In an age of disco, soft rock and boys with feathered hair, a band emerged on the scene that had quirky song lyrics and a heavy rhythm section with funky synth breaks.

The Talking Heads met at a design school in Rhode Island, but in 1974 they packed up and moved to New York to focus on their music. In 1975 they got a break at a little club called CBGB’s opening for a band called The Ramones.

David Byrne’s shaky, nervous sounding vocals and quirky lyrics helped give the band their own unique sound. Byrne, along with the band’s heavy rhythm section gave the band a sound akin to being scraped down to the bone and almost broken.

The Talking Heads songs where filled with rhythmic breakdowns and funky lyrics like in the song “Once in a Lifetime.” This piece talks about how life goes by quickly and if you don’t slow down and pay attention, you won’t know how you got to where you are.

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. And you may find yourself in another part of the world. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.

And you may ask yourself…Well…How did I get here?”

The song’s verses are very choppy and filled with pauses and breaks, as if the band is trying to stop and think about what got them to where they are. The music is smooth and flows like water, which may be why the chorus involves water so heavily. The lyrics suggest that water will carry us through life and we can just get swept into things, but in the end those things will hopefully be clear.

Then there is a song that is definitely on my top 20 stalker love songs of all times: “Psycho Killer”, which has a simple beat and an acoustic guitar with only three chords. It is basically your standard rock song, with some really creepy lyrics. Chunks of song are in French, but when translated into English they are nothing but gibberish. The song was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Psycho”. Despite being only drums and a single guitar, the song has an incredibly dark feel to it.

“You start a conversation you can’t even finish it. You’re talkin’ a lot, but you’re not sayin’ anything. When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed. Say something once, why say it again?”

These are some of the lyrics that actually do make sense, about how people just ramble on when they have nothing really to say, so I am going to stop rambling and just let you go check out the Talking Heads for yourself.