Vicki Taylor, Creem, 10/78

More Songs About Buildings and Food

Pretentious, just pretentious. That’s how it
struck me when, in the fall of ’77, I first
heard an album of art-student songs made by
art students. Lennon and Townshend both went
to art school; they didn’t come out sounding
like it. Well, not Lennon, anyway; and the
earthiness at the base of Peter’s Tommy-period
esoterica wasn’t art school either. But here
were these four post-60s musicians making
gimmicky, esoteric, avant-garde pop with no
earthy base at all--and that’s a dissatisfying
dichotomy when the lead singer has an earthy
voice. I found it a fucking shame that the best
David Byrne could do for his voice was "Psycho
Killer" and one or two cuts on side one of ’77.
That LP never quite clicked for me, because so
much of it lacked the edgy intensity of David
Byrne’s voice. He was writing cutesy songs
for a voice that demanded better and the
conflict between singer and material just
rankled in my ears, refusing to resolve itself.

With this second effort, the band has resolved
the conflict. More Songs About Buildings And
Food is so solid it shimmies--well, at least
stomps alone. There are several ingredients
involved in this turnaround, and among them
are all the basics: piledriver drums (stronger
than ’77’s), bouncing bass (less pedestrian
than ’77’s), and aggressive rhythm guitars
(ditto).

Now, this dynamism is a radical reversal in
a band that’s previously dealt with distance.
Every song here sounds fresh, even the finally-
vinyled old warhorses that’ve been live set
staples for years. "Thank You For Sending Me
An Angel" is a great song which gets powered
to perfection by their present attack; I’m
glad they waited ’til now to record it, ’cos
I suspect it would’ve died the distance-death
if they’d stuck it on ’77. Likewise for
oldies like "Artists Only" and "The Girls
Want To Be With The Girls." Even the former
live covers work well on vinyl now; "Take Me
To The River" may be slow and uneven, but it’s
a pleasurable art-school-soul break from the
originals, and the arrangement is kept from
dragging by the drums. This last trait is
shared in common by every cut on More Songs:
drums don’t drag, so tempos don’t lag.
A nice switch from ’77.

But dynamism is an impotent ingredient without
direction, and song-scribe Byrne sounds surer
of his than ever before. The two finest tracks
on More Songs are as vibrant with vision as
they are melodious musically. "Found A Job"
argues Art For Art’s Sake as a way of life
more convincingly than many artists ever do:
"If your work isn’t what you love/Then
something isn’t right." This on top of the
tensest riff David’s ever twisted his voice
around. But by far the better of the two
position pieces--and the best track on More
Songs--has to be "The Big Country." The view
of America Byrne reveals here is both panoramic
and precise, and even here he doesn’t deny his
distance, but admits the desire to build a
bridge: "I’m tired of looking out the window...
I’m tired of traveling, I wanna be somewhere."
Talking Heads may still be traveling, but
they’re surer of where they’re going on this
leg of the trip. And that’s a step forward
from ’77.