"Life During Wartime" | ||||
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Single by Talking Heads | ||||
from the album Fear of Music and The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads | ||||
B-side | "Electric Guitar" (1979) | |||
Released |
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Genre | ||||
Length |
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Label | Sire | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) |
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Talking Heads singles chronology | ||||
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Alternative release | ||||
Official audio | ||||
"Life During Wartime" (2005 Remaster) on YouTube |
"Life During Wartime" is a song by the American new wave band Talking Heads,released as the first single from their 1979 album Fear of Music . [2] It entered the US Billboard Pop Singles Chart on November 3,1979,and peaked at number 80,spending a total of five weeks on the chart. [3]
The song is also performed in the 1984 film Stop Making Sense ,which depicts a Talking Heads concert. The performance featured in the film prominently features aerobic exercising and jogging by David Byrne and background singers. The Stop Making Sense live version of the track is featured in the film's accompanying soundtrack album. Its official title as a single,"Life During Wartime (This Ain't No Party... This Ain't No Disco... This Ain't No Foolin' Around)",makes it one of the longest-titled singles. [4]
The song is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. [5]
In David Bowman's book This Must Be the Place:The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century Byrne is quoted as describing the genesis of the song:
David wrote nine of the album's eleven tracks. Two numbers came out of jamming. The first would be called "Life During Wartime." David's lyrics describe a Walker Percy-ish post-apocalyptic landscape where a revolutionary hides out in a deserted cemetery, surviving on peanut butter. "I wrote this in my loft on Seventh and Avenue A," David later said, "I was thinking about Baader-Meinhof. Patty Hearst. Tompkins Square. This a song about living in Alphabet City." [6]
Record World called it "a brilliant futuristic treatise on urban guerilla warfare." [7]
AllMusic's Bill Janowitz reviewed the song, calling attention to its nearness to funk, saying that it is a "sort of apocalyptic punk/funk merge" comparable to Prince's later hit single "1999". [8] In 2012, The New Yorker described "Life During Wartime" as, "an apocalyptic swamp-funk transmission in four-four time," adding "[it] is the band’s pinnacle, and the song is still a hell of a thing to hear." [9]
The lyrics are told from the point of view of someone involved in clandestine activities in the U.S. (the cities Houston, Detroit, and Pittsburgh are mentioned) during some sort of civil unrest or dystopian environment. [8]
The line "This ain't no Mudd Club or CBGB" refers to two New York music venues at which the band performed in the 1970s. [8]
"The line 'This ain't no disco' sure stuck!" remarks Byrne in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads . "Remember when they would build bonfires of Donna Summer records? Well, we liked some disco music! It's called 'dance music' now. Some of it was radical, camp, silly, transcendent and disposable. So it was funny that we were sometimes seen as the flag-bearers of the anti-disco movement."
"Life During Wartime" is widely regarded as one of the band's best songs. In 2023, American Songwriter ranked the song number nine on their list of the 10 greatest Talking Heads songs, [10] and in 2024, Paste ranked the song number four on their list of the 30 greatest Talking Heads songs. [11]
Chart (1979) | Peak position |
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US Billboard Hot 100 [14] | 80 |
An alternative mix of the song, featuring prominent guitar playing by Robert Fripp, was released on the 2005 compilation Talking Heads and the 2005 expanded CD reissue of Fear of Music. At 4:07 this version of the song is longer and does not fade out as early, with extra verses that are not heard in the original.[ citation needed ]
The Staple Singers covered this song on their eponymous 1985 album. [16] [17]
Talking Heads were an American rock band that began performing under that name in 1975 in New York City. The band was composed of David Byrne, Chris Frantz (drums), Tina Weymouth (bass) and Jerry Harrison. Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed groups of the '80s," Talking Heads helped to pioneer new wave music by combining elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with "an anxious yet clean-cut image"; they have been called "a properly postmodernist band."
David Byrne is a Scottish-American musician, writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He was a founding member, principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American new wave band Talking Heads.
Fear of Music is the third studio album by the American new wave band Talking Heads, released on August 3, 1979, by Sire Records. It was recorded at locations in New York City during April and May 1979 and was produced by Brian Eno and Talking Heads. The album reached number 21 on the Billboard 200 and number 33 on the UK Albums Chart. It spawned the singles "Life During Wartime", "I Zimbra", and "Cities".
Jeremiah Griffin Harrison is an American musician, songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur. He began his professional music career as a member of the band the Modern Lovers, before becoming keyboardist and guitarist for the new wave group Talking Heads. In 2002, Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Talking Heads.
