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In 1979, some Talking Heads fans who had thoroughly enjoyed their previous release, "More Songs about Buildings and Food," may have performed whiplash double takes upon hearing the first notes of "I Zimbra" on their follow up, "Fear of Music." Nothing quite like it had previously emerged from this band or indeed from western popular music in general. And the lyrics? Incomprehensible monosyllables or some form of speaking in tongues over what seems like African inspired frenetic rhythms. Was this the same band that sang "Take Me to the River" on American Bandstand? Well, yes, but this band, one of the most brilliantly inventive in rock/pop history, had managed to reinvent themselves yet again in almost incomprehensible ways. This time around a particularly disturbing and alienated aura permeated the entire album. Even the cover absorbed all light like a hungry black hole devouring the Teddy Bear's Picnic. The green on black text may even have evoked the monochromatic computer screens of the time that crept more and more into people's lives in the very late 1970s. But the music and lyrics really penetrate the psyche. Heavily treated electronic music, compliments of Brian Eno, layered over very singable melodies and addicting danceable rhythms. The Talking Heads managed to create one of the best albums ever and also to set high, almost impossible, standards for music that entertains not only the body but also the mind.
Speaking of mind, the song "Mind" presents a second person narration soaked with frustration over an unbending and possibly oblivious person unaffected by money, time, drugs, religion, science and even the narrator. A small aside of "what's the matter with you?" says it all. The song seems to directly challenge the listener to question themselves, their views and their beliefs. Why the narrator, or anything at all, seems impotent to sway obstinate convictions perplexes the narrator and continues the quest for "something to change your mind." Probably nothing will, and you know it. Are you even listening?
"Paper" exposes the limitations of intellectualizing human experience in writing, or at least those who try to do so. When a new concept or feeling comes along "see if you can fit it on the paper." But some alternative, though suspicious, thoughts peek through: "if you know it was never, it was never written down, still might be a chance that it might work out." In the end, something inexpressible approaches and "don't think I can fit it on the paper" so "go ahead and tear up, tear up the paper." Sometimes words won't do.
"Cities" explores and celebrates urban possibilities. One city has certain advantages over others, good points and bad points, "but it all works out." One notable line describes Memphis as the "home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks." One of their funkiest beats, complete with elevator noises.
"Life During Wartime" throws the listener directly into combat, juxtaposing the niceties of peacetime, such as parties, discos, notebooks, writing, kissing and speakers, with the limitations and pressures of the battlefield. It expresses, probably better than other more literal war songs, just what it means for a middle class subjectivity to find itself plopped down on a dangerous front, far away from creature comforts.
"Memories Can't Wait" finds the narrator trapped by the past. Sitting in a seat, waiting inexorably for memories to come, they soon take over with a nearly paralyzing effect. They demand analysis, sorting, nurturing and undying attention. They can entrap and debilitate. So goes the ugly underneath of memory. The final distorted transition leading into "and everything is very quiet" shoots ominous shudders up tense spines.
Next comes the shortest song title of all, "Air." Singing that "air can hurt you too" may sound somewhat less shocking in the current era of climate change alarm, but the lines "what is happening to my skin" and "where is that protection that I needed" remain horrifying even now.
"Heaven," almost a ballad, inverts tradition and presents paradise as a boring, uneventful dystopia "where nothing ever happens." It also questions the value of some of our deepest pleasures, such as parties and kisses, doubting that they actually comprise the pinnacle of human experience with the lines "it's hard to imagine that nothing at all, could be so exciting, could be so much fun." Still searching for something to change your mind?
"Animals," an extremely angry but tragi-comedic song, takes on speciesism, cursing animals for their apparent uselessness, their freedom to defecate anywhere they want, lack of dependence on money and their magical qualities, such as seeing in the dark. The paranoia runs high as accusations of human mockery fly: "I know the animals are laughing at us, they don't even know what a joke is." The lyrics question anthropocentrism and ignorance about the actual animal qualities of humans themselves. They also make fun of people who think that complaining about animal nature can change it. Humorous futility and hypocrisy writ large.
"Electric Guitar" seems like another take on music censorship, but the closing mantra "someone controls electric guitar" suggests a deeper, more sinister, idea. First the judge and jury tells the "criminal" to "tune this electric guitar," then they command "never listen to electric guitar" and finally, almost as a warning, "someone controls electric guitar." Perhaps a nightmare conspiracy theory that comes true? Is it true?
The final, most surreal and startling song, "Drugs," can still deliver a ground-shifting, mind bending blow decades later. The music has lost none of its disorientating freakiness. Perhaps "beautifully disturbing" encapsulates the song and the actual experience it attempts to capture. In 1979, these represented very new, almost unprecedented, sounds. It's almost scary. Maybe this music should be feared most of all? The melting, dissonant guitar solo alone may send the musically sensitive running in terror.
Though no one would probably call this album "life-affirming," it arguably contains music and themes that, given the right circumstances, possibly could change minds. Perhaps the song "Mind" provides a kind of thematic prelude to the entire set? Each song, after all, seems to present an alternate, not quite mainstream perspective on often familiar topics. The album as a whole looks askew at modern life and human nature. Did the Talking Heads, or at least David Byrne, want to use music as a vehicle to open up seemingly myopic points of view? Can we learn as we party and dance? Hopefully.
Whatever the motives, assuming any existed apart from creating great music, "Fear of Music" stands as one of The Talking Heads' greatest achievements during their brief and tumultuous existence. Nearly every second of the album holds up decades after its release. It only subtly, very subtly, sounds like the 1970s. "Drugs" even sounds like something yet to happen, a golden disc from some other civilization's Voyager probe. Most of the themes even remain fully relevant today: stubbornness in the face of evidence, alienation, corrosive and toxic air, living quarters, memory, over-intellectualization. The underside of the world, behind the hedonistic grins and the Pyrrhic victories, still largely feels and sounds like "Fear of Music." If people can't find something to change their minds here, then hope may be lost. Or maybe not. Or maybe?
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Great Music, but error in printing
Wonderful music on this album from a band that sat on the edge of art and accessibility. My only complaint is that the version that appears to be most available now is an EU pressing that has the title printed on the spines as "Talking Heads/Little Creatures" instead of the correct "Talking Heads/Fear Of Music". How Warner/Sire let this distribution get out with such an obvious error, I can't fathom. This seems like the kind of an error a counterfeiter would make, not a humongous record company.
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- Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2006
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J-L VReviewed in Belgium on December 14, 2023
If you love music, get Fear of Music.
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- Stirling RunyonReviewed in Australia on July 12, 2019
One of their very best ..... but I say that about all their albums!
