David Byrne

The legendary singer on embracing nonsense and owning his mistakes

How have you been handling quarantine?

Probably like many other people, I have worked on my cooking skills. Cooking for one is . . . [ Pauses.] Yeah, that sounds like a country song, but here we go, I’ve been cooking for one.

Some of the dishes are really good, and some of them are real failures, but nobody needs to know.

What do you do when you want to relax?

I go for a bike ride. I’ve been soliciting others — friends and band members — to join me. We’ll go to Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, whatever, and just explore different neighborhoods. You’re not just sitting there. You’re seeing a new neighborhood and a place that you didn’t know about, expanding your view of the place where you live, understanding it a little bit better. It’s really nice.

What did you learn from working with Spike Lee on your new American Utopia movie?

One of the things I learned from him, which is something I’ve been learning myself over the years, is how he has this incredible enthusiasm when he’s working. He’s excited about what the camera people are doing, the actors, the band. All the stuff that’s going on, he’s just totally energized by all of it, and that’s infectious and makes everybody else do a better job.

You perform Janelle Monáe’s 2015 protest song “Hell You Talmbout” in the show, and you and the band say the names of African Americans who have been unjustly killed. What does it mean to you to be a good ally?

I’ve learned that we have a poison within us, all of us, and I think it’s important to realize that I’m not immune to it. None of us are. And then we have to work through it and try and reject this poison, and we have to get it out of our bodies. But you can’t just will it to go away. It’s work. It can maybe take a lifetime.

You recently acknowledged that in the Eighties you wore black- and brownface in a Talking Heads promo clip, and you apologized for it. What did you take away from the experience of people bringing that to your attention?

I’d kind of completely forgotten about it, and I thought, “Oh, God, look at this. How times have changed, and how much

I’ve changed.” But I thought, “OK, I’m going to put this [apology] out there, and I’m going to not make a big deal of it, but I’m going to talk about it and own this, and hope that people can understand that I’ve grown and changed since then.” But as I said, it’s an ongoing process. And to their credit, people have [accepted my apology]. I think they feel that I did this in the right way, by putting that out there.

Your song “Every Day Is a Miracle” has stuck with me since watching American Utopia. How do you go about waking up and feeling that way every day?

I have to grab that feeling when it’s happening. There are certainly mornings where I wake up and I’ll read a few newspapers online, and I’ll often feel fairly depressed or despondent. Other times, I’ll go, “No, look, I’ve got things I’ve got to do today.” And sometimes they’re menial things, but that’s OK. So I just kind of get on with it.

The nonsense lyrics to Talking Heads’ “I Zimbra” are a Dadaist poem by Hugo Ball. How do you know when it’s time to stop making sense?

Never. My daughter has a young child, and I’m proud that I’ve shown him how to work a salad spinner with his head.

It seems a lot of your fans dwell on Talking Heads. What advice do you have for moving on?

I realize it’s not about me. People who experienced that music at that point of their lives, it was very formative. It’s not about, “Can I write a song that’s as good as some Talking Heads song?” I know I can. But [for those people] you’re never, ever going to beat that, and that’s not a failing on my part or the songwriter’s part. That’s just life.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t worry about your personal life. It will all work out.

David Byrne’s ‘American Utopia’ performance film is out now on HBO.