No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: David Byrne & St. Vincent - Dinner For Two

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

​On this week's Sidetrack we give a listen to Talking Heads' frontman David Byrne & indie rock darling St. Vincent's 2012 collaboration ​Love This Giant​. An album three years in the making, and with help from 46 additional musicians, this art pop gem, spanning generations of musical badass-ness, is just one of those special moments in the new wave zeitgeist. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/music-review-talking-heads-77#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're in. Cool. Yep, even easier than that. And with no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts, is it even a decision? That's banking reimagined. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See Capital One.com slash bank for details. Capital One and a member FDIC. And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. This is our sidetrack episode for the week. Last week we covered Talking Heads debut album Talking Head 77.

And today we're going to cover a collaboration album that Talking Heads frontman David Byrne did with St. Vincent, also known as Annie Clark, that came out in 2012, I believe. Travis, did you know anything about this album before deciding on doing this for our sidetrack? I hadn't listened to it myself. No, I mean, yeah, I was aware of it. I think I may have started listening to it, you know, years ago. But never really. You know, the sad thing is I think I probably listened to it before I really put two and two together as to who David Byrne was. Oh, yeah.

That was before I really got into Talking Heads and realized that that was lead singer of Talking Heads. I didn't realize that. But anyway, here's what little I know about this album. I do know that there are quite a bit of horns on this album. One of the songs I was listening to, not the one that we're going to play, but nonetheless, one of the songs I was listening to, I was like, man, those horns sure do sound familiar. guess who they are. Oh, I got it.

Antibales. Yep. The same, you know, they're kind of a musical collective of Afrobeat artists. It's an Afro beat band, but it's got like, you know, members that come in and out of it. But we talked about Antibalas when we covered, well, actually, I actually, I think Anabolis was one of my, what you're heards, one of the early episodes, not even realizing at the time that they were also provided the horns on the Foles record antidotes that we covered. Dude, guess what episode you're talking about, man?

Three, four? Nope. Steely Dan. That's one we never even released, brother. Oh, really? Well, anyway. So I read that this album was three years in the making. and it started off as so there was this one-off gig where Annie Clark and David Byrne played together.

Now unfortunately, I didn't look into this, so I don't have much more information on that. I don't know if anyone cares anyways, but apparently they both have much respect for each other and each other's work. And, you know, they've always wanted to work with each other. they kind of started off sending emails back and forth while they were both touring and working on other albums separately and then kind of built on from there. That kind of reminds me of how Postal Service came about too. Ben Gibbard and the other guy, I think he goes by D-Intel. that's kind of how postal service came about too was just sending ideas back and forth through email

Was it like, I mean, if it's three years in the making, does that mean they had been trying to get together and make music for three years and just couldn't connect? No, no, no, no. What it is, the three years in the making is, you know, there... It took three years to record. Them becoming acquaintances and then developing friendship and, you know, sending each other ideas, you know, simple chord structures and melodies

and, you know, kind of building songs together over three years' time. And I think that also has to do with how long it took from that starting to actually recording and releasing it, you know. Yeah, got it. What's interesting is that there is, there are songs that feature just St. Vincent and there are tracks that feature just David Byrne. And then it seems that, you know, the ones that they're collaborating on, it seems to be mostly David Byrne.

But what's interesting is, to me at least, the songs that are David Byrne heavy sound like sort of a talking heads type song, or at least, you know, and this is just David burn the way he he puts melodies together and the way he sings. I guess you just can't escape it, you know. But I'm not familiar enough with St. Vincent to know if she did anything different on this album than she typically does, you know. So back to the horns that you were talking about. Actually, having those horns there pushed both of their voices to places that

neither of them had gone before. That's interesting. And she responds by saying, in this way that horns are aping the human voice, when you end up playing with horns, you end up aping the horns. It's meta-music. The way I was envisioning it,

I was imagining we will sing together. Not one would sing the harmony and the other lead. And how it turned out, how I think of it now, is like a Greek chorus. David is Lazarus and I am the chorus. All right, man. She's too,

She's nerd out way more than either of us even know what the fuck she's talking about. Well, that's just because we're freaking not very studious individuals. She's talking about some Greek stuff, right?

God damn. Mythology. I know, dude. I mean, you know, it's whatever. So I guess this interviewer is, what she's hinting at is that with having these horns,

you know, just kind of up front in the mix, it kind of, to force them to maybe, you know, seeing it in ranges that they don't normally seeing it? I don't know. Well, that's interesting because I thought, I mean, I thought the same thing, actually, when, and the funny thing is, I just thought that it was David Burns' voice just didn't age well or something. Right. But he does sound like he's straining his voice.

