David Byrne “Grown Backwards”
Byrne has always been an alien presence. As a shy boy transplanted from Scotland at 8, he’s referred to an Asperger-like quality in his personality, which made him a bit of an outcast. His musical persona, if not his actual self, also appears to be on the highly functioning, artistic side of that condition. And therein lies some of his inability to fully connect, but also his singularity and unique point of view. He’s cerebral but committed to rhythm. He’s playful but no one listens to him in the dance club. He is a very unusual man who loves music.
Over the years, my interest in Byrne would go up and down. He is a public artist, often interviewed and though shy, highly articulate, modeling how unafraid and eager for change an artist should be. Again and again, he would rescue himself from the precipice of his intellect with salsa moves. It was impressive, but you could also just listen to straight up Salsa. So depending on where I was with my own mind/body split, I was either way into him or totally done with him.
When the Talking Heads split up Byrne went on to a long but never as commercially successful solo career. In the Talking Heads he was always very much the center of the band, but alone, he couldn’t ever sell himself as well. If you are just picking up from Talking Heads, the solo music is softer, rounder, less angular, but no less interested in percussion and new rhythms. If the music of Talking Heads ‘77 is the music of a man alone in his neurosis, this is the music of a married man with children. Byrne’s famous ill-fitting suit of the ‘Stop Making Sense’, was a visual expression of alienation from one’s own body, and it was aurally accompanied with a lot of crisp vocal barking. On his fourth solo album “Grown Backwards” his voice is in balance, his suit tailored. You might not expect beauty from a song called “The Man Who Loved Beer”. But it is there.
At the album’s midpoint is the irresistible “The Other Side of this Life”. The intimate chamber quartet led melody hooks you in like an upbeat “Eleanor Rigby.” Eleanor gets married, someone picks up the rice. This song highlights the contribution of the Tosca Strings, the quartet that play on just about every track and give the album a unity. Their contribution the musical equivalent of “I don’t have anymore problems. All of my worries are gone” found in the lyrics of “The Other Side of this Life”.
On “Glad” he taps a similar vein of positivity and winking intelligence:
I'm glad I got lost
I'm glad I'm confused
I'm glad I don't know, what I like
I'm glad I got stoned
I'm glad I got high
I'm glad I found out I'm alright
I'm glad when the sex is not so great
I'm glad that I doubt, I know what they say
I'm glad when I get my girlfriends names confused
I'm glad I know how my life will end
I'm glad I don't have no common sense
I'm glad the things are wrong I thought I knew
It is a middle-aged manifesto of knowing and not knowing. Of being smart and wise but also exposed. It’s these moments, and similar ones on “Glass, Concrete and Stone” and “Lazy,” where the record soars.
The album is not entirely successful. “Pirates Parade” sounds like children’s music in a bad way. Like a parent stuck running a first grade birthday party, not realizing how quickly a game of pin the tail on the donkey and a piñata would be devoured, and how much time was left until kid pickup. Fortunately an earlier track, “Tiny Apocalypse” sounds like parenting music in a good way. Byrne even pulls off sing-rapping some verses, always a feat for the white and nerdy. “Tiny Apocalypse” tickles, where the mediocrity of “Pirates Parade” numbs.
”Tiny Apocalypse” sings about “dancing where ever she goes” on “tippy toes” capturing the delight of being pulled around by a performing three year old. “Tiny Apocalypse”, like the Heads “Stay up Late” is music for intellectuals to parent by. It’s a small niche, but they’re out there!
Other misfires include Byrne stretching out of his comfort zone with an opera number “Au Fond du Temple Saint”, a duet with Rufus Wainwright. Singing in a foreign language is a barrier to the mono-lingual (me). But music isn’t all about lyric. Addressing it as music alone, Byrne’s voice strains where it’s supposed to soar. He doesn’t have that kind of voice. I’m not sure he’s in tune and the pairing with Wainwright sounds like syrup and glass to my ear. It’s definitely not Marvin Gaye and Tammy Tyrell. Or Tammy Wynette and George Jones or something that should happen again. The opera happens one more time on the album, but this time in Italian and solo. It does strike the question: is this intellectual able to express honest emotion in English?
I don’t have any real resolution about how I feel about Byrne. He can still be too oblique, but I do respond to these sounds. We will always need artists who try smashing this against that to see what happens. There’s always a contradiction and tension in Byrne’s work, a brain and a body at odds. The middle-aged artist, now in his old age has maintained a fertile creativity. He’s changed, opened and softened considerably, since ‘77, but the friction is still there. It’s probably why he keeps making music.