Making Sense

My brother Justin wrote: “My musical taste was slow in forming… In general, more mainstream than my brother’s… as an aside, it’s kinda fascinating that we more or less discovered David Byrne / Talking Heads at the exact same moment. I had picked up on Talking Heads from 94.5 KATS, a rock radio station that I listened to by virtue of the fact that there wasn’t anything better which, occasionally, played their 4 biggest hits of ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘Take Me to the River’, ‘And She Was’, and ‘Burning Down the House.’ Once or twice a dj showed some individuality and snuck in ‘Psycho Killer’ (something I imagaine they’d never be able to do under the auspices of Clear Channel Communications.) So, at a used music store in Seattle, as I was rummaging for something good — my brother picked up the Talking Heads album ‘Stop Making Sense’ — looking for David Byrne for some reason (because one of his songs was used as a theme song for a by now 4-years since cancellation tv show, if I remember his explanation correct), and I ended up snatching it out of his hands.”

Later that day, after Justin, our parents, and I got back to my apartment, Justin put Stop Making Sense on to see if “Once in a Lifetime” was the “This is not my beautiful house” song. There was already a CD in the CD player, David Byrne’s self-titled album. Justin put it back in its case, glanced at the cover and asked, “David Byrne? Who’s that?” I answered, “He’s the guy on the back of your CD case.”

The significance of the otherwise forgotten sitcom was that I’d liked the theme song and had tried to catch the name of the performer in the closing credits, but it had always flashed by too quickly. A few years later, after I’d been listening to a couple of David Byrne albums for awhile, I picked up Uh-Oh. It had “A Million Miles Away”, the song I’d forgotten I was looking for. I found the singer even though I forgot that I was looking for him.

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