New Feeling

"New Feeling" is the second track on Talking Heads: 77, the band's debut album. It isn't as ominously memorable as "Psycho Killer," nor as twitchily celebratory as their later, gospel-wired cover of "Take Me To The River," but it quietly establishes the David Byrne persona: observant, slightly overwhelmed, and perpetually uncertain whether the modern world is fascinating or just standing far too close.

The song is known for its stiff, jerky rhythm and David Byrne's distinctive, high-strung vocal delivery. "That was an early one," Byrne told Uncut magazine. "Musically, I was trying to meld some of the things that I had been listening to over the years. I wanted to mix Captain Beefheart with James Brown - jagged, but also frankly, in a very white guy kind of way. I thought, 'Oh, this is good. This is who we are, this is who I am, this mixture of things.' It was trying to meld things that had never been put together before, but that was our record collection."

Lyrically, Byrne describes a state of heightened social awareness: visiting friends, speaking loudly just to be understood, sensing that everyone is suddenly "up in my room." It captures the effort involved in simply being present and comprehensible. Like much of Talking Heads' early work, it treats communication as a strenuous, occasionally baffling activity. "The lyrics were very straightforward, trying to avoid any clichés and just saying what was going through my head," Byrne told Uncut.