Evangelism, bitches.
The difference between theater and movies is that in live performance is that both performer and audience are physically occupying the same space, and both need the other for a performance to be truly memorable. While this is true for theater, it's especially true of live music. Thinking about the memorable concerts in one's life, the experience of the evening is likely far more than the set list the band played, it's more about who you were with, those girls who were smoking a joint in front of you and offered you some, those guys who kept shouting “Free Bird,” and their eventual assassination at the hands of a guy in a Bill Hicks t-shirt, and your thought to yourself—aided by the joint the girls passed you—“Heh, Bill woulda dug that if he was still alive.”
These musings originated from two places: one, the fact that, for the better part of this past week, I've been reviewing theater (here are two samples, if you're interested), and two, when I haven't been off doing that, I've been watching Stop Making Sense repeatedly.
There has, quite simply, never been a concert picture this good. Ever. In the history of music or movies. The only peer Stop Making Sense has is Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz, and while The Last Waltz is balls-out fucking amazing, it still has long periods of The Band talking. This led to other bands developing the fatal delusion that they were as interesting as The Band were, which resulted in a lot of shitty fucking movies about a bunch of stupid fucking musicians talking about awesome they are, complete with worshipful shots lingering on their every caesura, genuflecting before every tautology, and hammering home every mangled quote from the Eastern religion du jour as if it were the most brilliant insight of all time. (All those bands and docs would eventually get their asses handed to them by This Is Spinal Tap). It's not really fair to blame Marty S. or The Band for that, but hey, them's the bricks.
Stop Making Sense, like The Last Waltz, has the two elements any concert film needs to be good (obviousness alert): a great band and a great director. In 1984, Talking Heads were five albums in, each one a masterpiece. They'd just had their first top 10 hit with “Burning Down the House,” making them that always rare—and now unheard of—band embraced equally by music critics and the general public. And, thanks to the staggering work of genius that is the video for “Once In a Lifetime,” I (at six) even knew who they were.
Jonathan Demme, at that point, hadn't yet had a commercial hit, though he'd directed a couple fanfuckintastic exploitation pictures for Roger Corman and one of the all-time great “How in the hell is this so good? Holy shit this is awesome” pictures Melvin and Howard a few years previous. He was then as he is today: a force to be reckoned with behind a camera. But to make a great movie about music, it's not enough to be a great director, you have to be a great director who knows, understands, and feels music.
This is one thing Jonathan Demme has in common with the aforementioned Mr. Scorsese: the soundtrack is always, always, always (well, except for Philadelphia, Beloved, and maybe one or two other aberrations) bangin'. When Charles Napier is doing Michelle Pfeiffer's hair in Married to the Mob, that's “Bizarre Love Triangle” playing in the background. Because why stop with casting Charles “It's hard to eat corn on the cob with no fuckin' teeth” Napier as a hairdresser when you can bump New Order? Jodie Foster got chased around the basement by Buffalo Bill to the fucking Fall. That crappy remake of Charade may have been crappy, but it had Asian Dub Foundation and it, pornographically, had Anna Karina singing Serge Gainsbourg (heaven is not, as David Byrne mistakenly asserts, a place “where nothing ever happens,” it's a place where Anna Karina sings Serge Gainsbourg.) And holy shit, that wedding sequence in Rachel Getting Married divides by zero—a bunch of square-ass white people dancing around to Brazilian/Indian music and it's GOOD???? Okay, let's recap:
Mr. Demme, do you know your music?
Clearly I do, sir, peruse the above paragraph for proof.
Mr. Demme, do you understand music?
Well, without speaking immodestly, I must say I use music that is appropriate for the given scene, rather than trying to force a square peg into a round hole, and in this regard I stand head and shoulders above every director in the history of cinema, including, with all due respect, Mr. Scorsese, who is himself no slouch by any reckoning.
Mr. Demme, do you feel music?
Lo siento, baby.
