edward@ukma.UUCP (Edward C. Bennett) (05/22/85)
Whenever I have seen The Talking Heads performing 'Once in a
Lifetime', David Byrne makes a chopping motion along his right forearm
with his left hand. Is this geture supposed to be significant of something?
Where did he get it?
--
edward
{ucbvax,unmvax,boulder,research}!anlams! -|
{mcvax!qtlon,vax135,mddc}!qusavx! -|--> ukma!edward
|
{decvax,ihnp4,mhuxt,seismo}! -+-> cbosgd! -|
{clyde,osu-eddie,ulysses}! ---|
"Well, what's on the television then?"
"Looks like a penguin."
()
|
|-- Support barrier free design
/|---
| \ _
\___/ \=ebh@mtx5b.UUCP (Ed Horch) (05/23/85)
> [Edward C. Bennett] > Whenever I have seen The Talking Heads performing 'Once in a > Lifetime', David Byrne makes a chopping motion along his right forearm > with his left hand. Is this geture supposed to be significant of something? > Where did he get it? (BTW, he does this during the second set of Same-as-it-ever-was's) My question, along these lines, is, what is the significance (if any) of him hitting himself on the forehead during the first set of Same-as-it- ever-was's, viz. Same as it ever was (bap) Same as it ever was (bap) Same as it ever was (bap) . . . -Ed Horch {ihnp4,akgua,ariel}!mtx5b!ebh You may find yourself at the keyboard of a computer terminal You may ask yourself, "My God! How did I get here?"
cv@linus.UUCP (Chris J. Valas) (05/24/85)
-=- In article <1798@ukma.UUCP> edward@ukma.UUCP (Edward C. Bennett) writes: > > Whenever I have seen The Talking Heads performing 'Once in a >Lifetime', David Byrne makes a chopping motion along his right forearm >with his left hand. Is this geture supposed to be significant of something? >Where did he get it? > >-- >edward > He probably 'got it' where he 'gets' everything else: he creates it himself. Byrne has a VCR and camera set up in his apartment, which he experiments with, taping himself and examining various body movements. I believe he first started playing with this stuff while collaborating with Eno during the 'construction' of the Bush of Ghosts effort. He discussed it on one of his appearances on Late-Night with David Letterman. The movement probably has significance only to Byrne, and maybe not even him... For those of you interested in Byrnes' non-THeads music, I recommend picking up his latest lp 'Music from the Knee plays/cIVil War plays' or something like that. There is a lot of brass (!?), no guitar, and some great throw-away Byrne lines, similar to the stuff in the booklet which accompanied the 'Stop Making Sense' lp. Check the album cover before flaming me for "cIVil", OK? Chris J. Valas {decvax,utzoo,philabs,security,allegra,genrad}!linus!cv -=- "There was a friend that you and I had, he had some things he believed in, But one by one he found some flaws, and now he's not so sure..."
wfi@unc.UUCP (William F. Ingogly) (05/26/85)
> > Whenever I have seen The Talking Heads performing 'Once in a > > Lifetime', David Byrne makes a chopping motion along his right forearm > > with his left hand. Is this geture supposed to be significant of something? > > Where did he get it? In one version I've seen of this video, there's a shot in the background of some sort of ceremony going on (possibly Voudon), and a woman in the ceremony is making the same kind of gesture. The shaking motion he makes is taken from the tremors people in Voudon ceremonies go through when they're being possessed by a god. > My question, along these lines, is, what is the significance (if any) of > him hitting himself on the forehead during the first set of Same-as-it- > ever-was's, viz. Bear in mind that the name of the Talking Heads' movie is "Stop Making Sense." One of the techniques the surrealist painters used earlier in the century was to take an everyday object and strip it of all its ordinary associations and meanings (hence, the painting of a pipe that was labelled "Ce n'est pas un pipe," or "This isn't a pipe"). In a literature class on contemporary poetry I took as an undergraduate, we studied a poem called "Fear" by the contemporary poet W. S. Merwin; it's a free-verse meditation on fear that is mostly unconnected images about fear that occasionally start coming together and making sense. Whenever this happens, Merwin introduces the phrase "a ring a ring a ring" to break the flow of sense. It's as though the poetic voice approaches the source of all fear then backs away at the last moment by spouting nonsense. Hence, making sense is in some way a source of danger. It seems to me that all Byrne's gestures, the hitting of the forehead, the shaking, the arm chopping, achieve the same effect, of in some way stopping the sense of what he's doing and stopping the process of interpretation on the part of the viewer. He's choosing gestures that have nothing to do with the 'sense' of the music but have a great deal to do with ceremonies whose sense is hidden from the typical viewer of a Talking Heads video or concert. I suspect he's forcing the attention to the music itself. Note also that the most recent Talking Heads album was titled "Speaking In Tongues," another indication of Byrne's concern with the subversion of language and 'ordinary' lyrics as a method of communication. The lyrics on that album seem to originate in a sort of free association; it wouldn't surprise me if Talking Heads' next album's lyrics consisted entirely of nonsense syllables. -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
bub@ames.UUCP (Bubbette McLeod) (05/28/85)
Gimme a fuckin' break fellas. Do we have to analyze EVERYTHING to death? It doesn't mean anything in PARTICULAR, you're just supposed to get a feeling from it. I suppose it's an improvement that you aren't discussing something totally idiotic like long playing 7 inchers. As cbosgd!sbt says "I know a few long playing 7 inchers, but they're not records."
