David Byrne

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. A while back, David Byrne published a list of protest songs on his website. Billie Holliday's Strange Fruit was on there, so was Bob Marley's Get Up, Stand Up, and also more unusual choices like Merle Haggard's Oki from Muskoki, which, if you've ever heard it is a song not protesting for change, but against change. It's the song protesting protest songs. Needless to say, we loved all this a broken record, and we love David Byrne, going all the way back to his days of the Talking Heads and his brilliant book How Music Works, and a million other genius things he's done over the years. So Rick Rubin and I asked David to sit with us in New York. Rick skyped in from Hawaii and the three of us had a chat about David's list, the earliest test songs he remembers, and what it takes to write a song of protest. Here we are Rick Rubin me in conversation with David Byrne. I'm Malcolm Goldwell. This is broken Record. I have a question, a very naive question. Have you guys ever worked together? No, I don't think as far as I know, we've never even met. No, we've never really, we have never met. Oh wow, I've been a fan from a distance and likewise, but we've never met. So this is historic. This is kind of historic. I mean in the smallest in a small age, in the smallest age. I mean, it's not Neil Armstrong on the moon, but you know it's like, so, does that mean qualifies for your other podcast? Yeah, I'm going to revisit this incident. Yes, say what really happened? Well, welcome David, Thank you for coming on. Thank you, broken record. You had said that you wanted to talk about protest songs, and you've made this list which many of us have been scrutinizing. And can you start by defining what you mean by a protest song? Ah? Yes, okay, this is kind of where I started. Not too many years ago, there was a spate of articles in the press saying everybody's kind of up in arms about the political situation, social situation, polarization, etc. Etc. Where are all the protest songs? What happened was everybody just sitting back and going, Wow, we're just going to wait till this blows over. And I did a little bit of looking, and I thought, they haven't gone anywhere. They're still here. People are writing, and what's more, some of them are big pop hits by big pop artists. So not only have they not gone away, they've become part of the mainstream. And I thought, well, I'll make a little list to prove my point. What do you mean by they've become part of the mainstream. I mean they're now made in such a way that they blend in with other music. Absolutely, if you didn't listen to the words, you might think it was a love song or a big pop hit. The sound of some of the songs, not all. The sound of some of the recent songs that I put on here sounds just like any top twenty, top ten hit that you might hear. And then you listen closer to the lyrics and you realize, oh, this is about something else. Do you think that's a positive development or does it? Yes? I think it's very positive in a certain sense. It shows that these ideas are being discussed and put out and for kind of a general audience, a general public. It's not necessarily a public that is a little rebellious demographic or college students who have time to protest. It's kind of the general adolescent and young pop music listeners. And I thought, well, no, how about that. There's even some that are I would say, to my ears, they sound like straight up Nashville country, not the country that I know you and I might listen to, which is older, but kind of contemporary country music, which sounds more like rock music these days. And I thought you might not have expected to hear those sentiments being expressed coming out of Nashville. What's a good example of what you're talking about in that from your list? Hands Dirty by a group called Delta Rey. It's kind of a bluesy country song and it's about it's sung by a woman, and it's about equal opportunity and empowerment. And what do you mean I'm not suited for the job. I'm totally suited for this job. I can do this job. Or what are you saying? You're not going to listen to what I have to say? You're not? Why is that you're not looking at That's what a lot of the lyrics are. There's a lot of anger in it, but it's really catchy. Now, the obvious response to that is that what a protest song is is constructed like an everyday pop song, You're going to miss it. Like I think of how hard it is for I think musicians, and I would love Rick to respond to this, but I think musicians as a rule overestimate the extent to which people understand the subtlety is in their lyrics. Absolutely. I mean, I think that one that I mentioned, I think it's pretty hard to miss that one if you listen to it at all. It's pretty it's pretty direct. But I absolutely agree. I mean, plenty of politicians have born in the USA not knowing what it's about that it's meant ironically in a certain way. So the rah rah I was born in the USA is kind of meant in an ironic way, which adds another layer of confusion to the understanding of it. I think, yeah, irony is a really hard thing to do in a pop song like that. Shouldn't an ironic protest song be ruled out of the list to protest songs? Can we say that if you are resorting to irony, you're not actually protesting? Well it could be, It could be, but I would just say it's really hard to pull it off so that it actually people. As you said, people really have to understand the lyrics. Yeah, they really have