Something 4 The Weekend # 72

"Life During Wartime" is probably one of my ten favorite songs of all time. I say "probably" because c'mon, can you quickly and easily think of your ten favorite songs? Even if you could, I bet half of 'em would change depending on the time and yr mood...

Talking Heads: The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads: "Life During Wartime" [mp3]

First of all, the song is funky as hell - a true and undeniable party-starter full of sinewy guitars and a chorus nobody can ignore...Try not singing along with the David and the gang...It's fucking tough to do...Impossible for me...

But this is all self-evident, even trite...Right?

Secondly, the lyrics...Smart and dark and funny and rather timeless...Lyrics written in the mid-late 1970's that are just as applicable today, if only because we're still firmly rooted in a Post-Modern world, and will be for some time...Lyrics that speak of weapons and terror and insurrection and war and secret violence, of living in an era of caffeinated paranoia of the twitchy unknown, always on the edge of getting blown up, or getting yr cover blown...And it's hard to tell if the singer is a good guy, or a bad guy...Much of the violence lays in the distance, perpetrated by others, and yet, he's got serious shit to do in the night time himself, much more serious than going to college or getting lovey-dovey with a cute coed upstairs...

All of these dire words sung over the top of that dense tangle of funk, and it reminds me of the saying "A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having."

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons

packed up and ready to go...

Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway

a place where nobody knows...

The sound of gunfire, off in the distance

I'm getting used to it now...

Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto

I've lived all over this town...

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco this ain't no fooling around...

No time for dancing, or lovey dovey

I ain't got time for that now...

Transmit the message, to the receiver

hope for an answer some day...

I got three passports, couple of visas

don't even know my real name...

High on a hillside, trucks are loading

everything's ready to roll...

I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nightime

I might not ever get home...

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco this ain't no fooling around...

This ain't no mudd club, or C. B. G. B.

I ain't got time for that now...

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?

Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?

You oughta know not to stand by the window

somebody might see you up there...

I got some groceries, some peanut butter

to last a couple of days...

But I ain't got no speakers ain't got no headphones

ain't got no records to play...

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?

Gonna be different this time?

Can't write a letter, can't send a postcard

I can't write nothing at all...

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco this ain't no fooling around...

I'd love you hold you, I'd like to kiss you

I ain't got no time for that now...

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock

we blended in with the crowd...

We got computers, we're tapping phone lines

I know that ain't allowed...

We dress like students, we dress like housewives

or in a suit and a tie...

I changed my hairstyle so many times now

don't know what I look like!

You make me shiver, I feel so tender

we make a pretty good team...

Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving

you ought to get you some sleep...

Get you instructions, follow directions

then you should change your address...

Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day

whatever you think is best...

Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks?

They won't help me survive...

My chest is aching, burns like a furnace

the burning keeps me alive...

Try to stay healthy, physical fitness

don't want to catch no disease...

Try to be careful, don't take no chances

you better watch what you say...

I'm sharing the live version of this song for a couple of reasons. It's more raw and lively than the studio version that we've all heard, and the song is better for it...and this album, The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, was heavily spun at one of the greatest parties, and therefore, greatest nights, of my life...

I've probably told this tale before, but it was early in my freshman year of college at UW, and I was invited by one of my TA's to a party on Saturday night, which was at a huge house off-campus, in the fashionable hills beyond Camp Randall, and it was a decent mix of students, professors, TA's, artists and general bohemians, and there was much wine, much recreational drug usage, many beautiful people, dancing and talking smart and funny about ideas, and for me, some lovey-dovey with a very cute coed upstairs because I had time for that then...

That party, that night...Cool September breeze on the hookah hash-smoking patio, and a hundred memories that couldn't wait...I danced more that night than I think I ever did at any party before or since...

The vibe of the party was rather new to me...It was hip, and even sophisticated, and it didn't want to stop...I mean, I had come from a world of beer kegs and puking...Stealing the neighbor's garden gnome, and passing out in the rhubarb bushes behind the garage with that very same gnome cradled gently in yr loving arms...All covered in puke...Nitrous hits and Sabbath albums...Girls locked in the bathroom crying, and that one crazy dude who always, always, always ran around everyone's backyards, yelling nonsense and attracting too much fucking attention...

Certainly plenty of other nights during my freshman year of college I still went to plenty of parties like that, many of them on Langdon (UW's fraternity/sorority row), but this particular party on this particular night was a world away from all that, and this album was the soundtrack, filling the entire house and even the yard, and of course my mind, with nothing more and nothing less than absolute joy, because some of their lyrics aside, the Talking Heads were nothing less than joyous...

The album itself, The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, is perhaps the perfect party album because it comes pre-mixed, in it's way...The album starts with just the original quartet, performing their earlier, stripped-down New Wave, and the songs have great energy, but partiers can still talk over it, you know, can still nod their heads and tap their heals without even realizing it, but as the LP progresses, more and more musicians join the jams, and before long the dense jungle funk is inescapable, and the whole thing turns into an absolute blow-out by the time side 4 circles into silence 80+ minutes later...

And then back to side 1 for those of you just joining us...

Perfect...

Hotcha! Hank