{"id":886462,"date":"2026-10-18T09:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886462\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T09:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:18:15","slug":"david-byrne-this-last-tour-equalled-and-sometimes-surpassed-what-happened-with-talking-heads-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886462\/","title":{"rendered":"David Byrne: \u2018This last tour equalled and sometimes surpassed what happened with Talking Heads\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Byrne<\/a> is in the spare bedroom \u2013 also a music room \u2013 of his apartment in New York. <\/p>\n

The 74-year-old writer, musician and onetime frontman of Talking Heads, almost fills my screen with his shock of white hair and a blue shirt, but behind him I can see cardboard boxes piled up on a metal shelf and the headstocks of an electric guitar and a bass.<\/p>\n

He pauses frequently as he speaks, but on the page his words turn into perfectly coherent, thoughtful paragraphs. His speaking style reminds me a lot of his singing.<\/p>\n

His new book, Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, is a fascinating look at the way concepts from the worlds of art and science and philosophy can be forgotten for decades, centuries, even millenniums before being rediscovered through pure luck or the vagaries of a changing zeitgeist. (At the start of each chapter Byrne estimates how long each idea was \u201casleep\u201d.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s meticulously written and researched, and Byrne\u2019s passion for it is infectious. When I bring up artists or scientists from the book he responds with a delighted \u201cYes!\u201d, as though I were introducing the subject randomly and not because he had introduced me to them in his writing. When I tell him my 13-year-old nephew loved his rain- and windswept Dublin gig<\/a> in June he looks very amused.<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201csleeping beauties\u201d was first used by the researcher Anthony van Raan in 2004 to describe formerly ignored but consequential science papers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the term,\u201d Byrne says. \u201cIt seemed to really resonate, and I immediately thought, \u2018Oh, this applies beyond science.\u2019 So I started collecting. I\u2019d read about something or hear about something. If I told people that I was working on this, they\u2019d say, \u2018Oh, do you know about..?\u2019 I was kind of down the rabbit hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some artists hate the idea of analysing creative output, thinking it erodes the magic. Byrne, whose earthy grooves have always come with a side order of art-rock intellectualism, does not agree. <\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy asking why something\u2019s popular, why something is the way it is, why it ended up like this and not like something else,\u201d he says. \u201cDelving into that, I don\u2019t think it takes away from the pleasure or the wonder or the awe of listening to a piece of music or reading something or a scientific discovery. I think it actually deepens it. Knowing how a car engine works doesn\u2019t affect how you can drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Byrne. Photograph: Shervin Lainez <\/p>\n

Sometimes an idea can be discarded because it doesn\u2019t fit the dominant ideology of the time, he says. In the book he writes about the way the biologist Lynn Margulis\u2019s discovery that interorganism symbiosis was a key part of evolution was ignored for decades. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m probably biased towards co-operation as opposed to competition as a valid engine for creativity and things being discovered,\u201d he says. \u201cBut for many decades it\u2019s been pushed aside, and in business, science and the arts the idea has been dominant that competition drives things. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut some of these scientists and sociologists and evolutionary people discovered that sometimes animals or plants or cells co-operate, and sometimes they actually become a new entity by co-operation. They have this symbiotic union that happens, and their odds of survival increase that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Margulis\u2019s idea ran against the grain. \u201cBy that time the idea of survival of the fittest got in some ways perverted to survival of the strongest. She was showing us that it\u2019s not the only way. Sometimes something new comes into being because of co-operation. <\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesspeople like to think, I\u2019m successful because I\u2019m smarter than the others. Sometimes you were just meaner or lucky. They tend not to give luck much credit.\u201d <\/p>\n