to be listening to the lyrics, say of that Springsteen song. It's also a subversive trick in that it allows the song to go places that the more direct protest song couldn't go. But the very fact I was thinking about this, you know, the I notice on your list is Randy Newman's Rednecks, which is it's funny because in my revision's history, I have a whole thing on that song. This is that one song, yes, which I'm so obsessed with. But at one point I interviewed Ready Nowone about it and he said, now, there is a song that is ironic and just the way you're talking about Rick. But he stopped playing it live because he'd play it in the South and the rednecks would all start shouting for him to play Rednecks, which is a song which is critical of rednecks, which and that criticism, that ironic criticism, ironically escape the redneck. At a certain point, you have to say, it's like, isn't it feudile to do a protest song that the subjects of the protest consider to be a celebration. I think it happens pretty often. Actually, there's an example I could think of from punk rock. Black Flag had a song called TV Party, which was a sarcastic song about people who just sit around and watch TV all day instead of going out and changing the world like Black Flag were doing. Yet it became an Eventually, even when Black Flag would play it, the people in the audience would cheer, not at the sarcasm of it, but the idea of we just want to have a TV party, Like it completely reversed. It was amazing to watch. Was it amazing to watch? You're depressing to watch? I found it entertaining. I'm going to ask you guys about some other songs that I put in. I put in some songs that were well, some will be familiar, like Oki from Muskoki put in some others like that. And there's one called Rednecks, White Sox and Blue Ribbon Beer, which is again kind of a there that one is celebrating for a redneck thing. So in Okay from Muskok, who's doing the same thing in another way, And I thought, these are songs that are protesting from the other side, not the side of Bob Billin or all that. And they're saying, wait a minute. Our way of life has a value. Our way of life. We have things that we believe in. We don't want it totally turned upside down. I was reminded when I was looking at those songs. There's a famous essay by a black historian called the whole Country is Southern, or the whole U the whole country is now Southern, which is or something like that, which is a famous statement made by George Wallace. George Wallace in the early seventies, when he runs for president, he starts to get people from around the country sending him letters saying that they agree with him. And what he meant by that was the whole US is Southern now is that the argument of the Southerner was that we ought to think about racial politics in personal terms and not structural terms, and that once America bought that line that this is all just about people getting along, not about reforming institutions and laws, they would win. The white Southern protest song is very often that kind of song. It's a song that personalizes structural injustice. And I consider those kind of personal protest songs to be illegitimate protest songs. I think I have a Marxist position that a protested to be a protest song has to protest unjust institutions, and if all you're doing is saying people are not nice to each other, like, I don't think that Sunday Bloody sunday's a protest. I know you like you too, that's a why can't we all get a long song? I don't. It's not a protest song. Okay, Okay, it's the point. That's a good point. Okay. So I'll pick another country, one which was coming from another point of view, an older country. Don't call on the pill. You would say, this is not protesting an institution. Well, the pill is an institutional. That's an institutional for us. Yeah, it's a So she's saying, you're saying you can't be telling me what to do anymore because now I've got the pill. Yeah. I wonder do we think that the purpose of a protest song is to change somebody's mind who has a different opinion, or is the purpose of a protest song to rally the like minded people around something they already believe. I think the second one is what whether it's that's what the intention is or not. I think that's what it ends up doing it ends up creating a community by saying and people go, yes, I believe that, and look there's somebody else that believes that, and they wrote a song about it. So there's two of us now. Yeah, so it helps the tribe feel more like a tribe. Yeah, that's what I think. Would that makes that sounds right in a roundabout way, that causes larger change. Once the tribe recognizes itself, then that then things can happen after that. Yeah. You know, there's a phenomenon in social science where the biggest obstacle to people to social change is that the people who are might be motivated to change radically underestimate the kinds of the number of people who feel like they do. So. For example, if you ask college students how many college students binge drink? There in many cases historically their estimates were way higher than the actual number. They thought it was the norm to binge drink and felt weird and left out if they didn't, and then they were informed, actually, you have weel majority of college students do not binge drink, and kids like, oh, I'm part of the majority. So a protest song can have that function. This is what you're saying, I guess is that it can alert people to a position and let them know they're