Songoftheday 2/18/15 - I'm wearin' fur pajamas, I ride a hot potato...

"Wild Wild Life" - Talking Heads
from the album True Stories (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7

Today's Song of the Day comes from the art-rock band Talking Heads, who landed a surprise top-10 pop hit in 1983 with the quirky hipster funk of "Burning Down The House". Two years later, their follow-up album, Little Creatures, was a masterpiece of pop-rock goodness, but the big single from the project, "And She Was", only manage to climb to the halfway point on the Hot 100. In 1986, lead singer David Byrne appeared in the indie-style movie True Stories, along with future Rosanne TV husband John Goodman, and Tony (and future Emmy) award-winning comedic actress Swoosie Kurtz. Naturally, the "Heads" provided the soundtrack to the movie, and returned to pop radio with a song that featured a video with the bandmates playing dress-up like other artists like Billy Idol and Prince. "Wild Wild Life", written by Byrne and produced by the band with Andy Jax, nabbed them two MTV video awards...

"Wild Wild Life" became the Talking Heads' third and final top-40 pop hit in December of 1986, while scaling to #4 on the Mainstream Rock radio chart in Billboard magazine (their biggest hit on that format). Internationally, the single did even better, landing in the top-10 in Ireland and #2 in New Zealand, though in England (Byrne's native country) the track stopped below the top-40 at #43.

The band would come back in 1988 with Naked, which had a few songs with Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr, and while they would hit the top-5 on the rock chart with "(Nothing But) Flowers", they were put off by pop radio (which then was soaked in teen-pop and proto-new-jack). They would split soon after a soundtrack minor rock hit with "Sax and Violins" in 1991 (#49 Mainstream Rock). While Byrne would go solo, the remaining members reunited without him for a No Talking, Just Head album with guest vocalists. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, coming together for just that night to perform.


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While the Talking Heads didn't play the song live, Byrne resurrected the hit on his tour with alt-rock star St. Vincent...

Up tomorrow: British new waver is apprehensive of your understanding of his commitment.