Song and Circumstance

For over three decades now, David Byrne has been a leading light in American culture - in popular music, experimental theatre, film, television, fine art, and writing. Based on the cultural capital he gained with his groundbreaking band Talking Heads, Byrne is able to enter into collaborations with many artists, some of popular fame -Brian Eno and Jonathan Demme, for example - and others known best in more specialized circles - such as Joseph Kosuth, Twyla Tharp, and Caetano Veloso. The map of Byrne's collaborations, including the casual and incidental ones, reveals an ongoing effort to combine avant-gardism with popular appeal.
This highly original and illustrated account of David Byrne's career is structured by choosing a specific abstract approach, or a combination of two approaches, for each chapter, discussing the parallels and contradictions between such approaches to benefit the interpretation of Byrne's art. As a result, the fertile conceptual brew that characterizes Byrne's way of making art is present from the beginning, while each chapter adds to thorough insight and developing perspective.

Sytze Steenstra

List of illustrations INTRODUCTION The world is a song Singer and conceptual artist Mythology and methodology Conceptual Romanticism The method of this book Part One: STRIPPING DOWN ROCK SONGS The tentative rejection of mimesis Cybernetics as inspiration The first years of Talking Heads Ethological and neurological aspects of music Experiments with rhythm, texture and persona Part Two: A WIDER MUSICAL COMMUNITY Music and dance as social exchange Isolated voices embedded in rhythm At the crossroads: "Remain In Light" Comparative studies of myth, archetypes and ritual Archetypal conflicts: "goin' boom boom boom" Speaking in Tongues: persona as ritual texture Part Three: RITUAL IN DAILY LIFE Introducing performance theatre A concert in the cinema: "Stop Making Sense" Music in context: "Talking Heads vs. The Television" "The Knee Plays", music for Robert Wilson "Little Creatures": television's naiveté "True Stories", a generic Gesamtkunstwerk A soundtrack for Mabou Mines' "Dead End Kids" "The Forest", a Byrne-Wilson piece "The Forest" as film script Part Four: ROCK STAR AND ETHNOGRAPHER The artist as ethnomusicologist "Naked", Talking Heads' most 'African' record "Ilé Aiyé": a musical ethnographic documentary "Rei Momo": incorporating Latin sensibility Soundtracks for ethnographic art documentaries Luaka Bop In the mirror: Sex 'n' drugs 'n' electronic music Critical responses Part Five: IN THE VISUAL ARENA The arena of visual communication Photographic repertoires "Strange Ritual": documents of sacralization The voodoo of the business world "The New Sins": a new mythology of chaos Dressed objects and other furniture Part Six: TROPICALISMO IN NEW YORK The singer as imaginary landscape "Between The Teeth" New York Tropicalismo TV presenter "Live at Union Chapel" Choreographed songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno History in the disco mirror ball Part Seven: AN EMOTIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY Cloud diagrams "Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information" Arboretum: the garden of correspondences The representation of politics Who owns our eyes and ears? Philosophy in installments Bicycle Diaries: a comparative mythology of cities Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Discography and Filmography Bibliography of David Byrne writings General bibliography Index