Little Creatures
Artist: Talking Heads
Released: June 10th, 1985
Length: 38 minutes 38 seconds
Growing up, I was familiar with “Burnin’ Down the House”, “Psycho Killer”, “And She Was”, and “Once in a Lifetime”, but outside of that I couldn’t say I was a real Talking Heads fan. That completely changed in 2022 when I visited Europe for the first time, specifically Copenhagen. I will never forget this moment as long as I live. I was about to hop on to a little boat that my two close friends and I had rented to drive around on the canals. From a tiny speaker in the boat rental shop I heard the melody of “This Must be the Place".” I thought to myself, I’ve heard this song before, but I couldn’t place it. I quickly shazamed it and saw it was Talking Heads. I knew right then and there that this was just the beginning of a long journey with a band that I have come to admire, adore, and love.
Now, I am well aware “This Must be the Place” is not on Little Creatures, but I decided to write about this album because it was the first Talking Heads album that I got on vinyl and listening through it the first time was an incredible experience. I had to restrain myself from picking up the needle to replay songs. So without further delay, let’s dive into Little Creatures…
Track Listing:
“And She Was”
“Give Me Back My Name”
“Creatures of Love”
“The Lady Don’t Mind”
“Perfect World”
“Stay Up Late”
“Walk It Down”
“Television Man”
“Road to Nowhere”
I think “And She Was” is the perfect song to start the album off with. It begins with David Byrne’s one of a kind voice shouting “Hey!” followed by an upbeat and positive melody. It makes me bop my head and want to float around just like the woman in the song. My friend reintroduced this song to me in college and it quickly became a song that lifted my spirits and brought a smile to my face. When I think about the lyrics, what comes to mind for me is simply just “being.” I think about not letting the stresses of everyday life weigh so heavy that you cannot be yourself. “The world was moving she was right there with it and she was", to me, is an incredibly powerful line that reminds me that the world isn’t slowing down for anyone, so move along with it and “be.” Now from what I understand, David Byrne wrote this song about seeing a woman on LSD, so she may have really been floating above the world (in her world) but I do think the sentiment remains. Don’t do drugs, kids. But do be yourself.
Talking Heads—from left, David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz—in 1983. DEBORAH FEINGOLD/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES
Moving on to “Give Me Back My Name.” I do enjoy this song but in all honesty it is my least favorite song on the album. I’d never skip it on a listen through, but it is not a song that I found myself drawn to. It feels like it has darker, ominous tones to it, but that could be because it follows a super upbeat song. The message I take away from it is the power and non-power of words. Words can hurt deeply, they can heal, and on the flip side they could mean nothing at all. It’s about perspective and how one chooses to interpret what they hear. Am I missing something? Would love to hear in the comments what others think about this song.
“Creatures of Love” moves us right back into the positive, cheerful tone. I love this song for two main reasons. The chorus, and the lyrics. I find it beautiful how Byrne draws out the word creature each time and then the chorus slowing down with a slight break in instruments leading into the lines “from the sleep of reason, a life is born.” I interpret this song as a statement on humans and how we view sex and intimacy. It seems like Byrne is describing love and sex as a creature, or animalistic, activity when reason is sleeping. Thus, little creatures are made. He sings about sex being “alright” and “okay” and “moments of passion” and I view this as Byrne saying it’s ok to have these types of feelings. For the most part, we are reasonable and tame creatures, but creatures nonetheless, that have urges and feelings of lust. It comes with the territory of being human. What I think is most important is choosing “love” instead of “lust,” because ultimately, I think the song is about finding someone to allow you to express these creature feelings and something beautiful being born from that.
I always chuckle a little bit to the opening of “The Lady Don’t Mind” because it reminds me of the intro to Law & Order. Listen to the first few seconds of this song and the Law & Order intro and tell me you don’t hear it. With that being said, this song is much more than a TV intro. Another chorus that is unbelievably catchy and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. What’s great about it too is that you have a full minute and thirty seconds of waiting till it explodes into it. The brass instruments hitting those two notes right before the chorus gives me a dumb smile on my face every time. The “come on, come on” “I know, I see” sung together at the beginning of each line jumps, followed by lyrics that I think are purposely ambiguous. The line that stands out to me most is “I’m not lost but I don’t know where I am” because it gives me my complete interpretation of the song. I view it as an individual, in this case a man meeting a woman, that is so bewildered and taken aback by the actions of a free spirit that they can’t help but be attracted to it. I see that as the “curious feeling” that is being felt. The man is not physically lost, but he is experiencing a feeling of “how did I end up where I am?” and “where did these feelings come from?”. This song could be interpreted a million different ways and I’m curious to hear different opinions on it!
