Burning Down the House

"Burning Down the House"
Standard cover art
Single by Talking Heads
from the album Speaking in Tongues
B-side	"I Get Wild / Wild Gravity"
Released	July 1983
Format	12" CD
Recorded	1982
Genre	New wave pop rock funk
Length	4:00
Label	Sire
Songwriter(s)	David Byrne Chris Frantz Jerry Harrison Tina Weymouth
Producer(s)	Talking Heads
Talking Heads singles chronology
"Life During Wartime (live)" (1982) "Burning Down the House" (1983) "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" (1983)
"Life During Wartime (live)" (1982) "Burning Down the House" (1983) "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" (1983)

"Burning Down the House" is a song by new wave band Talking Heads, released in July 1983 as the first single from their fifth studio album Speaking in Tongues.

Inspiration and composition

"Burning Down the House" is a new wave^[1] and funk^[2] song. "This song started from a jam," says bassist Tina Weymouth in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads. "Chris [Frantz, drummer] had just been to see Parliament-Funkadelic in its full glory at Madison Square Garden, and he was really hyped. During the jam, he kept yelling 'Burn down the house!' which was a P-Funk audience chant, and David [Byrne] dug the line, changing it to the finished version, 'Burning down the house'." (Bernie Worrell of Parliament-Funkadelic joined Talking Heads' live incarnation.)

The initial lyrics were considerably different, however. In an interview on NPR's "All Things Considered" aired on December 2, 1984, David Byrne played excerpts of early worktapes showing how the song had evolved from an instrumental jam by Weymouth and Frantz. Once the whole band had reworked the groove into something resembling the final recording, Byrne began chanting and singing nonsense syllables over the music until he arrived at phrasing that fit with the rhythms—a technique influenced by former Talking Heads producer Brian Eno: "and then I [would] just write words to fit that phrasing... I'd have loads and loads of phrases collected that I thought thematically had something to do with one another, and I'd pick from those."

According to Byrne in the NPR interview, phrases that he tried but ultimately didn't use in the song included "I have another body," "Pick it up by the handle," "You travel with a double," and "I'm still under construction." As for the title phrase in the chorus, one early attempt (as heard on a worktape) had him singing a different line, "What are we gonna do?", and at another point in the process, "instead of chanting 'Burning Down the House,' I was chanting 'Foam Rubber, USA.'"^[3]

Music video

The video, produced and directed by Byrne, alternates primarily between footage of the band performing the song in an empty ballroom, Byrne playing while facing a projection screen that displays a concert crowd or a wall of flames at different times, and images projected on the outside wall of a house. A young boy resembling Byrne takes his place from time to time; eventually, younger counterparts start moving the arms of all four band members to play the music. After the screen goes blank, both young and adult Byrne leave the stage, and the video ends with an extended close-up of Byrne's face projected on a highway at night.

The house used in the video is located on Myrtle Street in Union, New Jersey. Max Illidge (credited as Max Loving), vocalist of the band 40 Below Summer, and Rockets Redglare appear as the younger selves of Byrne and Jerry Harrison, respectively.

Chart performance

"Burning Down the House" became Talking Heads' highest-charting hit single in North America, becoming their lone top ten single on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #9, as well as reaching the top ten in Canada. Despite this success, the song was not a hit outside of North America. In Australia it peaked at a very modest #94, while in the UK, where Talking Heads would release 14 charting singles, it failed to make the charts at all (although a cover version of the song by Tom Jones and The Cardigans would make the UK Top 10 in 1999).

Personnel

Talking Heads

• David Byrne – guitars, lead vocals
• Jerry Harrison – synthesizers
• Tina Weymouth – synth bass
• Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals

Additional personnel

• Wally Badarou – synthesizers
• David Van Tieghem – percussion

Charts

Tom Jones and the Cardigans version

In 1999, singer Tom Jones recorded a version of "Burning Down the House" with the group The Cardigans for his album of collaborations titled Reload. In common with the other tracks on the album, the recording was made with the collaborators' choice of producer and studios, in this case Tore Johansson and Tambourine Studios in Malmö, Sweden. The track was released as the lead single from Reload in September 1999 and became a hit across Europe, reaching number two in Sweden and the top ten in Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom. The single was backed with Jones' live recordings of the EMF song "Unbelievable" and The Beatles' "Come Together", as well as remixes of "Burning Down the House" by Delakota, Pepe Deluxe and DJ Scissorkicks.

As one of the major hits of Jones' later career, it appears on numerous compilations of Jones' work. It also features on The Cardigans' 2008 Best Of album.

Other covers

• A section of the song was covered by "Weird Al" Yankovic on his "Polkas on 45" polka medley.
• Bonnie Raitt on her live album, Road Tested.
• DJ and producer Tiga on his 2006 album, Sexor.
• John Legend on his album Live at SOB's.
• Vienna Boys' Choir on their 2002 album Vienna Boys' Choir Goes Pop.
• Dave Matthews Band has covered the song during its concert tours, debuting the tune at Louisville Slugger Ballpark on August 1, 2008.^[25] They released a version of the song on their live album Live Trax Vol. 15 and played it with Trombone Shorty and Kermit Ruffins at the NFL 2010 Season Opening Kickoff pregame show.
• Heather Luttrell sang this song on Rock Star: INXS.
• Toby Rand sang this song on Rock Star Supernova.
• The Radiators have been covering the song since 2003, and it has become one of their most frequent and popular covers.
• The Used also covered the song in 2009. Their version was featured in the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen soundtrack and in the end credits to the True Blood episode "Burning Down the House".
• Phish covered the song during a concert on August 12, 1998 in Vernon, NY, initially replacing the words in the first refrain of "burning down the house" to "Vernon Downs the house," a reference to the venue at which they were performing.^[26]
• In 2001, bassist Marcus Miller covered the song from his album M².^[27][28]
• Alternative rock band Walk the Moon covered the song for their Tightrope EP in 2013.
• Art-rock band The Observatory covered the song in 2016 live at The Substation.^[29]
• See Spot Run covered the song on their album Pretty Holiday in 2016.
• Lady Gaga covered the song with Mark Ronson in 2016 live at the Met Gala after party.^[30]

References

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
• Music video of the song on YouTube