a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

Hit and Run, Volume III

So, one more for the road, and it's both familiar and a pleasant surprise. Two guys you oughta know, who've worked together in the past but with only one album under their collective names in the past 27 years.

Of the one: Even if you don't know what specific aural approach y'r gonna be on the receiving end of THIS time, you know you're always gonna get the buttload of ambiance he brings with  him everywhere he goes. That said, this is easily his most accessible album in more than 15 years.

The other: Once the wonderfully quirky leader of a wonderfully quirky (and surprisingly successful) band whose collaboration, and success, with said band ended ugly and bitterly, and whose attitude from that point on as far as I'm concerned has tainted his entire solo career. Despite his ongoing reputation as a purveyor of world-music, I'd honestly given up on ever connecting with the guy again years ago (like, pretty much around the time of his band's final album, some 20 years back).

So, hearing something this bright and hopeful -- and melodic -- from these two guys (especially since that other official collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, was more curiously experimental than actually enjoyable), well... again, it's just nice to hear it after all this time.

Roll the credits, maestro...

Brian Eno and David Byrne -- Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Again, besides finally being able to actually enjoy David Byrne again, this is Eno's catchiest album since the criminally overlooked Wrong Way Up with John Cale. (As past discussed, tim and I may be the only two people in the world to have owned that one.)

You can only get it, with any number of options to choose from, here: http://www.everythingthathappens.com. And here's why you should: Basically, it's Talking Heads' True Stories with atmosphere. Granted, nothing here is as rollicking as "Love for Sale" or "Puzzling Evidence," or quite as sublime as "City of Dreams," but there's a mood throughout that just feels right, while (particularly on the more Byrne-ish tunes) retaining much of the down-to-earthness that marked that particular album (which probably isn't even in my top 5 Heads albums, actually, but WAS their last good one).

So on to the songs.... "Home" feels like home, and again, I never thought I'd feel that way about a David Byrne song again. Behind a country-meets-noise arrangement, David actually croons again, "Heaven knows, what keeps mankind alive," before leading into one of those mundane-yet-enlightening choruses he'd done so well back in the day:

Home - where the wheels are turning
Home - why I keep returning
Home - where my world is breaking in two
Home - with the neighbors fighting
Home-  always so exciting
Home - were my parents telling the truth?

The next two songs highlight the different poles "Home"s already hinted at. "My Big Nurse" is even more countrified (even while containing one unfortunate line I won't quote here), while "I Feel My Stuff," while the longest and wordiest song here and featuring some curious white-boy rapping from Byrne that isn't quite "Crosseyed and Painless" but curious enough, is still ultimately a platform for some decidedly Eno-esque dissonance and atmospherics, although there's some great hairy guitar at the end that I'm assuming is David's.

"Everything That Happens" is a lovely, stately thing, while "Life Is Long" begs to be the single here. Again, it's been years -- crap, technically decades (since 2 IS plural) -- since a David Byrne creation has sounded this warm amd open:

Ev'rybody says that the living is easy
I can barely see, 'cause my head's in the way
Tigers walk behind me -- they are to remind me that
I'm lost, but I'm not afraid...

Now I can say those three little words
And ev'ry day, I'm dreaming a world
Soul to soul, a kiss and a sigh
Holding back the waters outside.

Life is long if you give it away
So stay, don't go, 'cause I'm fading away
Soul to soul, between you and me
Chain me down, but I am still free...

"The River" is a plaintive call for a better world, "I'm thinking of a song / I need you to remember it / The forest is alive / It asks us to participate / We lifted up our eyes / To promise and reciprocate / We fell down on our knees  / For ev'ry human being... / Oooh, but a change is gonna come / Like Sam Cooke sang in '63 / The river sings a song to me / On ev'ry St Cecillia's Day...."

"Strange Overtones" is a slowly funky thang that sounds a bit more Eno than Byrne, but either way enjoy grooving to it. "Wanted for Life" is even more unmistakably Eno, with its syncopated blasts, but Byrne puts in a nice vocal performance here to compete with it.

"One Fine Day," while again not quite "City of Dreams," has that same elegiac feeling to it. You'll like it. "Poor Boy" slides back into Eno-onics, right down to the slightly garbled treatment of Byrne's vocals.

"The Lighthouse" is the best of both worlds -- Brian brings the atmosphere, David brings the soul, and the result is both languid and moving:

I'll build a house so level
With 7 walls, long and true
The day we raised that roof up high
Unto the fading light
We sang the whole night through
& no one needed proof
& I could see the moon
out by the lighthouse.

If you've ever enjoyed either of these guys before, now's yr chance to actually enjoy them again. Thanks again Brian, and welcome the heck BACK, David.

(Update, 10/8: EMusic just added this one, too. Go FETCH.)

Posted by: burninglight at 23:45 | link | comments (8)

Comments:

#1  28 September 2008 - 11:08

 

Sounds intriguing. I'll keep an ebay/amazon eye out for a used copy.

Somewhat profound title, too.

Jim

LDVoyager

#2  30 September 2008 - 13:00

 

Yo Carl,

Will most definitely give this one a listen. I absolutely LOVE those early
Eno albums, especially "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy". Also love
early T. Heads but lost interest about the time of "Remain In Light".

"Hawbah Nights!"

Rick

Anonymous

#3  30 September 2008 - 13:11

 

Really? I LOVE Remain in Light, and Little Creatures. Then Naked came out and I was like WTF? Then David's really odd and disturbing notes to Sand in the Vaseline, and the argument about the band name, and.... well, again I'm glad he's finally come back to us.

I liked Eno's Another Day on Earth from a couple years back, too. Lyrics and everything. :) There's a review on that one buried here somewhere as well.

burninglight

#4  30 September 2008 - 14:42

 

I forgot "Little Ceatures", that was a goodun. I'm with you on "Naked".
"77" has always been my favorite,
it seemed like an easy record, as opposed to some of the later ones
where I think David might have been trying too hard to be clever.
But don't we all? At least sometimes?

Rick

Anonymous

#5  01 October 2008 - 02:23

 

I remember a neighbor of ours, saying that she has a CD of Brazilian music by David Byrne that she really liked. I always figure that was one I would search out on a rainy day. Did you guys mention that one, in the ones you mentioned?

Jim

LDVoyager

#6  01 October 2008 - 13:03

 

Just checked it out, and apparently there's a whole series he compiled called Brazil Classics. So it's not him exactly, but it's his choices. Although it's fair to say the influence can be felt on some of his solo stuff.

burninglight

#7  02 October 2008 - 18:15

 

For what it's worth--

my five favorite Talking Heads songs:

Road To Nowhere
Don't Worry About The Government
No Compassion
Warning Sign
Naive Melody

So there,

Rick

Anonymous

#8  05 October 2008 - 13:13

 

"Just checked it out, and apparently there's a whole series he compiled called Brazil Classics. So it's not him exactly, but it's his choices. Although it's fair to say the influence can be felt on some of his solo stuff."

HEADLINES: "Simmons claims Talking Heads lead singer is obsessed with rain forests 'to a pathalogical degree'".

Jim

Anonymous

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