not alone in I was thinking of do you remember a song? And I forgotten new sang it? A British new wave song from the eighties called sing if You're Glad to Be Gay? Oh? Who did that song? Oh? What's his name? Robertson, Tom roberts I'm Robertson. Do you remember this song? Rick? I don't sing if You're Glad to be gay? Sing if You're happy? That way, I've now rendered it completely and a nine. And the point of that song was that for it made it okay. I mean my interpretation of it was it at a time when it was difficult for people to celebrate their sexuality, he sort of legitimized it. He was talking about his homosexuality, his sexuality, not in a defensive way or an angry way, but in a celebratory way. That was why that song was such a radical I don't know if I'm getting it wrong. No, no, no, I agree, I totally agree. I think it was also had to do it the way he'd looked and thinks he didn't fit any of the stereotype gay stereotypes. Yeah, he looked like just another punk rocker or new wave rocker or whatever. But there that had that function that you're talking about of It was a rallying point for people who might otherwise be isolated or disaffected from their from their cause. But I'm still not satisfied that we have an answer as to why this question of who is the audience for a protest? So does this suggest that it when enough protests and gets an audience, it's in spite of its protests, not because of it, Like we just are we just drawn to what's going on because it's a beautiful song sung by you know, an extraordinary saying. I think if it's not a beautiful song, regardless of the content, we probably wouldn't be drawn to it. It has to function successfully as a song first before the message. The message is additional, but the message is rarely going to carry the weight of the work of the song. But when you're producing a song, if someone came to you with a I mean it could well happen. Someone you're working with comes to you has written an angry song about Donald Trump or some you know, would the lyrical content and the message change the way you would produce that song the way you help them craft its final thing. It's very unlikely. It's very unlikely that the content would would dictate. Do you ever have an experienced David of working on a song where you've musically changed it based on the lyric. I had a song that's not very well known, but it was one of those ironic ones where I wrote what to me seemed like a republican anthem, and I thought I was being very ironic, and I tried it as like a fascist rally style and worked with the guys from Devo, and then I tried in another style where it was more like this beautiful brass arrangement. Both of them completely ironic, and both of them, I think, in their own way, failed in that way. Wait what was the song? It's called Empire, but wait what album is it on? I was Grown Backwards is the name of the album. But it's fun. But I think in that sense, I tried to adjust the music to fit what I was saying, and I think it just made it more ironic than ever. We can't prevail on you to sing like two lines of it. Come on, give us a little flavor of it. National elections, it was something on ha with stirring emotions. As I've filled this guy in Democratic Fee for National Defense. So there you go. I like those two last two lunes. I like, we'll be back with more on protest music with our guest David Byrne after this break, We're back with more. David Byrne. I think I have an example of a protest song. It sounds like a protesting ready Okay, Peter Gabriel Bico, m h. It's a lament. The chorus is a searing personal lament. There's nothing pretty it is. It is a beautiful song. There is no way to listen to that song without understanding that it's a protesting Yes, but that but the very fact that I can think of only one is I think maybe proof of this point. Can you can you think of any others that are maybe Mississippi goddamn? Oh mm hmm. That that that really reeks of protest? Yes, yes, yeah. She announces the name of the song before she sings it, and you just go, okay, here we go. Yeah, I know what you're in for. We were talking before and someone I've forgotten new my apologies said, there's a Charlie minga song about Governor Farbus of Arkansas. Oh yeah, yeah, which he just you just sort of I have heard it fables of Faubus or fables of Fabus, that's right. Yeah, that would also hit into the category of one with there's no ambiguity. You know this video that is going around done by this sweet Masons of Once in a Lifetime putting Donald Trump, have you heard? Oh? Yes, I seen? Do you know this right? No? So someone will you tell David tell us what you might have sent it to me? Someone sent it to me. It's a they've done that CG trick where they can put Donald Trump's face on top of mine and kind of I think, just run the video all the way through, but instead it's a Donald Trumps instead of me, And I thought this is actually pretty funny. People were saying, you got to tell him to take this down. You take this down. More than that, it's that they go through Donald Trump's speeches and take out all the words where he appears to be saying it. Yeah he So they have once in a you know, once in a lifetime, they have Donald Trump. They found a once, they found an inn, they found an ad and they found a lifetime. So he's actually singing a song. It's like, it's kind of fantastic. Yeah, it's very clever as he bounces up and down in that. Yeah. I don't know what what particular protest song category that belongs to, but we're