rs@mirror.UUCP (05/29/85)
>What is the chopping noise Byrne makes during "once in a lifetime"?
From looking at the video, i'd guess he's doing one of three things:
pounding a rhythm on a log
pounding clothes clean on the shore
pounding tortillas on a rock
the video shows african women in huts doing domestic things.
then again, from looking at the stuff he does in "stop making sense"
it could just be a striking (sic) gesture that looked good.
anyone heard their new album yet? it's supposed to have a lot of
four-part harmonies...rs@mirror.UUCP (05/29/85)
As for lyrics, Byrne once said in an interview that he whenever he
comes across an interesting phrase, he writes it on a file card
and sticks it away. Then, when it comes time to write lyrics, he
goes through the files and pulls out those that catch his fancy.
This seems to be a similar attitude and methodology to Laurie
Anderson.
I remember when "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" came out, that It
Was Written that he and Eno went searching around for words the
way musique concrete (sp?) experimenters went searching around for
sounds. This was, in fact, what held the album up. Perhaps he
found out that this was just a technique that worked. Certainly,
their songs before Bush & Remain in Light were much more like
"standard narratives."
Please excuse the awkward wording of this note; my language isn't
fitting me very well today...
--------
Rich $alz { mit-eddie, ihnp4!inmet, wjh12, cca, datacube } ! mirror!rs
Mirror Systems
2067 Massachusetts Ave. "I've seen this happen
Cambridge, MA, 02140 in other people's lives
617-661-0777 and now it's happening in mine."wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (05/29/85)
> Gimme a fuckin' break fellas. Do we have to analyze EVERYTHING to death? > It doesn't mean anything in PARTICULAR, you're just supposed to get a > feeling from it. ... I hope you realize that this statement is itself an analysis: YOUR analysis of Byrne's motions as not meaning anything in particular and conveying a generalized feeling to the viewer ... Some of enjoy consciously analyzing these works as much as you enjoy shutting off the critical faculties when you listen to them or watch the videos. Please don't begrudge us our enjoyment. If you don't like our analyses, you're free to use the 'n' key to skip over the article (and if you use rn, set up an entry in your kill file to skip ALL articles on the subject). Variety is what the net's all about, isn't it? -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (06/04/85)
But David Byrne is supposed to be an "intelligent" musician, so OBVIOUSLY
everything he does has profound symbolism. At least, that's what they
keep telling me. Gee, last night I even read a review in the paper claiming
his concert-movie was "intelligent". They even told the plot. He comes
out and turns on a tape recorder, and starts playing along with it. Soon
some more of the members come out, and after awhile they are all there, and
they're playing some more music. Move over, Dryden! This one will keep the
literary critics busy for centuries.
--
Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos
UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer
US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC;
2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642
"Zl FB vf n xvyyre junyr."td@alice.UUCP (Tom Duff) (06/05/85)
> Whenever I have seen The Talking Heads performing 'Once in a >Lifetime', David Byrne makes a chopping motion along his right forearm >with his left hand. Is this geture supposed to be significant of something? >Where did he get it? a The video for this composition was choreographed by Toni Basil, who also worked on George Lucas's American Graffiti, and did a video of her own called (I believe) `Hey Mickey.' Most of the dance elements in this piece are drawn from African or South American aboriginal dances. Presumably either Byrne or Basil is responsible for borrowing this bit of choreography.