Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Train of Thought Lounge: Talking Heads & Al Green

I don't know about you, but we here at The Train of Thought have been really into 80's music recently. It's hard to explain exactly what has drawn us back to this particular era. Perhaps it's an attempt to re-connect to a time in which we were really too young to understand what was going on in the world, or maybe listening to the music of yesteryear better helps us put today's music into proper perspective. Whatever it is, we just can't get enough of the awesomely bad sounds of the 80's, ranging from Journey to Foreigner and yes, even to Hall & Oates.

However, one 80's group that doesn't quite fit into the "awesomely bad" category is the Talking Heads. David Byrne was just the epitome of cool, while simultaneously being kind of a nerd (as Lisa Simpson once remarked) and was also so far ahead of his time musically. Talking Heads were popular among a wide array of listeners, mainly because a lot of their songs fit a lot of different moods and really can't be classified into one simple genre.

One of my absolute favorite jams of theirs is "Take Me To The River," a song in which Byrne exhibits his smokier, funkier, more soulful side.

Take Me To The River (Remastered LP Version ) - Talking Heads

Well, one reason this song showed a lot more funk and soul than other Talking Heads material would be the fact that this is actually a cover! I had no idea this was the case until about two weeks ago when an Al Green song came on XM satellite radio and I recognized that all too familiar refrain, and as it turned out the original version of "Take Me To The River."

Take Me to the River - Al Green

The original is somewhat more up-tempo and the blaring horns give it that distinct old-school feel. Both songs are incredible though and it is one of my favorite things in life when a cover stands up equally well to an original (i.e. Foo Fighters' on-point version of Prince's "Darling Nikki").

What do you think?

1 comment:

  1. It's hard to pick a winner here, both equally tight. And I forgot about what Lisa/David Byrne thing... hilarious!

    ReplyDelete