I tell a story about my sister having two tickets for Talking Heads at the Pantages in Hollywood in December of 1983. She was already in college and her boyfriend begged off the show she’d bought tickets for. She asked me if I wanted to go. Of course I did, but those gigs were a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and the hard fast rule for me was no gigs on school nights. Our parents were out of town, and there was no way they’d find out. But I went to Hollywood with my sister and watched her sell the tickets around the corner from the show. How many of you have regrets that have lasted for four decades?

Eight or nine months later, that series of gigs was immortalized on film as Stop Making Sense. I went to see it in the theatre three or four times in its initial run (once with friends who were flying on LSD – I didn’t partake of that either) and I’ve seen it at least three or four more times in the intervening decades. And I’ve listened to the album hundreds of times. I’ve had it on tape, CD, and download.

So ever since that teaser of David Byrne picking up his big suit from the dry cleaner came out, I’ve been keen to see it again on the big screen. And I finally did this week with my friend Cheryl (who hadn’t seen it since that initial run). From that beautiful moment when Byrne walks out on a bare stage with an acoustic guitar and a boom box and says “I have a tape I want to play for you” and we hear the backing of Psycho Killer, we know we’re in for something special.

With each of the next several songs, another band member comes on: Tina Weymouth to play bass on Heaven, Chris Franz to play drums (the drum riser rolled out by crew all in black) on Thank You For Sending Me An Angel, and then guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison on Found A Job. Two backup singers, Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt, percussionist Steve Scales, and guitarist Alex Weir join the action for Slippery People. Finally keyboardist Bernie Worrell joins on Burning Down the House.

On seeing it in 1984, everything was very new to me in terms of how rock and roll was put on film. The first surprise, having been far more familiar with the music than the visuals, is that there are two capable singers on stage for the song Heaven, but Tina Weymouth doesn’t have a mic. Lynn Mabry sings harmony from offstage. (Later in the film, Byrne leaves the stage to Weymouth and Franz, aka Tom Tom Club, to perform their hit Genius of Love, on which Weymouth sings lead. It’s not as though she couldn’t have harmonized on Heaven, as she was already on stage.)

As the film moves forward, there’s wonder in how long the cameras linger on Byrne, and occasionally on the other musicians. There’s none of the jump-cut editing that so annoys me on Strictly Come Dancing (and, to be honest, most movies these days), which is nice. On the other hand, there are nine really capable musicians  on stage for most of the performance and the joy of a good performance film is being able to see them interact in the context of their art. The most egregious example of the hyper-focus on Byrne is the song Once In a Lifetime. The camera doesn’t move for five of the song’s 5 1/2 minutes, and when it does, we see Holt and Mabry out of focus doing interesting dance moves that Demme didn’t think we’d be interested in, somehow. (Then there’s this Siskel and Ebert review in which all they talk about is Byrne.)

There are other places in Stop Making Sense where we get wider camera angles and see the interplay of the performers, most notably in the gorgeous Naive Melody.

In ‘83, Talking Heads were touring their fifth album, the damn near flawless Speaking In Tongues, which provides six of the film’s 16 tracks. The sound on all of the songs (especially from the third song onward) is fuller and deeper than on the studio albums (and even the versions found on earlier live compilation The Name of this Band Is Talking Heads. When you can see the other members of the band, you can tell they’re firing on all cylinders, having performed as quartet for several years before expanding in ‘80 and ‘81 to a much larger touring act.

Even in ‘83 there was animosity between Byrne and the other Talking Heads, and they continued for three more very interesting albums (Little Creatures, True Stories, and Naked), but they never toured again. While the music on Stop Making Sense is obviously a collaboration of brilliant and capable musicians, one can only wish that the band and film makers had seen fit to share more of that collaboration with the audience.

Stop Making Sense on Spotify
Tom Tom Club: Genius of Love (YouTube)