A very brief history of The Talking Heads
•1977
they release Talking Heads 77. It is a minute commercial success because of the fucking epic song Psycho Killer.
•1978
they release More Songs About Buildings and Food with the help of producer Brian Eno, who would work with them for years. The record is another minor hit because of the popular Al Green cover of Take Me to the River. Fans of esoteric and post-punk continue to crap themselves at the band's awesomeness.
•1979
They release Fear of Music. More critical acclaim. Life During Wartime is a pretty big hit, but major commercial success continues to elude the band.
•1980
Remain in Light is released. It is widely regarded as their greatest work, and took a more collaborative approach to songwriting. The band experiments with polyrhythmic beats found in African music.
•1983
They offer Speaking in Tongues, a major commercial success for the band with a top ten Billboard single in Burning Down the House.
•1984
Director Jonathan Demme releases live concert footage of TH in Stop Making Sense. It helps to broaden The Heads' exposure due in large to Byrne's enigmatic charisma on stage.
By 1986, The Talking Heads had put out 6 records, with Little Creatures having gone double platinum in 1985, which would be the pinnacle of their commercial success. And while Little Creatures is undeniably a great record, there is a distinct break in form and execution from previous efforts that, perhaps intentionally, drove the record so much further up the charts. Byrne's bizzaro Americana imagery and sense of humor are still front and center, but most notably, his strained vocal delivery is almost completely relaxed. Yelps are fewer and further between. The tempo of the record is markedly slower than previous records' as well, with even the snappy, snare-driven Road to Nowhere falling in at a comfy, medium pace.
As you'd expect, after the commercial success of Little Creatures and to some extent, Speaking in Tongues(1983), Byrne and Co. were experiencing a major shift in their fanbase. You know the story: most of the people who liked you for a long time abandon you, clinging to the notion that you'll never do anything worthwhile again, meanwhile dismissing new fans as johnny-come-latelys, who of course dismiss those people as elitist assholes. This has played out a few times in the short history of pop music. And of course, both sides are kind of right, and both sides could benefit from listening to the other's story. The band just wants to play music for you, but you have to get all political with it. Yeah, I do too.
Anyway, my theory on how all this relates to True Stories is that Byrne, who directed and co-wrote the film, could feel the change. I'm sure it was about as subtle as a heart attack from the band's perspective. I won't attempt to speculate on his motivations. That's a fool's game. What interests me are his actions.
Byrne, not content to rest on his laurels, turns out a movie in 1986. It's about Texas, and it's kind of a musical, but kind of not. It has Spalding Gray in it, and an unknown actor named John Goodman(who is amazing). Byrne himself will star as the dolled-up cowboy narrator and guide through the quirky town of Virgil, a medium sized American city/town with a large computer corporation called Varicorp at its heart. In short, it is bound for mediocre success.
And it was exactly that. Like early Talking Heads records, True Stories was a hit with some critics, but a little too weird for most. A small, fanatical fanbase formed, and a cult movie was born. A video for the song Wild Wild Life, one of the band's last hit singles, was also edited from the movie. I guess what this says to me is that Byrne wasn't simply chasing success. Certainly, that has to be a consideration, but True Stories is obviously about ideas, not money.
The film is sometimes meditative, with short vignettes that neither offer nor beg explanation. A band of children approach Byrne, each playing some sort of junkyard instrument. Focus shifts to them while they perform a short song and dance number, and then they're gone. Other times it is a highly cerebral examination of American life, as in the scene where Byrne has dinner with the leading family of Virgil. After some awkward exchanges with his wife(whom he never addresses directly), Earl Culver(Spalding Gray) launches into an illustrative dissertation on business, distribution and suburban community that would make Dan Graham smile.
For his part, Byrne's character takes it all in. He doesn't judge the people of Virgil, but takes a curious if warm interest in the microcosm. People there have the dreams of people everywhere in America. They want happiness, love, possessions and maybe even fame. Goodman's turn as Louis Fyne, a discerning and lonely bachelor, is especially heartwarming in mildly bizarre way.
True Stories, like a lot of my favorite movies, doesn't tell you what to think about it. It lays out some ideas, and then gives you some time to ponder them. It's funny and sad, but not too serious, and a little weird. It's more akin to a series of dreams than short stories, and most of the sentences end in ellipses.
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