Like many Talking Heads songs, the lyrics to "Perfect World" are rather abstract, in this case dealing with a relationship between a guy and a girl. Unlike most Talking Heads songs, the lyrics weren't written by frontman David Byrne. Early on, drummer Chris Frantz wrote some lyrics for the band, including "Warning Sign," which appeared on their second album. For their sixth album, Little Creatures, Byrne dug up some lyrics Frantz had written years earlier and used them for "Perfect World." Frantz calls the song "a mini love story."
This is a perfect world I'm riding on an incline Chris Frantz grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where there are two railways that go up steep hills and are known as "inclines" - the Duquesne Incline and the Monongahela Incline. "That's where I got the line, 'I'm riding on an incline,'" he told Songfacts. You'll also find a Pittsburgh reference in the 1979 Talking Heads song "Life During Wartime": Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit? Heard about Pittsburgh, P.A.?
The band never performed this live because they had stopped touring by the time they released the album. This was directive of David Byrne, who felt the band didn't need to perform any more after releasing their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense.
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