Luck is another theme of the book. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s just the wrong thing in the wrong place, and then [years later] someone stumbles on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another of the reasons innovations get ignored is prejudice, Byrne says. In the 1940s the abstract artist Janet Sobel \u201cstarted doing work on these abstract paintings. It was just this texture of paint and splatters and all this kind of thing. She\u2019d lay the canvas on the floor of her apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her son \u201cconnected her with other well-known artists at the time, and she got some gallery shows and was to some extent well accepted. However, with the art world there was a sexism involved, and a sense that she was not part of the boys\u2019 club. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe was described as a \u2018housewife in Brighton Beach\u2019, which was a put-down, like she was not a serious artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sobel made a painting called Milky Way; shortly afterwards, Jackson Pollock made a very similar work, called Galaxy. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear that Jackson Pollock saw her work and within a year or so he was doing almost exactly the same thing,\u201d Byrne says. \u201cHe\u2019s held in very high regard. Not to take anything away from him, but it really seems obvious that he got anointed, probably because he was a macho guy. She was kind of pushed aside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some work is sidelined because the creators themselves thought it too odd in the context of their time, such as the dark and fantasmagoric pieces of art that have become known as Goya\u2019s \u201cblack paintings\u201d, which he kept on the walls of his own house rather than intending them for public consumption.<\/p>\n

\"AA Pilgrimage to San Isidro by Francisco de Goya. Photograph: Prisma\/UIG via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cHe might have thought: I have to do this \u2013 I have to speak to the world as I see it \u2013 but I also understand that there might not be any interest from the public. What really mystifies me, sometimes, is where [an artist says]: I\u2019m not going to show it to anyone; I\u2019m going to keep it just for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does that really surprise him? <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve tended to take the evolutionary point of view that making art or writing or doing any of those kinds of things is a form of display, like a bird\u2019s plumage or a peacock\u2019s tail, and that you make those things and you put them out because it\u2019s your way of connecting with other people and announcing who you are and what you\u2019re about,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou exist because they see what you\u2019ve done. But then there\u2019s people who decide: No, I\u2019m never going to show this to anyone.\u201d <\/p>\n

He laughs. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat defeats that whole evolutionary idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps this approach to art is more a form of processing than display.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think so too,\u201d he says. \u201cI think it\u2019s self-processing. I realised that this has its own rewards, and the reward doesn\u2019t have to be public acceptance or putting it out there. It can be internal. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re having a dialogue with yourself and exploring how you feel about things \u2013 what interests you, whether it\u2019s literature or paintings or whatever else. And in that case you don\u2019t crave public acceptance. It\u2019s its own reward, which kind of tempts me to revise my thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Has this changed Byrne\u2019s approach to making art? He chuckles. Not yet. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the work that I do is kind of public facing. But, yes, I also realise now that I\u2019m getting my own kind of personal enjoyment out of that creation, whether it\u2019s the creation of a performance, a show, or this book, or drawings I\u2019ve done. There\u2019s an enjoyment in just putting it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byrne had some experience of this with drawings he made during the pandemic (although he did subsequently release them for public view). \u201cI didn\u2019t know what they were about when I was doing it, and then, afterwards, I realised [I was] talking to myself about what it felt like during the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0David Byrne: \u2018I couldn’t write songs during the depth of the pandemic\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Sleeping Beauties is a rejection of the notion that progress is always linear. There\u2019s an idea, he says, that knowledge accumulates, \u201cand once we\u2019ve learned something, or discovered how to do something, that it adds to this vast storehouse, and these stories make it evident that that is sometimes the case. But just as often things get forgotten. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the thing that actually solves the problem or is really wonderful or beautiful or moving existed in the past and needs to be renovated and rediscovered.\u201d <\/p>\n

Byrne rejects modernist hubris. He notes that Roman concrete, for example, was longer-lasting and environmentally friendlier than the version revived by the modern world. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes there was a better way in the past, and we have to swallow our pride a little bit and go: Maybe we can learn from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book includes lots of scientific examples. This feels relatively unusual coming from an artist. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was younger I really debated whether I should go into the sciences or the arts,\u201d Byrne says. \u201cThe arts seem to promise a more creative reward faster. With the science it seemed like you had to go through many years before you got to actually experiment and try things out and be creative. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut, at the same time, the sciences are in many ways just as creative as the arts are, but the emphasis on proofs and predictions and quantitative measurements and all this kind of thing \u2013 the arts don\u2019t have that, really.\u201d <\/p>\n

He laughs. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would like it if they did. People would like to maybe judge a painting by how it sells at Sotheby\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Caravaggio'sCaravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes <\/p>\n

