{"id":119696,"date":"2025-09-05T02:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119696\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T02:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:00:09","slug":"david-byrne-laughs-at-the-weirdness-of-life-on-who-is-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119696\/","title":{"rendered":"David Byrne Laughs at the Weirdness of Life on ‘Who Is the Sky?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBy now, fans see David Byrne<\/a> as more than a quirky dude in a beloved legacy rock act. He\u2019s a plainspoken public intellectual; an advocate for civic improvement and multi-cultural cooperation; a neurodiverse poet of the modern condition; an artistic \u00e9minence grise with fingers on multiple cultural pulses. In some ways, as the multi-format American Utopia project showed, a sort of non-denominational minister, with a goofy sense of humor, who one might look to for guidance, hope, encouragement and words of wisdom when things get scary.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, things are pretty scary right now, and on his first album of original songs since before the pandemic, Byrne is \u2026 writing musical comedy. \u201cI met the Buddha at a downtown party,\u201d he announces on the bouncy song of the same name; \u201che was hangin\u2019 by the pastries and the canap\u00e9s\/Just stuffing himself like there was no tomorrow\/With a beatific smile all over his face.\u201d When the singer expresses concern, the deity schools him: \u201c\u2018I\u2019ve had to retire from that enlightenment biz\/I don\u2019t have the answers, and I never did\/They think I can help them, but I\u2019m not that smart\/ so here, have a piece of this blue blueberry tart!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn \u201cThe Avant Garde,\u201d the art school student-turned-pop singer acts out an aesthetic crisis over an intermittently jerky groove, rhyming \u201cI saw a woman in a leotard\u201d with \u201cI\u2019m not sure how I feel \u2018bout the avant garde,\u201d and positing \u201cit doesn\u2019t mean shit\u201d in the chorus. On \u201cMoisturizing Thing,\u201d over cheeky string arrangements, his sweetheart says: \u201c\u2018Hey David, put this on your skin\/It says it\u2019s anti-aging, anti-oxidant too\/ go ahead, try it\/Let\u2019s see what it can do.\u2019\u201d Lo and behold, it transforms the singer into an apparent toddler. \u201cMy honey wakes up, she looks over and screams,\u201d he recounts; \u201cthat lotion is magic, I look like I\u2019m three.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe storytelling style isn\u2019t off-brand for a polymath who\u2019s been making stage musicals for two decades, longer if you count Eighties collaborations with Twyla Tharpe (The Catherine Wheel<\/a>) and the late Robert Wilson (Music for \u201cThe Knee Plays\u201d<\/a>). There\u2019s also evident connection here with Byrne\u2019s recent interactive Theater of the Mind<\/a> project, and a rap sheet of role-play songwriting that stretches back to \u201cPsycho Killer\u201d and \u201cLife During Wartime.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat made those songs work, and these, is the sound of Byrne\u2019s mind cogitating inside them. Memoir seems to flicker through Who Is The Sky? \u2014 whose title, Byrne cops, comes from an AI voice transcription error of the phrase \u201cwho is this guy?\u201d Worries over aging, about people sweating you for your creative choices, or hoping for words of wisdom to decode the world\u2019s madness, seem like triggers Byrne might well have. And tbh, it\u2019s refreshing, and hilarious, to hear Byrne sounding downright bitchy on \u201cThe Avant Garde,\u201d since dude rarely dials things up past pointedly wry (not to mention having a CV full of his own mea culpas).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s evident memoir, too, in the album\u2019s love songs, considering Byrne\u2019s imminent marriage<\/a> to the writer\/hedge-fund founder Mala Gaonkar, a fellow polymath (NB: his wedding<\/a> dinner playlist<\/a> is definitely worth a listen). On \u201cWhat is the Reason For It?,\u201d<\/a> Byrne overthinks the phenomenon of love atop mariachi-brass abstracts with a charming assist from Paramore\u2019s Hayley Williams<\/a>, the latest of his 21st -century-pop sidekicks \u2014 see also Robyn<\/a>, Olivia Rodrigo<\/a> and St. Vincent<\/a>\u2019s Annie Clark, a veteran Byrne collaborator who turns up here on \u201cEv\u2019rybody Laughs,\u201d the LP\u2019s lead single and default mission statement. \u201cShe Explains Things To Me\u201d is another love song, of sorts. It\u2019s the record\u2019s most touching and vulnerable moment, an expression of gratitude, with faintly comic frustration, for someone who enlarges your perspective, mansplaining re-imagined as man-listening.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tMusically, Byrne taps into modern-ish pop strategies via Harry Styles producer Kid Harpoon. But being Byrne, he\u2019s also enlisted the New York-based Ghost Train Orchestra, a chamber ensemble known for their interpretations of the late composer\/street musician Moondog<\/a>, and jazz-rock drummer Tom Skinner of Radiohead side-band, the Smile. If Byrne\u2019s approach recalls that of Colors, Beck<\/a>\u2019s 2017 pop turn with Greg Kurstin, the touch here is lighter, with the multicultural rhythmic and melodic surprises that always brighten Byrne\u2019s solo work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tThe risk with humor in songs, of course, is that jokes wear thin. But laughing\u2019s pleasurable and undeniably therapeutic; it may even be a pop music trend (ie: Laufey\u2019s salty punchlines, laugh-advocate Laraaji\u2019s contributions to the new Big Thief album<\/a>). Either way, Who Is The Sky? is an compelling invitation, like the one Byrne offered on the Talking Heads<\/a> signature \u201cRoad to Nowhere\u201d \u2014 beautifully covered by Brazilian expat Rog\u00ea<\/a> on a forthcoming Heads tribute LP, it should be noted \u2014 to join him on what\u2019s looking like a long ride into who knows what, singing and laughing as needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By now, fans see David Byrne as more than a quirky dude in a beloved legacy rock act.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,45979,52726,134,66106,136,52160,84565,84566,23209],"class_list":{"0":"post-119696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-beck","11":"tag-david-byrne","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-hayley-williams","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-olivia-rodrigo","16":"tag-robyn","17":"tag-st-vincent","18":"tag-talking-heads"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}