shocking only works until the audience builds immunity, but legitimate crazy never ceases to amaze.
---------Gabe
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