There is no doubt that, of all the bands to emerge from the CBGB scene, Talking Heads are one of the most beloved. Led by the uniquely brilliant artistic visionary David Byrne, Talking Heads gained notoriety in the new wave scene, combining art rock, funk and Latin jazz with their punk roots. The group have no shortage of iconic tracks, but one of their most popular comes with 1983's 'Burning Down The House'.
The first single to be released from the band's fifth studio album, Speaking in Tongues, 'Burning Down The House' is a synth-heavy dance track with clear influences of funk and early hip-hop. Its eclectic sound, coupled with Byrne's signature vocal performance, make it one of the more memorable tracks from Speaking in Tongues. The inspiration behind the track came from Parliament-Funkadelic, the music collective that pioneered psychedelic funk and paved the way for the West Coast hip-hop sound.
During a Parliament-Funkadelic show at Madison Square Gardens in New York, George Clinton and the rest of the group were reportedly shouting "Burn down the house" at the audience. Byrne and drummer Chris Frantz, who were present at the show, liked the phrase, with Byrne later saying, "They were just shouting it at the audience and I thought 'that's a song.'".
The lyrics of the track are said to centre around a man who is so engulfed by debt that he torches his own house. Without any kind of support network, the man simply sits at home and watches television, "No visible means of support, and you have not seen nothing, yet everything's stuck together, I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set." A fairly dark story which laments the position of many people in US society, the narrative is told in the usual upbeat, quirky way that you would expect from Talking Heads.
Speaking about the track, Byrne revealed how the lyrics came to be, "I would improvise vocal nonsense syllables over the recorded music and go 'okay now I gotta find words to this'". Once again, speaking to the influence of groups like Parliament-Funkadelic, improvisation was key in the construction of 'Burning Down the House'.
According to bassist Tina Weymouth, the track "started from a jam" between herself and Frantz. Early demos of 'Burning Down the House' show how Byrne's nonsensical improvisations eventually morphed into the final lyrics. At one point in the track's history, the chanting of "Burning down the house" was instead "Foam rubber USA", Byrne once told NPR.
The song provided Talking Heads with their highest charting single in the US, cementing them as mainstream musical icons who had transcended their CBGB punk upbringing. Although 'Burning Down the House' failed to perform as successfully elsewhere in the world, it nevertheless remains one of Talking Heads' most recognisable and well-loved tracks.