But we can\u2019t, Byrne says. In the 19th century, he points out, art dealers could barely give Caravaggio<\/a> paintings away, but then, in 2019, his work Judith Beheading Holofernes was valued at up to \u20ac150 million or so. \u201cAnd it\u2019s the same painting. It hasn\u2019t changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popularity or price or sales figures are never a true gauge of worth, Byrne says. <\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that, on its own, has a very small audience or reaches a very small public can have a disproportionate influence on other people. We all know records that didn\u2019t sell very well but had a huge influence on lots of other people. <\/p>\n

\u201cI used Tom Z\u00e9\u201d \u2013 the Brazilian Tropic\u00e1lia musician whose albums Byrne was involved in reissuing in the 1990s \u2013 \u201cas an example, but there were really obvious ones, like The Velvet Underground<\/a>.\u201d Byrne included their royalty statement in his book How Music Works. \u201cIt was pretty miserable, and yet they had a huge influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Velvet Underground performing for Venus in Furs, an underground film by Piero Heliczer, in November 1965. Photograph: Adam Ritchie\/Redferns <\/p>\n

Has he seen evidence of the sleeping-beauty phenomenon in his own career? He laughs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing music for long enough that I\u2019ve seen my career and acceptance or public awareness go up and down.\u201d<\/p>\n

How are things right now? <\/p>\n

\u201cJudging by my last concert tour, which I just finished on Saturday, after a year, the venues we were playing and the kind of reaction that the audiences had, it equalled and sometimes surpassed what happened with Talking Heads. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I realise there are moments when something becomes relevant or is accepted or is exciting to the public and moments when … not so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does Byrne put his current popularity down to? <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to give some credit to streaming in my case,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a lot of problems with streaming income and what artists make from all that, but I think it\u2019s had a positive effect in that it doesn\u2019t cost anyone anything to check something out, to try something and see if they like it or not. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also, in streaming, a lack of contextual information. You don\u2019t automatically know, \u2018Oh, when was this done? What\u2019s the context? Did people like it at the time?\u2019 All those kinds of things are missing. It\u2019s just you and maybe some of your friends who are listening and going, \u2018Oh, I like that.\u2019 You\u2019ve just stumbled on it. So you find younger audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TalkingTalking Heads in Davis, California, in 1983. Photograph: Larry Hulst\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

In the early, punk-influenced era of his career, Byrne and Talking Heads had a role in putting the prog rockers, his immediate forefathers, to sleep. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think there was an unspoken feeling we were going to topple the giants,\u201d he says. \u201cNot that we ever did or would, but there was a feeling: These dinosaurs have to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now the prog music they were deciding to topple is coming back, like a sleeping beauty. He laughs. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s coming back! It\u2019s really popular again.\u201d <\/p>\n

He refers to the Canadian band Angine de Poitrine in this context but adds, \u201cThey\u2019re doing it in a more punk DIY way.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0David Byrne: \u2018I see new chicanery every day\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Punk\u2019s DIY ethos is still at the core of what Byrne does. He never had conventional musical training. \u201cI bought songbooks. I still have a lot of them up there.\u201d He gestures to an out-of-shot shelf to his right. \u201cI have a Burt Bacharach<\/a> songbook and a Bob Dylan<\/a> songbook and a Beatles<\/a> songbook and Cole Porter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d start with the simple ones and teach myself through other people\u2019s songs. \u2018Oh, this is how it\u2019s constructed. Oh, this is how it\u2019s made. You can go from this chord to this one.\u2019 I highly recommend that kind of approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften when you go to music school you\u2019re playing scales and playing an instrument that might be really difficult, and you don\u2019t get the visceral reward of, \u2018Ah, I can sing a song with this.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas taking really simple things and learning them, you get feedback and a reward for yourself right away. With three chords or two chords, you can do something. You can express yourself and actually connect to people with very simple means.\u201d<\/p>\n

This approach has taken Byrne a long way. He\u2019ll be on the road again in November, doing events around the book. Right now he\u2019s relaxing at home after the long tour. \u201cIt\u2019s a big physical and emotional reorientation for me, as it always is.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s that process of post-tour reorientation like? <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of it\u2019s very mundane. You come home and find, \u2018My printer\u2019s broken!\u2019 There\u2019s a lot of that mundane stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will he then start a new project? He nods.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I get my printer fixed. When I get the bathroom door to actually lock.\u201d He laughs. \u201cI don\u2019t know yet. It\u2019s early.\u201d<\/p>\n

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