deep into c g I irony at this point. I have a question. I think to myself, now, if I were to write a song that dealt with an issue or of some sort like that, that I would put it in someone's mouth, as some of these songwriters and singers do. I would try and tell a story through a character and have them personify an injustice or whatever it had happened. Rather than me yelling and saying this is unjust, this is unfair, this is wrong whatever like that, you just tell the story and then let the audience make the conclusion, which again could be so what is that about? But you would hope that it would be more moving because it it has a narrative to it, and some of these people do that. Sever Earl's Billy Austin. Yes, that's really great at that. But this is an interesting question, which is that there is so little third person narration in popular music, which is weird only when you consider that in fiction, that's basically all there is. Some exceptions, the overwhelming. You would think there would be a thousand songs of filled with characters saying things, but there's very few. Ranny Newman does it in country. They do it from time to time, but there's very little of this way of storytelling, which I've never understood. Why is it? Is it hard? It's just different. I think most musicians think of it as expressing their true selves, and I think the jump to that using a fictional character to present your true self is a step that a lot of musicians don't take. Bruce Springsteen probably comes to mind as someone who really does it well. He often portrays a character in his songs. But it's true that I think for a lot of songwriters and singers it's deemed to be inauthentic if you're not singing about yourself. Yeah, I mean, but that's ridiculous. Well okay, but no, this is an interesting question. I understand on an emotional level why they would, but that's not what fiction writers think. Yes, and it gets even more complicated because a lot of pop songs are written in the first person, where it's I did this and under that and they're not the person that's singing it didn't. It's written by a professional writer or somebody. You have no idea who they are, and so there's a feeling that if the singer does it really well, it feels like it's their story that they're telling, but it's not. Is this why covers are as appealing as they are, because you have a prior relationship with the song that they're singing, often with the person who wrote the song singing at first. It's clear then that the person covering the song is in character. Is that a fair statements to why we like covers as much as we do. That's a good idea, I'm not sure, because when you hear someone sing a song that you're familiar with, you think of the song as the content, but you don't necessarily think of it as the person spilling their guts. If it's an already familiar song, it's more like, this is the way I would do this song if I wrote it. It's more like a demonstration of a musical angle or a direction, then necessarily making it sound like the person who wrote it. There are there are occasions where cover songs hit the mark so well. The first one that comes to mind is nothing compares to you the Shade version. I can't imagine. I know Prince wrote the song, but when I think of that song, I think of its as Shanade's song. A lot of people would say that about the song Hurt, the Johnny Cash version. They would just say, he just took it. Now he owns that song, So you would think, yeah, when it's really well done, the fact that it's from somebody else else just dissolves, and you're identifying with something that somebody else wrote. You know what this reminds me of when Iced Tea got in so much trouble for cop Killer, his response was that was a character. And I think in interview he mentioned psycho Killer your song and said the inspiration for cop Killer was psycho Killer. It was just my it was a version. And what was fascinating to me was no one could accept the fact that he was writing in character, whereas with you, it was clear that you weren't writing as a psycho killer. You were talking about a psycho you know. But with him, I wonder whether that was one of the forms in which that One of the things we deny the group that we are excluding is we deny them the full reign of their imagination. As we say, you can only be literal in your music, whereas for people who are on our side of the fence, we will allow them much greater license. Also, if you listen to so much early hip hop, it's packed with fantasy imagery. Very little little of it is face and value of people speaking about their lives. It's usually more paints a picture of this opulent lifestyle than more often than not, those artists were not living but desired, And it wasn't probably until maybe NWA was the first time that the lyrics were like gangsters talking about gang related things. That was the first time we heard that. Prior to that, it was more an arm's length relationship between the content and the artists. Is there a reason why the genre would have started that way and only moved to a more director or authentic form a little later. I think maybe in the early days, I don't know that the people who were making it felt comfortable celebrating that lifestyle. That's a real radical shift. It's one thing to be live in a rough lifestyle and then to sing beautiful songs. There's a long history of people doing that, going back to the Frank Sinatras of the world. But to sing about what's really going on is a It's a kind of