Talking Heads 8: Little Creatures

Even after a handful of hit singles, Talking Heads were still too weird for mainstream, but as what used to be called college alternative started to seep its way into the general consciousness—and MTV helped—they were slowly becoming A Major Act. Little Creatures was their tamest, least experimental album yet, and was huge in the summer of 1985. The music was straight accessible pop, with a little rock, stripped of African rhythms and other worldbeat.

Not to say they’d gone completely suburban. “And She Was”, with its nod to “Be My Baby” in the drums, is still a song about a woman who started levitating in mid-air, where she naturally began to disrobe. “Give Me Back My Name” features the existential philosophizing perfected in “Once In A Lifetime” and touched on throughout Byrne’s Knee Plays project the year before. “Creatures Of Love” seems to justify sex as a form of procreation, whereas “Stay Up Late” takes the view of a toddler observing a baby. (Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth were parents by now, with another on the way, so maybe that had something to do with it.) Many songs seem to approach gender relations, such as the conversations in “Perfect World”.

If you want to dance, “The Lady Don’t Mind” is a two-chord samba, and “Walk It Down” recalls Speaking In Tongues somewhat (a little “Swamp” here, a little “Girlfriend Is Better” there). “Television Man” certainly delivers, complete with call-and-response na-nas and the ubiquitous Yamaha DX-7. Our favorite is still “Road To Nowhere”, from the a cappella intro to his final yelps on the coda, and even the accordion. (An “early” version of the song, missing a lot that made it so good, appears as a bonus track, alongside a more realized runthrough of “And She Was” and an extended mix of “Television Man”.)

The band contributes throughout Little Creatures, and with the exception of the occasional pedal steel, horns, and some backing vocals, it’s just the four of them. But this is David Byrne’s vision all the way, as depicted by the Howard Finster cover art, where the other members lurk upstage while the big guy has shed his big suit for only tighty whiteys, carrying the whole world in his hands. And maybe that’s why the album, which was fine for the time, isn’t so striking now.

Talking Heads Little Creatures (1985)—3
2006 DualDisc: same as 1985, plus 3 extra tracks