Neilson Barnard/Getty Pictures; Jackie Lay/NPR
Neilson Barnard/Getty Pictures; Jackie Lay/NPR
Singer-songwriter and Speaking Heads frontman David Byrne tends to skip vacation present exchanges, however he is making an exception this yr for an outdated good friend from Santa Fe whom he plans to go to over the Christmas break. Byrne and his good friend used to trade faxes with one another again within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties. “And so my Christmas present to him — he would not know this but — is I am bringing again to him all of the faxes that he despatched me for his archives,” Byrne says. “They’re very idiosyncratic, and type of humorous.”
Byrne has a present for Contemporary Air listeners, too: a playlist of a few of his favourite vacation music. He describes it as “one thing that can carry a bit of pleasure to the vacations.” Simply do not go in search of something by Speaking Heads — Byrne says the band by no means needed to make a vacation album.
“On one hand, Christmas songs are perennial … so that you’re type of you are set in your music royalties or no matter,” he says. “But when it would not click on, you have simply received this embarrassing factor.”
Speaking Heads might not have a vacation music, however Byrne does: Final yr, he launched “Fats Man’s Comin’,” a barely twisted tackle the custom of songs about Santa Claus, which he consists of right here. Hear our chat with Byrne about his vacation playlist, as nicely some tales about every music, on the audio hyperlink above. Highlights from our dialog observe beneath, together with full streaming playlists of his picks.
Highlights from David Byrne’s playlist
David Byrne, “Fats Man’s Comin'”
I typically generally tend to take issues a bit of bit actually. So I seemed on the complete Santa phenomena and mentioned, nicely, what if I simply described this precisely as what’s taking place? Here is a stranger who’s sneaking, breaking into your home, principally, leaving packages — and wearing a somewhat unusual outfit. I believed, what if I simply write that? The association is by a man named Jherek Bischoff that I might labored with earlier than, and his association is fairly unimaginable, actually type of catches the flavour of what I am getting [at], this form of barely ominous description of what Santa is as much as.
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, “Fairytale of New York”
It is an incredible music. [The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan was] an incredible songwriter. It is a duet with Kirsty MacColl, anyone that I labored with on a few information, and it is extremely transferring and type of brings you to tears each time you hear it. He paints an image of this bickering couple that really love each other very a lot, immigrants who’ve come to New York and are discovering a tough time of it, getting their footing.
James Brown, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto”
It is a basic. This was throughout the interval the place James Brown was truly beginning to make some social commentary in a few of his songs. However though he is making this type of pointed commentary about economics and inequality, he can not help it however put it to a cool beat. There is a pleasure within the funky beat and the way danceable it’s that, in a method, is a response to the criticism within the lyrics.
LCD Soundsystem, “Christmas Will Break Your Coronary heart”
I’ve had holidays the place I have been fully alone, not precisely by alternative. It wasn’t like, oh, I do not need to see anybody. It was identical to, all people was gone — and I used to be left consuming a turkey TV dinner. That occurs to fairly lots of people. I do not know what it’s; possibly it is simply this type of enforced pleasure that we’re presupposed to really feel that [makes] folks type of really feel like, “Wait a minute, you possibly can’t inform me to be glad!” And we’ve James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem doing a music known as “Christmas Will Break Your Coronary heart,” which in some instances may be very, very true.
Paul Simon, “Getting Prepared for Christmas Day”
I am a Paul Simon fan, particularly his more moderen information. The final 5 information or so, I feel are a few of the greatest issues he is ever executed. To my understanding, they’re a bit of bit underappreciated; folks go to the older stuff, and I feel a few of the newer stuff he is executed is definitely significantly better. And that is a part of an extended and persevering with custom of Jewish songwriters writing Christmas songs: Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” and Phil Spector did a Christmas file. It is a music that begins off like, hey, we’re all excited, we’re preparing for Christmas. After which it talks about anyone who received deployed to Iraq — fairly sobering ideas. However these are the type of issues that individuals take into consideration throughout the holidays. … That is type of his factor, to have these perky, peppy songs typically, after which the lyrics undercut it.
Heidi Saman and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Daoud Tyler-Ameen tailored it for the online.