a modern idea. Yeah, we'll be back with more David Byrne. After the break, We're back with more David Byrne. Can you guys remember each remember the first protest song you remember hearing in your life. I'm old enough that it was probably in the sixties, mid to late sixties. What comes to mind? I think I might have thought of songs like we Shall Overcome, or Blowing in the Wind or things like that. Blowing in the Wind is mine for sure. Did you know as a child when you first heard those songs that they were necessarily protest songs? Not exactly, I think we shall Overcome? I mean the lyrics says it, but again kind of like BECO. It sounds like a lament. Musically, it sounds yeah, it sounds it almost sounds very sad, and musically it seems to be saying, is this ever going to happen? Did you understand it when you heard it the first time? I think intuitively that conflict I was probably trying to figure it out. Musically, in the sound of it, it sounds like it's saying it's been so long, it's so long and so long, is anything ever going to change? And yet the lyric sounds hopeful. So there was this kind of a tension or contradiction between the music and the lyric, and I think I could sense that, but I probably couldn't figure out, well, what do I what is that? What's about? What's with that? Yeah, that was probably some of the strength of the song was that that juxtaposition. It made it more interesting. I can remember as a kid when I heard like Blown in the Wind. I didn't think of it as a protest song, but I did feel like it had a different kind of power than other music that I couldn't necessarily put my finger on. It did something made me feel something different, And it also had a like, in the case of Blowing in the Wind, there's a timelessness about it where I couldn't imagine the world existing where that song wasn't already in it. You know, I can't imagine there was a time before Blowing in the Wind. It just sounds so so naturally in the world. I do not explain it very well, but but it just sounds like that's something that's always been there, it's part of the natural world. I was just in what came after what songs like that had meaning for you, David? After Dylan? Is there a kind of second wave? Oh yeah, I mean I think after I heard Bob Dylan and stuff like that in the sixties and late sixties and all the other things. Then I started to go backwards. I staid to say, where did this come from? You know, we're he You're hearing Woody Guthrie songs and lead Belly, and there's blues songs that are talking about conditions and social justice and things like that, and you find there's a whole backwards tree of roots and all that of stuff that fed into that, and you realize, oh, it didn't start OU don't know where there was a whole backstory here. When were you, David? When were you doing that? Kind of at what point in your life were you doing that kind of historical did you go backwards and started? This has been right after that. There's been kind of late sixties, early seventies and whatever. And then I remember hearing like sound of Philadelphia songs like the Ojays that were singing about issues and social situations. But they were doing it in a pop song that was that you could dance to it, that had the sense of joy in the music, and which was a big difference from folk singers in the sixties and the pro test music in the sixties. Then you realized, oh, it can feel good and still be saying something you can you don't have to feel bad. You can feel good when you say something that insight seems like it left to mark on your own songwriting. Oh yeah, yeah, I realized, oh, groove can make you want to move your body, and that is sometimes how you get the words and the other stuff in Yeah, like humor, if you can get ideas across through humor that people wouldn't accept if you just kind of set it to him. Are you writing music at starting to write music at the same period or no, not yet. I tried and it was it was terrible. When is very imitative? What were you imitating? I tried to imitate Bob Dylan and stuff like that, and it was just horrible. But you know, very kind of yeah, copycat kind of stuff. How long does it take for your own sound to emerge at least six years later or something like that. It's been while. Is it unusual for so somebody to try try a style and fail. I think that's pretty usual. I think artists normally start by copying the artists they love, and through that practice they can find their own voice. Takes time. Some it happens much quicker, and sometimes it takes much longer, but I think that's an regular trajectory. You don't ever revisit some of that early stuff to you? Does it horrify you that stuff? Yeah? That would be weird, incredibly embarrassing. There's other early stuff that I think holds up okay, where I see like lyrics that I've scribbled down and I go, it's a different guy than who I am now, But there's something there. But yeah, some of the really early attempts are just terrible. Yeah, unrelated to this, but it's just something I'm thinking about. When we talk about the artartists who are primarily protest writers, it seems like the people who listen to them would be that the tribe around them, Whereas the more unusual case, and maybe the one that has the bigger impact, would be like Marvin Gay, Because Marvin Gay went from singing non political songs to all of a sudden having what's going on this very political. So a very popular artist changes what he's singing about to all of a sudden get very political, and it