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Burning Down the House: Difference between revisions
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==Inspiration and composition== | ==Inspiration and composition== | ||
"Burning Down the House" is a new wave, funk, and art rock song. "This song started from a jam," says bassist [[Tina Weymouth]] in the liner notes of ''[[Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads]]''. "[[Chris Frantz | "Burning Down the House" is a new wave, funk, and art rock song. "This song started from a jam," says bassist [[Tina Weymouth]] in the liner notes of ''[[Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads]]''. "[[Chris Frantz]] had just been to see [[Parliament-Funkadelic]] in its full glory at Madison Square Garden, and he was really hyped. During the jam, he kept yelling 'Burn down the house!' which was a P-Funk audience chant, and [[David Byrne]]] dug the line, changing it to the finished version, 'Burning down the house'." ([[Bernie Worrell]] of Parliament-Funkadelic joined Talking Heads' live incarnation.) | ||
The initial lyrics were considerably different, however. In an interview on NPR's ''All Things Considered'' aired on December 2, 1984, David Byrne played excerpts of early worktapes showing how the song had evolved from an instrumental jam by Weymouth and Frantz. Once the whole band had reworked the groove into something resembling the final recording, Byrne began chanting and singing nonsense syllables over the music until he arrived at phrasing that fit with the rhythms—a technique influenced by former Talking Heads producer [[Brian Eno]]: "and then I [would] just write words to fit that phrasing... I'd have loads and loads of phrases collected that I thought thematically had something to do with one another, and I'd pick from those." | The initial lyrics were considerably different, however. In an interview on NPR's ''All Things Considered'' aired on December 2, 1984, David Byrne played excerpts of early worktapes showing how the song had evolved from an instrumental jam by Weymouth and Frantz. Once the whole band had reworked the groove into something resembling the final recording, Byrne began chanting and singing nonsense syllables over the music until he arrived at phrasing that fit with the rhythms—a technique influenced by former Talking Heads producer [[Brian Eno]]: "and then I [would] just write words to fit that phrasing... I'd have loads and loads of phrases collected that I thought thematically had something to do with one another, and I'd pick from those." | ||