To answer the many raised eyebrows & semi.polite queries, no, the title of this blog is not getting heavy on the Fahrenheit 451 tip, but rather a nod to the Talking Heads lp from 1979, Fear Of Music-specifically, the track "Life During Wartime", precisely what the title implies...
At the end of the song, following the lyrics, (back in the days when music had lyrics provided, and life provided us w/time to read them...), Byrne skips two lines to get to the payoff: 'Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks, they won't help me survive', and deep in the fade of the song, 'my chest is aching, burns like a furnace, the burning keeps me alive'...then skips the last two lines...
Never could figure out why, an oblique strategy perhaps?
Two years ago, when the catalog was remastered, an alternate version was tacked on to the cd...finally, at last, the mystery revealed. sort of...
Of the last six lines, Byrne again jumps to the third & fourth, then goes back and catches one, two, five, and six...
It gave me a small sense of peace to know that those poor orphan lines i worried about so actually did have a home...
English tv's 'Old Grey Whistle Test' provides a great live take from 1979 where he follows the original template by pulling out the two lines and ending cleanly with them...
In hindsight, one can make a case for this record capturing the uneasiness of the coming 80's amidst the disco frivolty, but perhaps a greater case can be made for its edginess embodying the first example of geek cool? Let the historians decide...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
OK, those cards are just bizarre.
ReplyDeleteI think I googled the notebooks line when I saw it (because that's how we roll these days), which prompted me to play the album a few more times.
Your comments on the lyrics reminded me of days when I spent much more time with lyrics. I don't know where those days have gone - whether it's my age & lack of attention span, all the other distracting hobbies I have, the times/digital/montage/age we live in, or what - but I rarely pour over lyrics quite like I used to. And I'm not exposed to many other music-heads much, so it's even more rarely that I actually verbalize about a lyric. Good idea for a running segment on my blog though! :)
Good times.
As for your analysis - I don't see why it can't be both.
1) thank god for google...i was trying to figure out exactly how to possibly explain that gig...
ReplyDelete2)not just lyrics, but my on.the.run intake now excludes song titles as well...many is the time when i hear a tune that i own & can say, 'hey i have that', and then be utterly dumbfounded for who or what the hell it is'...
3)you, my friend, are the exact dividing line of the google generation, i.e. those who use it reflexively as a tool, and those of us oldsters who eventually remember that, 'hey, why don't i google it?'
I guess it's strange for me to think of a world where it isn't second nature. Although it's not like I was born with it - we didn't get a visual internet until I was in high school. Before that I surfed the web via a text browser - Lynx.
ReplyDeleteI can only wonder what my kids' experiences will be like in a couple years.
..and hope they have good taste in music.