True Stories is a 1986 American satirical musical comedy film directed by David Byrne, who stars alongside John Goodman, Swoosie Kurtz, and Spalding Gray. The majority of the film's music is supplied by Talking Heads. A soundtrack album, titled Sounds from True Stories, featured songs by Byrne, Talking Heads, Terry Allen & The Panhandle Mystery Band, and others. Around the same time, Talking Heads released an album titled True Stories, composed of studio recordings of songs featured in the film.
"Have a Cigar" is the third track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. It follows "Welcome to the Machine" and on the original LP opened side two. In some markets, the song was issued as a single. English folk-rock singer Roy Harper provided lead vocals on the song. It is one of only three Pink Floyd recordings with a guest singer on lead vocals, the others being "The Great Gig in the Sky" (1973) with Clare Torry and "Hey Hey Rise Up" (2022) with Andriy Khlyvnyuk. The song, written by Waters, is his critique of the rampant greed and cynicism so prevalent in the management of rock groups of that era.
"There's No Business Like Show Business" is an Irving Berlin song, written for the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun and orchestrated by Ted Royal. The song, a slightly tongue-in-cheek salute to the glamour and excitement of a life in show business, is sung in the musical by members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in an attempt to persuade Annie Oakley to join the production. It is reprised three times in the musical.
Speaking in Tongues is the fifth studio album by the American rock band Talking Heads, released on June 1, 1983, by Sire Records. After their split with producer Brian Eno and a short hiatus, which allowed the individual members to pursue side projects, recording began in 1982. It became the band's commercial breakthrough and produced the band's sole US top-ten hit, "Burning Down the House", which reached No. 9 in the Billboard Chart.
"Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now" is a popular song written by bandleader and occasional songwriter Milton Kellem The first known recorded version was released in 1951 by Roy Hogsed. Since then it has been done in several styles and tempos.
"This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" is a song by new wave band Talking Heads. The closing track of their fifth studio album Speaking in Tongues, it was released in November 1983 as the second and final studio single from the album; a live version would be released as a single in 1986. The lyrics were written by frontman David Byrne, and the music was written by Byrne and the other members of the band, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison.
The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads is a double live album by the American new wave band Talking Heads, released in 1982 by Sire Records. The first LP features the original quartet in concert and radio recordings in 1977 and 1979, and the second LP features the expanded ten-piece lineup that toured in 1980 and 1981.
"Once in a Lifetime" is a song by the American new wave band Talking Heads, produced and cowritten by Brian Eno. It was released in January 1981 through Sire Records as the lead single from the band's fourth studio album, Remain in Light (1980).
"Walk On By" is a song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for singer Dionne Warwick in 1963. Warwick's recording of the song peaked at number 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Cash Box Rhythm and Blues Chart In June 1964 and was nominated for a 1965 Grammy Award for the Best Rhythm and Blues Recording.
"Take Me to the River" is a 1974 song written by singer Al Green and guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges. Hit versions were recorded by Syl Johnson, Talking Heads and Delbert McClinton. In 2004, Green's original version was ranked number 117 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Green's 1974 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.
"Hot Stuff" is a song by English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, for their 1976 album Black and Blue.
"Old Time Rock and Roll" is a song written by George Jackson and Thomas E. Jones III, with uncredited lyrics by Bob Seger. It was recorded by Seger for his tenth studio album Stranger in Town. It was also released as a single in 1979. It is a sentimentalized look back at the music of the original rock 'n' roll era and has often been referenced as Seger's favorite song. The song gained renewed popularity after being featured in the 1983 film Risky Business. It has since become a standard in popular music and was ranked number two on the Amusement & Music Operators Association's survey of the Top 40 Jukebox Singles of All Time in 1996. It was also listed as one of the Songs of the Century in 2001 and ranked No. 100 in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Songs poll in 2004 of the top songs in American cinema.
Brooklyn Dreams were an American singing group of the late 1970s, mixing R&B harmonies with contemporary dance/disco music and best known for a number of collaborations with singer Donna Summer. The band consisted of Joe "Bean" Esposito, Eddie Hokenson and Bruce Sudano. Esposito provided lead vocals for the band and played guitar, while Sudano played keyboards and Hokenson played drums and occasionally sang lead vocals.
"Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" is a song by American rock band Talking Heads. It is the first track on their 1980 album Remain in Light.
"Cities" is a single, released in 1980, by the American new wave band Talking Heads. It is the fourth track on the 1979 album Fear of Music.
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