Oct. 20, 2009

Will miracles never cease?

Until recently, I had pretty much shut the door on former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, at least in his guise as a solo musician. Sure, I still crank up a Talking Heads album fairly often (at top volume, too; their remasters are as stunning as any I’ve ever heard) but, from the time I first discovered the Heads, I’ve always had to be in precisely the right mood to listen to them. And I put the blame for that squarely on David Byrne.

Bryne’s arty-leaning-toward-smug detachment - imagine the Coen brothers synthesized into a single guitar-playing gallery curator - is capable of overwhelming even the Heads’ most forceful grooves. Try as I might to ignore his flashes of self-satisfaction and just get caught up in the electrified Afro-rhythmic adventure of it all (to my ears, “Remain in Light” stands as the Heads’ true masterpiece) I often feel like I want to reach out and pop that fucking top button on Byrne’s shirt across the room. You know— pull a James Dean and put a muddy hand print square on the “concept” of the big white suit.

I saw the Heads on their “Stop Making Sense” tour in Tallahassee back in 1983, and it remains the most adventurous, utterly entertaining rock show I’ve ever witnessed. That tour’s bulked-up version of the Heads, which featured what appeared to be about fifty extra percussionists and backup singers, could get its Funkadelic on for nine or ten solid minutes, then stop on a dime and head in the other direction, at breakneck speed, without missing a beat.

It was breathtaking. But, with all those non sequitur phrases being projected on the screens behind him, I still felt like Byrne was trying to impress the spritzer crowd down in Soho, even if, at that point in my life, I didn’t know from either spritzers or Soho.

Then the Heads unappetizing, openly condescending motion picture, “True Stories,” which was really a Byrne vanity project, was released, and I was close to done. After his first two or three solo projects, which, in tone, anyway, were a great deal more of the same, I figured I was finished for good. No doubt Byrne was talented, but I just didn't have any more room for him in my consciousness. I moved on.

Actually, the last time I gave the guy much thought at all, aside from quick listens to a string of singles that didn't do anything for me, was when I worked at Kim’s Video on St. Mark’s Place about 18 years ago and had to call to tell him some Michael Curtiz movies he rented were way overdue. He brought them back and quietly paid up. I also saw him buying an armful of Brazilian vinyl at a used record store once, and couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him, except that he sure fucked up when he let that great band of his fall apart.

I thought it, anyway. I didn’t actually say it.

                                                ***

And now he’s made me cry.

Byrne’s most recent album, which is co-credited to his Talking Heads producer and musical collaborator, keyboardist Brian Eno, sports the less-than-promising Byrne-errific title, “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” (Quick! Somebody get a projector!) But it’s a solid album of what Byrne quite accurately describes as “folk electronic gospel,” lovely, often wind-carried tunes that are rather surprisingly infused with a palpable hope for the future.

The only drawback, and it’s sometimes a significant one, is that Eno, as is his wont, layers too many electronic blips, bleeps, and whooshes over tunes that are as melodic as Byrne’s best work with Talking Heads. I’m here to argue, actually, that one tune in particular, “One Fine Day,” is the single most graceful, compelling thing Byrne has ever written, but you won’t find the version that made me cry - I wasn’t kidding, kids - on “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.”

For that, you’ll have to look to Byrne’s four song, download-only live EP, “Everything That Happens Will Happen on This Tour.” In this arrangement, stripped of Eno’s sonic density and blessed with a profoundly moving vocal by Byrne, “One Fine Day,” reveals itself to be a stunning slice of white gospel, a statement of belief - if not in a strictly defined “God,” then in the promise of life itself - that never for a second suggests it was written by a previously-pretentious Manhattanite. For once, Byrne omits the snide, ironic distance and shows deep respect for both the tune and his audience.

"One Fine Day" (live)

Saw the wanderin' eye inside my heart
Shouts and battle cries from every part
I can see those tears, every one is true
When the door appears I'll go right through

I stand in liquid light, like everyone
I built my life with rhymes to carry on
And it gives me hope to see you there
The things I used to know that one fine…

One fine day
One fine day

In a small dark room where I will wait
Face to face I find, I contemplate
Even though a man is made of clay
Everything can change that one fine…

One fine day
One fine day
One fine day

Then before my eyes is standing still
I beheld it there, a city on a hill
I complete my tasks one by one
I remove my masks when I am done

Then a piece of mind fell over me
In these troubled times I still can see
We can use the stars to guide the way
It is not that far, that one fine…

One fine day
One fine day
One fine day
One fine day

“One Fine Day” is a vision, the sound of an artist having finally attained spiritual adulthood, and Byrne has never been more open, more revealing, or more compassionate. I can’t decide if this is brave music coming from a wise guy or wise music coming from a brave guy. Either way, though, it pours straight from his heart.

Play “One Fine Day" through an amp and a set of big speakers. Let them hear you outside. Some tunes, especially these days, deserve life beyond the inwardly-turned privacy of an iPod.

Download: “One Fine Day” by David Byrne. Album: “Everything That Happens Will Happen on this Tour” (2009).

Paul Tatara