My Top 2000 Songs #1152: Mind

By 1979's Fear of Music, the Talking Heads had started moving into a more sonically adventurous, Brian Eno-aided direction. I greatly prefer the next year's Remain In Light, which sees that more sophisticated, textured music taken to its logical conclusions, but Fear has plenty of highlights. I tend towards the eerier, slightly trippier tunes, like the previously-noted "Memories Can't Wait," as well as the slithery "Mind" (as opposed to, say, the far better known "Life During Wartime," a continuation of their earlier, more jagged punk-era rock)  Something about the stop-start bassline is wicked cool, and Byrne's vocals have a mysterious edge to them, the whole package wrapped in an updated retro-psychedelia.

But it's also one of those tracks where my enduring affection is sort of an accident of discovery. When I first became aware the Talking Heads early in high school--I'm guessing it was around the time of Remain In Light's release and "Once In A Lifetime" getting some radio play--I biked over to the public library (as was my practice back when my allowance didn't allow for many record purchases) and checked out Fear Of Music, the only LP they had in the stacks. Opening track "I Zimbra" was so weird and alienating that I almost walked away from the band. But then "Mind" started up, and it was refreshingly normal (or at least normal relative to "I Zimbra")--yet still unlike most of the music I'd heard up to that point--and that combination of novelty and (slightly) familiar comfort will always be wrapped up in my emotional response to the track.

Live 1982 (with some weird lead-in):

Live version from The Name Of This Band...:

Strange cover from Landlady: