“Pick me up and turn me round”
#6.
Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)(3717 Points, 20 Votes, One #1 Vote)Release Year: 1983
Chart Peak: #62 (US), #51 (UK)
Found On:
Speaking in TonguesAll Music Review: An unabashedly sweet and romantic song from a songwriter known mostly for his cynical and satirical lyrics often featuring distrustful, paranoid, psychotic, and even murderous narrators. "This Must Be the Place" sounds like the work of a writer confident in his ability to pen a song celebrating the simple beauty of domestic tranquillity -- bliss, even. David Byrne seems to take off his myriad masks, no longer acting out the characters that people many of his earlier songs, and offers a peek into his happy home. Though this being Byrne, of course there is that ever-present edge that remains; the listener is not quite sure whether to trust the singer until the end of the song, when the singer himself finally succumbs, head-over-heels in an love that is no longer in doubt. The song is the sort of happy-sounding, light-dance groove that Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz specialized in with their side group, Tom Tom Club. In fact, the whole band is given writing credit for the music, as they were on the bulk of the previous studio album, Remain in Light (1980). Frantz either loops his simple 4/4 beat or plays it remarkably steady. Sequenced staccato synth parts and percussion embellishments pepper the arrangement. While the band continues in the spirit of musical experimentation that was so challenging and simultaneously rewarding on the previous few Brian Eno-produced records, "This Must Be the Place" and the album, Speaking in Tongues (1983), in general sound less dense and assaulting than their immediate predecessors; the sound of the song is actually quite airy and sparse. The album proved to be the band's best-selling thus far, and the song was included on the group's best-of compilations and the commercially successful Stop Making Sense (1984). Byrne sings "This Must Be the Place" with the same amount of passion with which he delivered songs like "Life During Wartime," though now he is not singing as a survivalist or anti-government operative, but apparently, as himself -- in love and happy to be home, though not without a certain measure of insecurity and guardedness. He seems to be reluctant to give himself up completely, disbelieving that he has found such joy: "Home is where I want to be/But I guess I'm already there/I come home -- she lifted up her wings/Guess that this must be the place/I can't tell one from another/Did I find you, or you find me?/There was a time before we were born/If someone asks, this is where I'll be...where I'll be." He really digs deep vocally and emotionally for the song's climactic, "Out of all those kinds of people/You got a face with a view/I'm just an animal looking for a home/Share the same space for a minute or two/And you love me till my heart stops/Love me till I'm dead/Eyes that light up, eyes look through you/Cover up the blank spots/Hit me on the head." The bittersweet melody and freshly expressed sentiment stir the heart. Byrne successfully spins his own unique version of a love song after seeming to avoid the genre for the better part of four LPs. It is no wonder that "This Must Be the Place" could be used as a wedding song, as it was by some friends. But who would have predicted such a use for a Talking Heads song in the late '70s/early '80s? It marked the beginning of a trend for Byrne, who continued to offer his take on family life on the band's next studio album, Little Creatures (1985).
Rank in Round One Voting: #10
Ranked Highest By: phlowtron (#1)
Also Ranked By: Bruegel (#3), RoBKoZ (#4)
sorry i've been out of the country for 3 weeks and was beginning to think this got snubbed while catching up on the last twentysome pages. pshew!
