My Top 1000 Songs #979: Don't Worry About The Government

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

I keep going back & forth between which song belongs here from Talking Heads:77. Sure, "Psycho Killer" is the best known (and perhaps most band-defining) track off the band's debut, but it suffers from a bit too much overplay. But for me, it comes down to "Don't Worry About The Government" and "Pulled Up." The latter, which closes out the original LP, was probably my favorite upon discovering this record as a teenager, a few years after its release; it's sunny and bright, a nifty little feel-good bop. 

But "Don't Worry About The Government" probably gets the edge for me, if forced to choose; it, too, is a surprisingly buoyant feel-good tune, reminiscent of Jonathan Richman and his early Modern Lovers (from whom Byrne nicked guitarist Jerry Harrison). The sentiment--a lighthearted, guileless appreciation of your friends, your apartment, and even civil service workers--is so boisterously anti-rock & roll, an inverted "Anarchy In The UK" for happy nerds, that it's hard not to find it oddly bemusing. (I'd note that Richman beat Byrne to the government boosterism on the Modern Lovers' "Government Center.")

And, hey, as someone who served as one of those government employees for half my career, it's personal.

But "Pulled Up" is also pretty great. And since they share the flipsides of an old 7" single, maybe I get them both?

Old Grey Whistle Test 1978:

Byrne solo, 1994:

Here's a pretty bizarre cover:

...and another one:

Anyway, just in case I change my mind, here's "Pulled Up":