Covers: Devo, "Satisfaction" & Talking Heads, "Take Me To The River"

It's a peculiarity of my tastes that I can't fucking stand YouTube videos I can't embed. I like to be able to have the video right damn there for you in the article so it all becomes one part and parcel. It's so distracting to have to ask you to open a link in a new tab while enjoying my site, even though it's the prerogative of the video's owner to do so. But since the only versions of these videos I could find have that setting, I decide I'd rather make do than ignore them completely.

A while back I was scouring the net, as I usually do, for stuff to post here, when I remembered Devo's cover of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones. I always notice how mechanical and unhuman their electrofunk disco-tech sounds, probably on purpose -- not for nothin', they are the type of band that would wonder about the nature of humanity and its place in the world of machines, of televisions and cigarette ads. Mark Mothersbaugh sounds like a man on the edge, trapped in a hostile world with no choice but to live it. "Babybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby..." sounds like pure submission to frustration. Resignation.

But weirdly enough, this made me think of Talking Heads' take on "Take Me To the River." Now, there's no way David Byrne can match Rev. Al Green for raw sex appeal and soul, but he finds his way. The recorded version sounds like a looming threat of being swallowed whole by desire: real ominous and threatening. The version captured for their classic concert film Stop Making Sense, however, is pure release. Every moment of that film is life-affirming, and this performance marks its culmination. You could say Byrne's suit was growing around him, but I thought it looks more like he's shrinking inside it as it threatens to overtake him -- but in this performance he sheds the jacket (and finds a neat ballcap) and shakes his way through those giant pants to become human again, to be reborn, along with the rest of the band as he introduces them by name (note the giant pop for bassist Tina Weymouth, who had earlier performed "Genius of Love" as the Tom Tom Club and is the prototypical sexy female bassist.) Talking Heads augments their sound throughout the film with funk musicians (coincidentally all African-American, if that makes a difference.) I don't know whether Bernie Worrell or Jerry Harrison is playing that organ riff, but that's a real celebration of life. If Mothersbaugh was trapped on the edge, Byrne had gleefully plunged over and howled all the way down.