David Byrne unveils journalism website, nixes TikTok debut
Winning an Oscar, a Golden Globe and multiple Grammy Awards seemed to come easily for veteran music maverick David Byrne, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 as the cofounder of the boundarystretching band Talking Heads.
But making his first TikTok dance challenge video? Or, rather, trying to make his first TikTok dance challenge video? Surprisingly difficult.
So difficult, in fact, that the Scottish- born, New Yorkbased Byrne recently abandoned what would have been his official TikTok debut. It had been planned to promote the launch last week of his new six- week online collaborative journalism initiative, We Are Not Divided, an offshoot of Reasons to be Cheerful. Byrne launched Reasons to be Cheerful last year as a “solutions journalism” website, which he described at the time as “part magazine, part therapy session, part blueprint for a better world.”
In hindsight, creating the website – and the nonprofit foundation that operates and funds it – may have been less challenging than attempting to have his first TikTok moment.
“It turns out it was terrible, so I put it on the shelf for now,” Byrne said, sounding bemused at the difficulties he faced in trying to create a 15- 30- second- long dance challenge video.
“I’ve done other little things in the past that turned out really well, but this was terrible! Everything you do, or try, doesn’t always work out. But I also think that, sometimes, in order to get to do something that comes after what doesn’t work out... not everything will be brilliant. To get to the brilliant thing, you have to keep plugging away and put the nails in the house. Eventually, there will be a house, but it won’t happen if you stop.”
NOSTALGIA? NOT INTERESTED!
That’s sage advice from this Rhode Island School of
Design alum, whose 1983 hit with Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House,” topped the charts in Iceland and rose to No. 9 in the US. Before Byrne disbanded the group in 1991, Talking Heads’ singular blend of rock, funk, pop, experimental, electronic and African music set an enduring standard.
Its influence is strongly evident in the work of such bands as Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem and Radiohead, which named itself after a 1986 song by Talking Heads. The Byrne- led group’s 1983 film, the Jonathan Demme- directed Stop Making Sense, still ranks as one of the most visionary rock concert movies ever made.
Yet, apart from a threesong performance at the 2002 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Byrne has steadfastly resisted all offers to reunite Talking Heads. Cashing in on nostalgia does not appeal to him. Neither does working with his former band mates.
Byrne’s far- ranging solo career hit an all- time high with his groundbreaking 2018 “American Utopia” tour, which redefined how concerts can sound, look and feel. Last year saw the launch of David Byrne’s American Utopia on Broadway. The stage version features largely the same songs as the tour, mixing choice numbers from Byrne’s solo career and rearranged versions of various Talking Heads’ classics.
The Broadway iteration of American Utopia was scheduled
to resume this fall but is on indefinite hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Spike Lee- directed movie version of American Utopia opened the Toronto Film Festival on September 9 and earned rave reviews. Its TV debut is set for October 17 on HBO and HBO Max.
“I asked Spike if he wanted to shorten anything, open something up, or change the song order,” Byrne recalled. “And he said: ‘ No, it works the way it is – I don’t want to mess with it.’ He captures it in a way that puts you, as the viewer, right in the action of the show. You can see what’s going on in a way the audience never could.”
An American Utopia book, a collaboration between Byrne and set designer and illustrator Maira Kalman, will be published October 13 by Bloomsbury. It features snippets of his song lyrics and some of his spoken text from the Broadway show with more than 150 of her paintings.
Alas, the song lyrics in the book do not include “Body Parts,” whose music Byrne had hoped to feature as he danced, sang and spoke in his would- be TikTok video. He wrote “Body Parts” – a calypso- styled ditty about medieval instruments of torture – for his 2017 musical Joan of Arc: Into the Fire. It followed his similarly ambitious 2010 concept album, Here Lies Love, about former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos.
“Of course, when I told people that I am going to do ‘ Body Parts’ on TikTok, they were thinking: ‘ Yeah, you and a bunch of 3- yearolds’!” said Byrne, who was stymied trying to truncate the song into a 15- 30- second dance video.
“You have to get the whole thing to happen really quickly, and the song doesn’t emerge fast enough,” he said. “You have to get names in from the lyrics – arms, feet, eyes, whatever – and it has to be compressed. I haven’t figured out how to make that work.”
HOPE IN A TIME OF GROWING DESPAIR
The notion of Byrne, 68, seeking to embrace the youth- fueled world of TikTok reflects his quirky sense of humor. It also underscores his genuine desire to connect with an audience whose parents or grandparents may have grown up with his music.
This acclaimed cultural provocateur’s other current pursuits, which include his genre- leaping new monthly Sonos Radio show, Here Comes Everybody, are designed to provide a unifying platform. Reasons To Be Cheerful was launched in 2019 to provide solutions and to promote hope in a time of growing despair.
But that was last year, before the coronavirus pandemic turned the world upside down – and before Black Lives Matter became a game- changing national and international movement, which has brought together millions of people from across the racial and social spectrum.
Byrne’s response was Now Anything is Possible, which debuted in May as an offshoot of Reasons to be Cheerful. The new We Are Not Divided has a multiple focus on health, education, culture, economics, the environment and more. It includes such thoughtfully written essays as “This Is What Listening Looks Like,” “Recording Racism’s ‘ Small Stuff,’” “Taiwan’s CrowdSourced Democracy,” “We Hate Each Other Less Than We Realize” and “Are You Liberal? Are You Sure?”
( The San Diego Union- Tribune/ TNS)