seems more revolutionary than the guy who's always been singing the political songs. Well, the songs are incredibly catchy and there the production is beautiful and you're totally sucked in just by the music alone, and then there's all the young then there's all the lyrics. It's one of the things interesting, like when we think back about The Clash, we really think of them as a political group. Yet if you listen to their songs, maybe maybe a third of them are political, maybe less. You know, so many of the songs are you know, my baby drove up in a brand new Cadillac. You know, there's so many traditional songs mixed in. And I think that that may have played into why The Clash were as as popular and transcendent as they were. Even though we think of them as a political band, it was more that it was a balanced They didn't put the politics before the music. It was just one of their moves to the basket, let's say. And their image was so I just remember the London Calling album cover and just it was it took you aback like they just presented as being so radical and disruptive. They didn't even you know the It's funny you mentioned that about ri because I would have in my memory there everything was political. But you're right, you be surprised if you listen back with that focus, how many songs were not political. Yeah. I always wanted Ruly Giuliani to have his campaign song be Rudy Can't Fail. How did he not do that? That's great? What was there no one in Rudy Giuliani's in a circle who was like, here's your song? I mean, I mean if Reagan can do whoever was whatever Republican person did use born in the USA, then Rudy Giuliani can do Rudy Can't fail. Which is that? May be that may be asking too much of theater circle of Rudy Giuliani. Did either of you guys get to see Neil Young's I think it's called Greendale. It's either Greendale or Greenville. He made an album and then when he performed live, he performed the album in its entirety, with the stage play acting out the songs. I never saw that. I think there's a is there a movie? I think they filmed radio or something. But it was an amazing experience to see. I remember watching it and by the end of it, I was crying and I felt like everybody in that theater was going to leave wanting to take action and do something good. And it was so uplifting and so beautiful. And I can't remember another piece of music having that such a strong connection where you felt like, we need to get involved, we need to take we need to participate. It's really beautiful. What was it. What were the songs about? Variations of saving the planet? Oh? I see? Am I right? That It took place in one town, a small town, and you got to know different people in the town. Yes. And the characters were like Son, I can't remember her name, that one character's name was Sun, and one character's name was something green, meaning for the land. The relationship between these different characters were metaphors for nature and it was really it could sound very corny until you saw it and just got completely wrapped up in the story. It was amazing. Did you see it, David, No, I haven't, because it's what you were talking about, this idea of putting the words into an other characters. Yeah, yeah, I did. One on my last tour that I heard it was a Janelle Monet song called Hell You Tell Them About And basically I heard it like a year or a couple of years ago, and it never ended up on any of her records as far as I know, And it just basically just lists the names of young people. It's mainly male and female who'd been killed by police Trayvon Martin. And the song is just like, say their name, say their name. So it's an act of remembrance and an act of like, don't forget this, don't forget this. So it never analyzes things. It doesn't scream out for justice, but it just said it just is a list of these names and saying, don't forget these names, don't forget these people. These are people. And by putting out the names, it becomes incredibly moving because it kind of puts a face on the issue of what they're trying to say. I found it incredibly moving, so I started doing it as part of my own show. Of course, I asked I thought. I wrote to her and said, what do you think of this kind of kind of older white guy singing this song? She was very happy about it. Does it work about you? It works. People find it very moving, but we put it right at the end of the show and it kind of puts a little bit of a damper on things, and it does kind of kill. It's a little bit of a vibe killer, even though it's very rhythmic. What do you say an introduction to it? I say that it's her song. I say it's a song about change. It's a song about asking people to rethink things, and it has that effect on me. I have to question things for myself, and I leave it at that. People they loved it, but it's not like we're all happy and everybody's everything's fine kind of ending. It's kind of like, no, we got work to do. It's that kind of ending. Many thanks to David Byrne for coming on Broken Record. To see his full list of protest songs, visit David Byrne dot com slash Radio. We'll also put it up on brokenrecord dot com, along with a playlist of all the songs featured in this episode and others. Broken Record is produced by Justin Richmond and Jason Gambrel, with help from Meolabel, Jacob Smith, Julia Barton, Jacob Weisberg, and of course Rick Rubin and Bruce Hadlin. Our broken record theme music is by the great Kenny Beats. The show is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.