I mean, we talked about that actually. Yeah, I was going to say, man. That's part of his thing. But I'm just saying, like, it doesn't sound like he's doing. what we associate with David Byrne, the way he uses his voice and like, you know, it's, it just sounds like it's, uh, he's not hitting the note correctly, but maybe that's just because this thing that happened, uh, with the horns. So, I mean, that just proves that they recorded it with the horns, you know, in the studio with them.

So, dude, let's get down to it. Okay, so this song is called... Shit, man, what's the name of the album? We didn't even put that out there, man. Oh, fuck. The name of the album is called Love This Giant. It came out in 2012. All right, so this song is track number three.

It's called Dinner for Two. The time the guests alive. It was dark outside. Table set with china dishes We're welcomed in with tiny kisses What's her name? I don't read. Isn't that the famous?

Harry's gonna get some advertisers Now he's keeping out of range of small arms fire Vera has a phone She says it's work And now she's crawling something else That's just got all that David Byrne talking hits charm. Yeah, definitely. And that's what I was saying.

Like, you know, you just can't, you can't escape it if he's going to, if he's going to contribute. And, you know. Yeah, he's going to leave his finger. Collaborate with, collaborate with an artist. Like, you're going to, you're going to know, you know. And he was. I mean, I'm just, I'm just assuming here, but, you know, I feel like with, okay, it has nothing to do with the age difference. But I'm saying like, I feel like, I feel like Annie, what's her name, Annie Clark?

Hmm. I feel like she probably went into this thinking, oh my God, I'm collaborating with fucking talking hits from and David Byrne. Oh, yeah. You know, and she probably took more of a back. Dude, I don't even want to say any of this, actually. I mean, we can leave it in, but like, I don't know, but let's put it this way, man. Well, this is what I want to know. did David Byrne

is this one of his ideas that he was floating around? Right. You know, if they were going back and forth with each other, this was probably one of his, you know, ideas that she just supplied her vocals to. So it does seem like,

though, from what I was reading. Because like I said, you know, there's tracks on there that sound, that David Byrne either just plays instruments on in the background or isn't featured on it at all because it's just her,

you know. So this might have, This might literally be, you know, just a collection of songs that they had written and collaborated on, but not necessarily, like, wrote together. It seems like they both really, it seems like there was a lot of back and forth with, with, you know, finishing ideas, you know, and adding on to each other's ideas. I wonder if that went as far as lyrics, too, you know, and melody. It seems like it. you know if they're you know just ping ponging ideas back and forth to each other via email for you know three years or however long however many years it was before they actually had enough

complete ideas to start recording um yeah man i wonder i wonder how much of it is is truly collaborative um and how much of it would be one david burn idea where and then she adds the beats and did were the horns sections added in by the play the the the horns players you know or did they have those uh i guess chord ideas uh you know that were just transcribed to horns i don't know but here's what i love about this record did aside from david and annie there was 46 additional musicians that collaborated on this record. 46. Dude.

Because you've got somebody who's playing something called the euphonium on that track that he played. I don't know what a euphonium is. I'm going to look it up right now. How do you spell it? It is a valved brass musical instrument resembling a small tuba. There you go. But on dinner for two alone,

we had a French horn. a trumpet, a saxophone, a euphonium, another trumpet, another trumpet, another euphonium, two French horns, two trombones. Yeah, basically like three of each instrument. I thought I may have heard of Partridge and a Peritri in that one. Nope, not seeing that on here. Not seeing that on here. I mean, it is almost, it's getting that time of year, I guess, too, where you can make a joke like that. to be jolly and joyous.

You'll definitely have to keep that one in there. That joke that you just did. That wasn't a joke, dude. Oh, by the way, St. Vincent played piano on that track. So there you go. Okay, cool. But yeah, so anyway, that's just cool, you know. Of course, they went on tour to support this record.

How awesome would that have been to see them on stage together. Yeah, man. But yeah, just one of those moments in music, you know. Yep. Where one generation meets up with the next one to make a record together. Doesn't happen very often. But when it does, ooh, boy. That's when stuff happens.

All right. All right, so that's a rapty wrap. are quick and dirty on David Byrne and St. Vincent's collaborative efforts. Love this giant. So next week, back to Radiohead, we're talking about Kid A.

I can't wait, brother. Can't wait. Dude, after that, Amnesiac. It's got some killer tracks on it. Dude, yeah, I revisited that album last week. Yes. Good stuff.

Good stuff. Money. Yeah, man. Cool. All right, dude. That's going to do it for us tonight. As always, hop on our website, no-filler podcast.com. There's a bunch of stuff on there.

I'm not going to get into it again. And you can stream us on SoundCloud. Any other podcast app that you got, you can probably find us on there. Until next week, my name is Quentin. My name is Travis. With watch TV was good for me. Wanted to know what folks were thinking to understand. And I would lose myself and it would shut me free.

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That's banking reimagined. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See Capital One.com slash bank for details. Capital One and a member FDIC.