Talking Heads, Psycho Killer

Veering from the book path and into the music space

Photo by Matthew Jungling on Unsplash

If you’re new here, this is Binge, the section of Kindling where I give you my current reading, watching, listening obsessions, and I ask for yours in return. This week I dive deep into a song I first heard over a year ago, and have been madly in love with ever since. I hope you enjoy!

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Earlier this year I discovered the show Mindhunter. It tells the story of the creation of the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI. Until its inception, and the project to profile psychopaths and repeat killers began, the term serial killer had not been invented. Little was known about the people who planned and committed such crimes.

As an 80’s baby, I had no knowledge of this. Like any generation, I naively believed that the world as I know it was something that always existed, or at least existed for hundreds of years. I mean, Jack the Ripper anyone? The crimes themselves weren’t new, but the understanding of the people who perpetrated them can be traced back to that unit and its interviews with known serial killers who were in prison for their crimes at the time.

In Season 1, Episode 2, Holden Ford, the young FBI agent determined to profile series killers (as they were being called by the unit), interviews renowned serial killer Ed Kemper. This leads to the effort by the unit to study psychopaths and serial killers by interviewing them, getting an idea of their methods and motives. The episode ends with Holden and his boss Bill Tench carrying their office belongings in an elevator as it makes its way to the lowest level of the building.

Holden stares straight ahead, Bill stands next to him, waiting as the floors tick down, and down again. A song comes on. First a bass line, low and funky. Then, an electric guitar comes in clear and cool, with a rhythmic strumming pattern. And David Byrne, starts singing.

I can’t seem to face up to the facts

I’m tense and nervous and I can’t relax

I can’t sleep ‘cause my bed’s on fire

Don’t touch me I’m a real live wire

Those are some strange lyrics. You wonder what they could mean. A man strung out on coke? A performer about to go on stage? We’re all pins and needles when the chorus kicks in.

Psycho killer

Qu’est-ce que c’est?

Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better

Run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh-oh-oh

Whoa! I heard that and thought, what a provocative song. I mean, it’s a little wild to sing about a psychopath, right? Especially when you’re just putting it all out there like that. And as a listener I’m being tricked, aren’t I? I’ve got this great bass line, my toes are tapping, my head is nodding to the beat. I like the song, whether I want to or not. (I’ve experienced similar feelings when I listen to Eminem.)

Surely, I thought, this is some mysterious, poetic sleight of hand. This song can’t be about an actual, flesh and blood psycho killer.

But apparently the 70’s weren’t that complicated. The same time that ramped up the popularity of the horror genre also had a lot of room for the macabre and strange in music. David Byrne in later interviews would say that he was inspired to write the song on the basis of this question: what if Randy Newman, singer of the “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” song from Toy Story, and Alice Cooper, the gothic rock star most famously known for “School’s Out”, wrote a song? “Psycho Killer” emerged from that birth place of his imagination.

The song itself was inspired by Alice Cooper, who at the time had a popular album, Billion Dollar Babies. The album was a horror album, dedicated to the shock rock that Cooper became famous for. The lyrics covered themes like necrophilia and sexual harassment.

David Byrne wanted to explore the dark side of humanity, but from a different vein. He wanted to see things through the eyes of the killer, rather than exploring the acts of horror themselves.

I remember I thought, I wanted to write about this dramatic subject in a non-dramatic way. I wanted to write from inside this person’s head. It was not going to be a slasher movie. It was going to be a little bit calmer than that.

—Hyman, Dan. “When Wet Leg Met Wet Leg Superfan David Byrne.” Vulture. August 12, 2022

This was only the second song written by Talking Heads, and of course it went on to be one of their most popular. I’ve heard it in half a dozen movies and shows, and the effect is undeniable. Think of the illusion here, that we tap our heads and dance to a song written from the mind of the real life monsters we fear most.

Then there’s the french, randomly inserted into the chorus, asking What is this or What is it? That little detail was all Byrne’s idea. He wanted the bridge to be sung in a foreign language, but according to Chris Frantz, the drummer for Talking Heads, that didn’t originally go to plan. Byrne asked a Japanese girl to translate the bridge for him, but after she found out the name of the song, she refused to participate. They turned to bandmate Tina Weymouth, asking her to translate it into French since her mother spoke it at home.¹

Ce que j'ai fait, ce soir-là

Ce qu'elle a dit, ce soir-là

Réalisant mon espoir

Je me lance vers la gloire, okay

The translation echoes eerily in my mind.

What I did, that evening

What she said, that evening

Fulfilling my hope

Headlong I go for glory, okay

Absolutely chilling knowing who is thinking those thoughts. The year before the song was released, serial killer Son of Sam pled guilty to eight shootings. Speculation ran that the song was inspired by him. But David Byrne and the band have reiterated in interviews repeatedly that it was a response to Alice Cooper’s horror music, two artists giving their takes on the same subject. Whatever it was, I’m glad I get to hear it.

1. The story of this song is expounded upon wonderfully in this article from American Songwriter.