Note that Jonathan Demme is this dope and we haven't even fucking mentioned Stop Making Sense for like eight paragraphs. Here's the opening. “Psycho Killer.” Recognize.
Now, the opening titles being in the Strangelove font is no accident. Oh, I'm sure David Byrne turning to his nearest minion and saying “Bring me Pablo Ferro or taste my wrath” was probably motivated by nothing more profound than “The opening titles of Dr. Strangelove looked cool, let's do that for our movie.” But I submit that accidental synergy is just as valid as that by design: David Byrne comes out after the Strangelove titles and drops the motherfucking BOMB. David Byrne is fucking amped to be out on that stage playing music, and he fucking manages to kill shit by himself.
Then Tina Weymouth comes out. Oh, Tina Weymouth. On “Heaven,” when it's just her and Dave out there, you get to hear just how off the chain fucking awesome bass player she is. Oh, Tina.
“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel.” Add Chris Frantz. Watch Chris Frantz remind everyone, “Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, I can play my ass off, too.” That shot of him when he starts playing, he looks like a guy who knows he's in the best band in the world, and who, if you gave him the choice of doing anything else in the world at that moment, he'd probably think about it for a second then say, “Nah, dude, playing drums in Talking Heads is a pretty goddamn good deal.”
“Found a Job.”
Add Jerry Harrison. Jerry's playing it cool, but he ain't foolin' anyone, he knows this is where it's at.
“Slippery People”
Okay, I've been trying to resist the urge to post the whole fucking movie, but bear with me here, this song features some serious white-guy rock alchemy.
Every single other white guy who tries to act hip by having black chick backup singers ends up looking like a fucking douchebag. Okay, Mick can pull it off. Bowie kind of gets away with it, but only because of the Bowie Exemption (to wit: everything David Bowie has ever done, with the exception of Tin Machine, Never Let Me Down, and his and Mick's retarded “Dancing in the Street” cover, is not allowed to be criticized by mortals). That's about it. The key to Talking Heads pulling it off is that they're not trying to be cool. They know they're dorks. The side musicians are there because they can fucking play.
“Burning Down the House”
Okay, I gotta do it again. Sorry, this music is so fucking good my hands are shaking.
FAQs
Does David Byrne own the universe with that “Anyone got a match” line?
Yes.
Has anyone who ever complained about this song being played out ever heard this version?
No.
How much do Talking Heads rule?
Man's understanding of cosmology has yet to develop the concept of sufficient size.
“Life During Wartime”
By this point in the concert(s)—by the way, minor aside: how in the hell did Jonathan Demme stitch together three different concerts this seamlessly? Allegedly there are some continuity errors, but if you can spot them you're watching on mute, drinking the tears of children, and reminiscing about a puppy you kicked last week—the energy of the live performance has short-circuited the rational part of my brain. I am there. Demme is a god, by which I mean both omnipotent, and completely invisible.
The fact that music is capable of being this good makes me cry with joy. I'm not kidding.
“Making Flippy Floppy”
Visuals: random words rear projected. Wait, when did the techies finish building the set? WAIT HOLY FUCK: THIS SONG!!!! The reason this song is called “Making Flippy Floppy” is clearly because turns your fucking brain into a dolphin jumping out of the Pacific Ocean at sunset. Jesus Christ, Tina is on point. Byrne's solo! (Ed. Note: the author screamed random, possibly verbal, noises for about five minutes while jumping up and down in ecstasy).
“Swamp”
Phew. Time to chill. On this one the Heads are just layin' in the cut, casually brilliant, catching their breath. Hiiiii . . . hi hi hi hi hi hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii . . .
“What A Day That Was”
Solo Byrne (solo as in not a Heads song, the whole armada of badasses is still out there). Hot shit. The fact that rational thought is possible should not be taken as an indication that the concert is letting up. If anything, the visuals are even fucking cooler with all the shadowy lighting. As the one commenter on Youtube said, “Everything from about 3:15 onward is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.”
