what's in a name...

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...