Psycho Killer
| Psycho Killer | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| File:Talking heads psycho killer USA vinyl.jpg U.S. vinyl edition cover | ||||
| Single by Talking Heads | ||||
| from the album Talking Heads: 77 | ||||
| B-side |
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| Released | December 1977 | |||
| Recorded | 1977 | |||
| Genre |
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| Length | 4:19 | |||
| Label | Sire | |||
| Songwriter(s) | ||||
| Producer(s) |
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| Talking Heads singles chronology | ||||
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"Psycho Killer" is a song by American rock band Talking Heads, released on their debut studio album Talking Heads: 77 (1977). The group first performed it as The Artistics in 1974.
The band also recorded an acoustic version of the song featuring Arthur Russell on cello. In the liner notes for Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads (1992), Jerry Harrison wrote of the A-side and B-side of the single, "I'm glad we persuaded Tony [Bongiovi] and Lance [Quinn] that the version with the cellos shouldn't be the only one."
The band's "signature debut hit" features lyrics which seem to represent the thoughts of a serial killer. Originally written and performed as a ballad, "Psycho Killer" became what AllMusic calls a "deceptively funky new wave/no wave song" with "an insistent rhythm, and one of the most memorable, driving basslines in rock & roll."
"Psycho Killer" was the only song from the album to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 92. It reached number 32 on the Triple J Hottest 100 in 1989, and peaked at number 11 on the Dutch singles chart in 1977. The song is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Background and Recording
The song that would become "Psycho Killer" was originally performed in 1974 by The Artistics while David, Chris and Tina were all still studying at RISD. David has talked about trying to write a song that was "maybe a cross between Alice Cooper and Randy Newman."[1]
Lyrics
The song was composed near the beginning of the band's career and prototype versions were performed onstage as early as December 1975. When it was finally completed and released as a single in December 1977, "Psycho Killer" became instantly associated in popular culture with the contemporaneous Son of Sam serial killings. Although the band always insisted that the song had no inspiration from the notorious events, the single's release date was "eerily timely" and marked by a "macabre synchronicity".
According to the preliminary lyric sheets copied onto the 2006 remaster of Talking Heads: 77, the song started off as a semi-narrative of the killer actually committing murders. In the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads, David Byrne says: When I started writing this (I got help later), I imagined Alice Cooper doing a Randy Newman-type ballad. Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies.
The bridge lyrics are in French, as is the prominent chorus line "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" ("What is this/it?"). The bridge lyrics are:
| Lyrics in French | Translation |
|---|---|
Ce que j'ai fait, ce soir-là |
What I did, that evening |
The French lyrics were supplied by Tina Weymouth. According to Chris Frantz, "I told David that Tina's mother is French and that they always spoke French in the home. Tina agreed to do it and just sat down and did it in a little over an hour. I wrote a couple of more verses, and within a few hours, 'Psycho Killer' was more or less done." David has called the French used in the song "very kind of old-fashioned. I think Tina said, this is very Napoleonic kind of French."[1]
Additionally, the song features the repeating a nonsense syllable, "Fa-Fa-Fa," which David has said was a reference to "Sad Song" by Otis Redding.[1]
Later releases
Talking Heads performed the song on the BBC2 television show The Old Grey Whistle Test on January 31, 1978. The performance was later released on a DVD compilation of performances from the show.
A live version recorded in 1977 for radio broadcast was released on The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads in 1982, featuring an additional verse not heard in the studio version, and the later CD release included a second, later live version from the Remain in Light tour. In 1984, another live version was included on the soundtrack for the band's concert movie Stop Making Sense. The film opens with Byrne alone onstage, announcing "'Hi. I've got a tape I want to play'...[and] strumming maniacally like Richie Havens", playing an acoustic version of "Psycho Killer", backed only by a Roland TR-808 drum machine whose sound appears to be issuing from a boombox.
The song also appears on their 1992 compilation album Popular Favorites 1976–1992: Sand in the Vaseline and, over a decade later, on another compilation album The Best of Talking Heads.
Appearances on Official Live Albums
| Album | Date of Performance | Track No. | Location | Track Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads (1982) | November 17th, 1977 | A1 | WCOZ Northern Studio, Manyard, Masachussets | 5:31 |
| February 26th, 1981 | 20 | Shibuya Koukaidou, Tokio, Japan | 5:33 | |
| Stop Making Sense (1984) | December 13–16, 1983 | 1 | Pantages Theatre, Hollywood, California | 4:24 |
| Live At WCOZ 77 (2024) | November 17th, 1977 | B2 | WCOZ Northern Studio, Manyard, Masachussets | 3:01 |
Appearances on Official Compilation Albums
| Album | Year | Track No. | Track Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Popular Favorites 1976–1992: Sand in the Vaseline | 1992 | 5 | 4:20 |
| Once In A Lifetime Boxset | 2003 | CD1-8 | 4:19 |
| The Best of Talking Heads | 2004 | 2 | 4:19 |
Legacy
See also: Covers of Psycho Killer
The song has been recorded in cover versions by many bands and musicians including Velvet Revolver, James Hall, the Bobs (a cappella group), Victoria Vox, Wet Leg, Duran Duran featuring Victoria De Angelis, Miley Cyrus, and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the 2009 BBC Proms.
Massachusetts-based band the Fools parodied the song and entitled it "Psycho Chicken"; it was included as a bonus record with their major-label debut album Sold Out in 1980. Ice-T says that "Psycho Killer" was a starting influence for his band Body Count's controversial song "Cop Killer". Singer Selena Gomez samples the bassline on her 2017 single "Bad Liar." A Talking Heads tribute band based in Baltimore, active since 2011, call themselves the Psycho Killers.