Remain In Light - Talking Heads

I've often wondered, well at least once, what I would do if I happened to rule the country. Not that I have any plans in this direction you understand, but it could happen. Maybe. Like if they decided to give it away as a prize in a cereal box, for example. Certainly would beat a holiday for two in the Algarve. I think I would make a good premier and would rule with a firm but fair hand. So is it agreed then? Let me know when you want me to start. In the meantime I'd better start drawing up some policies - sensible ones that I will promise AND deliver. That'd make a change.

Top of my list would be to require all citizens to listen to at least one track from 'Remain In Light' every morning, preferably before the compulsory porridge breakfast, but I am flexible - you see I would be a fair leader. I'm not even fussy over which track it should be - the individual can choose. See what a good ruler I'd make. But it has to be this album - how else is everyone going to get an appreciation about what pop music can achieve when it is created rather than manufactured?

It is such a perfect album; polyrhythmic, upbeat, strange, interesting, complex and .....well everything. 'Once In A Lifetime' (which incidentally I'd first heard in the movie 'Down And Out In Beverley Hills') is the most well known song here but the other tracks, more rhythmic jams really, are equally impressive. I challenge anyone to find another song as interesting and damned groovy as 'Crosseyed And Painless'.

I was very fortunate to see David Byrne perform some of these, and other Eno assisted tracks, when he played the Gateshead Sage a couple of years ago. A magical night and a life's ambition fulfilled to hear 'Once In A Lifetime' live.

I hope to be able to repeat this privilege but in the meantime I'm happy to groove along to this. The beat indeed goes on.