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.

It’s the end of an era.

Mark Volman of the Turtles has died at age 78.

Volman was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2023. Tragic.

With Howard Kaylan, the Turtles had a massive hit, “Happy Together.” The song wasn’t written by them, but their version propelled them on to the Ed Sullivan Show twice.

Their other hits included a cover of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe” and their own “Elenore,” which was a send up of the still ubiquitous “Happy Together.”

Volman and Kaylan toured a comedy rock act called “Flo and Eddie” for decades after the Turtles. They were a cult hit, embraced by a huge audience. They often toured with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

But “Happy Together” was their calling card. It’s amazing to think they were just 20 years old when that song hit the radio — at the same as the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper — and never stopped.

Condolences.

Justin Bieber’s new “Swag II” album is a bizarre combination of things.

The album boasts a seven minute, forty six second spoken word track written his sketchy religious leader Judah Smith.

It also has a stick on the cover Warning of Explicit Lyrics.

“Swag II” is the surprise follow up album to “Swag,” which has been a huge sales disappointment all summer. No one asked for a sequel but here it is.

The album is sort of anti-music. Very little on it is remarkable even with dozens of writers and producers credited throughout. It’s amazing how many people is can take to come up with basically, nothing.

The one song that stood out for me was “Mother in You,” in which Bieber — who doesn’t seem to have an inner life — sings to his baby son, Jack, about seeing his wife, Jack’s mother Hailey, in him. It’s very affecting and heartfelt, so different than almost everything else Bieber offers.

Will “Swag II” fare any better than “Swag I”? The two albums are actually being packaged together as “Swag II,” which makes about as much sense as anything else.”Swag I” has sold 430,000 copies, almost all from streaming. The album has yielded just 8,970 paid downloads. No physical copies were manufactured.

PS All of this is pretty minor after seeing the “Hamilton” Movie this week. You wanna hear songs? These can’t even be compared.

Well, it’s about time.

We are finally at the 50th anniversary of Elton John’s “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.”

This was the first album ever to debut at number 1 on Billboard and Cashbox, long before the trend that exists now.

And why not? At the time, Elton was having hit after hit. He’d just had “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” which was preceded by “Tumbleweed Connection,” “Madman Across the Water,” and “Honky Chateau.”

“Captain Fantastic” had a massive hit off the album with “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” At the same time, he had two hits that weren’t on the album, and now they will be: “Philadelphia Freedom” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (one of the best covers ever not just of a Beatles song).

Elton says: “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy was the first album I’d ever made that was autobiographical, and it was the first time we’d gone into the studio with all the songs already written. Seeing it go to No. 1 faster than anything I’d ever released felt like vindication, like the culmination of everything Bernie and I had fought for back in those bedsits in London.”

Coming October 24th, with an accompanying 28-page booklet features never-before-seen entries from Elton’s personal diary.

By the way, 50 years later Elton and Brandi Carlile have what should be a Grammy nominated album with “Who Believes in Angels?” A total hit, and just as good as Elton’s classics!

Here’s the track list for the 2CD’s:

Disc 1:
“Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
“Tower of Babel”
“Bitter Fingers”
“Tell Me When the Whistle Blows”
“Someone Saved My Life Tonight”
“(Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket”
“Better Off Dead”
“Writing”
“We All Fall In Love Sometimes”
“Curtains”
“Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”
“One Day at a Time”
“Philadelphia Freedom”
“House of Cards”

Disc 2:
“Tell Me When the Whistle Blows” (Session Demo)
“Captain Fantastic Take 1” (Session Demo)
“Writing” (Session Demo)
“We All Fall In Love Sometimes” (Session Demo)
“Captain Fantastic Take 2” (Session Demo)
“Bitter Fingers” (Session Demo)
“Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” (Captain Fantastic Live 2005)
“Bitter Fingers” (Captain Fantastic Live / 2005)
“Tell Me When The Whistle Blows” (Captain Fantastic Live 2005)
“Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Captain Fantastic Live 2005)
“(Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket” (Captain Fantastic Live 2005)
“Better Off Dead” (Captain Fantastic Live 2005)
“We All Fall In Love Sometimes / Curtains” (Captain Fantastic Live 2005)