“This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)”
Man, everything from Dave turning on a lamp at the beginning and the projection of the bookshelves. This is just nice. That's not meant to be condescending, or to imply in any way that there's something not nice about the rest of the picture. There are many different ways of feeling positive. Full-throttle manic sobbing (see a couple songs ago) is one. That's a little intense though. Sitting around with a smile on your face while watching David Byrne bob his head like a chicken is another. Lot mellower too.
“Once in a Lifetime”
Wow. Just . . . holy fuck.
Now, yes, the version on Remain In Light is better (perfect beats awesome). Yes, the whole shit with the glasses and the weird dancing is shtick. But let's be clear: David Byrne is above reproach. This is why Talking Heads eventually broke up, because he started believing that too and the other three told him to blow it out his ass, but let's not get distracted. No criticism of David Byrne's glasses and herky-jerky dancing will be tolerated in polite society. As your Minister of Culture, I shall sentence you to the gulag for your blasphemy.
“Genius of Love”
Understandably, Byrne needed a break after having epilepsy for five minutes (the Minister of Culture can say whatever the fuck he wants, na na na na na na). Among the manifold attributes of Talking Heads, let us not forget that when David Byrne needed to run offstage to take a piss, they could kill time with a Tom Tom Club mini-gig. Now, anyone who says they like Tom Tom Club more than Talking Heads is probably a fucking communist, but Tom Tom Club were solid. Sure Chris Frantz raps like a dork, but this counts as the single most stylish filler track ever.
“Girlfriend is Better”
Houston, we have Big Suit. Did you seriously think we were done with the genius? Foolish mortal.
Okay, brief but relevant memoir digression: this song nearly broke the souls of four able-bodied potheads one night, when they released the Talking Heads download on Rock Band; we had at it, and in spite of the four or five beers I had to try to sober up (your Minister of Culture is a wise man indeed), I was flunking the fucking vocals (usually impossible to all but the utterly tone-deaf), and my friends—if you're reading this, you remember how fucking frustrating that was?—were breaking their hands trying to play the guitar and bass parts. When we finally made it through the damn song intact, sub-70% accuracy be damned, the sense of accomplishment was profound.
Now, Talking Heads being dork superheroes, they make this song sound easy. This is why Talking Heads were so cool. They didn't try. They just were. Name one other person who puts on that Big Suit and doesn't look like a fucking choad. David Byrne does it and it's awesome. And holy fucking shit the band is cookin' on this one.
“Take Me to the River”
I ain't gonna lie. I love me some Talking Heads (as I may have subtly conveyed), but I like the original better. The Heads version is good, but Al Green's Al Green. I like his better. Hell, I like the Commitments' version better. But I ain't gonna lie about this either: the version in Stop Making Sense is kick-ass. The fact that Dave's singing it in the Big Suit for the first couple verses is really what puts it over. And something feels right about doing the whole “introduce the band during the song” to this song. All the pieces matter, and if you will have perfection, all the pieces will be perfect.
Actually, fuck hierarchies, this version of “Take Me to the River” is great. Perfect choice for penultimate song, and when David Byrne puts on that red hat with just the pants from the Big Suit, he looks like Mario.
“Crosseyed and Painless”
Boo ya. If you want to blow the crowd out of the fucking auditorium, it helps to have a song like this in your repertoire. Leave 'em dancing. The best part is, at the end of the song, Byrne brings the movie crew (who we've been seeing holding up lights and shit) up onstage to take a bow, which closes out an exhilarating movie/music experience.
When Stop Making Sense is over, the overwhelming feeling is “Yes. I am fucking alive. Life will never be dreary and mundane as long as something this good is in it.” The Heads' eventual decline and breakup over David Byrne being difficult doesn't exist. The movie ends with them at the peak of their reign, when they held mighty sway over music and very simply had no peer. This is real superhero movie.
That's the greatest thing about movies. The story ends where you want it to.
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