While working at the student radio station a few years ago, I got my hands on a copy of The Best of the Talking Heads. For me, it was nice to have these tunes lying about since the “Classic Rock” stations of my past aren’t readily found here. For Anders, it was revelation: this was first time he understood that geeks rock.
For while, we were spinning it daily and the CD is now a standard for any road trip. It was really fun to hear the songs as Anders heard them. We even developed a language to describe the various sounds in Naïve Melody. (I mean, the keyboards obviously say dwee-oo-wee and wee-oo-WEE-oo.) There was a lot of discussion around the lyrics, the squeaking, the hollering and whatever else David Byrne managed to utter.
It was by accident that we learned that Theo liked the album, too. I can’t remember how it started, but Theo became a Talking Heads devotee at the very tender age of 2 months. If he couldn’t sleep, we would start with Psycho Killer and he was out by Slippery People. (It’s true!)
The day care recently asked the parents to bring any CDs that kids liked. The employees were a bit skeptical when we presented the Talking Heads and flabbergasted when Theo started dancing to his favorite tracks. Pretty soon the other tots were bouncing to “Once in a Lifetime” and the adults were singing “Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?” long after the day care closed.
2008 has been a great year, but I gotta admit that corrupting a few very minor minds in favor of Geek Rock has been a highlight. ;)
