I’ve been listening to David Byrne since Charles Laquidara played “Don’t Worry About the Government” on WBCN in 1977.
This is a song about office buildings, I said out loud. What is going on here?
Then I learned about “Psycho Killer” and so on. On the second Talking Heads album, Byrne did Al Green and Willie Mitchell a amazing turn by reinventing “Take Me to the River.”
The calendar pages start flipping out. In recent times there was “American Utopia,” a work of genius that featured the Heads songs in a staged work, then a Spike Lee documentary. Manna from heaven.
So it’s 48 years later and David Byrne has released “Who is the Sky?” This is a gift. Don’t take it for granted. Simply produced by Kid Harpoon, this collection is about being in love and becoming domesticated in your 60s. This week Byrne announced he was marrying his longtime girlfriend any minute. He’s 70. You can see him riding his bike or jogging in New York if you’re lucky. He keeps moving forward.
“Who is the Sky?” probably could have made last week’s Grammy deadline but I doubt Byrne cares. In a proper world, this would be an Album of the Year. It’s certainly the best thing I’ve heard in 2025. You know how they call all musicians “artists” now? Byrne is actually an artist.
He sings about “The Avant Garde” because if he’d arrived 20 years earlier, he’d been part of it. In the new song, there’s a couplet that crystallizes everything he and Patti Smith and the late Tom Verlaine and even Elvis Costello embody: It’s a passionate life, it’s ahead of the curve/It’s deceptively weighty, profoundly absurd.”
Byrne teamed up for this album with not only the very hot Kid Harpoon, but most importantly with the Ghost Train Orchestra. That he spotted them and decided to collaborate is part of that passionate life. Their eclectic strengths match his, from soaring rich ballads to Mariachi band. The Ghost Train orchestra suits Byrne, who can be ultra modern and very nostalgic. (He references a line from “The Women” spoken by actress Norma Shearer, whose name would be a mystery to anyone under 60.)
You want a lyric sheet with “Who is the Sky” the way we doted over the ones that came with Talking Heads albums. Just the titles make you want to drop the needle — or push the arrow on Spotify. “My Apartment is My Friend” almost seems like the grandchild of “Don’t Worry About the Government.” “What is the Reason for It?” is Byrne, singing with Hayley Williams of Paramore, like they’re Steve and Eydie. “A Door Called No” is so full of positivity that it could be turned into a best seller self help book.
In “The Outsider,” this verse is the definition of Byrne’s whimsy and profundity:
In thе cave of secrets
I wondеr what I’ll see
I met a talking zebra
A man with fifty eyes
I saw a fountain made of honey
I climbed a mountain in the sky
I’m getting the CD in the morning if you can buy one somewhere. It will sustain me in the car, and in life. A plus. It just shows you, great can happen more than once in a lifetime.
PS When the Kennedy Center returns in 2029, David Byrne must be at the top of the list.