“This is a perfect world. I’m riding on an incline. I’m staring in your face, you’ll photograph mine”
“Perfect World” gets better and better every time I listen to this album. It has quickly become one of my favorites. The opening lyrics build off one another, starting with knowing what it is but not what it looks like, to knowing what it looks like but not knowing where it is. What is “it?” To me, “it” is love. The lyrics building on each other are like puzzle pieces of emotions that when put together create a picture of love. And in that case, it leads to the introduction of the love interest and knowing where she comes from, but not knowing her name. Is it ok for me to get emotional for a second? Yes? Awesome, thank you. The lyrics in the chorus are incredibly intimate and what I think connection is all about. Feeling that you are in a perfect world, and the incline is not uphill battles, but rather an increasingly positive trajectory with another person. I get a visual image of soulmates staring at each other, and one of them taking a photograph as if they’ll never get that sight or feeling of the perfect world again. Outside of the emotional part, from a music standpoint, at the 3:35 mark the song hits a second gear for me. The introduction of more brass instruments, David Byrne delivering “What you doing in my house?” with a deep voice, and the high pitch “there’s nothing wrong with you” are just a constant bombardment (in a good way) of unique sounds that only he could deliver.
I’m a big fan of “Stay Up Late” because it’s sort of the opposite of “Perfect World” in terms of the emotional response I get when listening. I originally thought this song was about staying up late with someone and having fun, but the more I look at the lyrics it looks like a mother and a sister just want to keep a baby up all night. So I eventually stopped trying to make sense of it (Stop Making Sense, wink wink) and just enjoy the song. On theme with the rest of the album, chorus is fantastic, catchy, and full of energy. My favorite part of the song is the second verse and the voice David Byrne uses for the lines “see him drink, from a bottle. see him eat, from a plate. cute cute, as a button.” It seems like he’s having fun singing it and I like to picture him with a wry smile when he recorded this. I also think it’s a great example of how Byrne can use his voice to create different sounds as if it’s its own instrument.
Ebet Roberts / Redferns, Getty Images
“Walk It Down” is what I like to call a struttin’ song. Living in New York City I try to find as many of these songs as I can. so when I’m out for a stroll I have songs to turn to. They don’t all sound the same but they all provide that same emotion of confidence and coolness that make me feel like struttin’ around. Of course, this is all in my head and people walking by me are probably like “what’s wrong with this guy?”. I think the song accomplishes that feeling with the bass and what I think is some type of sound coming from an electric keyboard? Not entirely sure, but whatever instruments are coming together in the first 20 seconds of this song is something I need more of. Lyrically, there are a few lines that have always jumped out to me that evoke that feeling of confidence. Specifically, “I gonna tell you what I need. Life, life without surrender”, “Ain’t no crime to believe. I took my money, I bet my life” and “And I can swim, but I should fly.” All of these lines are powerful. It brings out a me against the world type of mentality. Surrendering to nothing, believing in yourself and getting what you deserve, and making it all possible when you realize you should be flying and not swimming, which I see as realizing your own potential and believing in it. Within the song, I always find myself lost in the music starting at 3:20 with the electric keyboard (someone fact check me on that) having its moment to shine and brought back beautifully to the last few runs of the chorus. I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face, struttin’ song.
“Television Man” is perhaps the most interesting song for me. I am not drawn to it for the lyrics or any particularly strong feeling I get while listening. I do think Talking Heads were ahead of their time because it seems like a pretty straightforward song about people being obsessed with television (and this was released in 1985!). Is it really that simple? Quite frankly, I don’t know. The song itself feels like it’s split into two parts and I am not in love with the first part. However, starting at the 2:33 mark there is a complete change and the song is an unstoppable force for the next 4 minutes. We get an awesome bongo introduction with few other instruments involved, followed shortly by David Byrne “na-na-na-naing” and the band echoing him, and the final piece is a layering of brass instruments. From there, we go on a journey with instruments I cannot name, a guitar solo, more brass, and then a resounding chorus. If you haven’t heard the song yet you probably think this is the writing of a mad man, but I promise you it all comes together masterfully. I think this song is perfectly placed in the album because you have so much going on in the final few minutes of it that you feel like you need a quick second, and the band delivers it with the a capella opening of…
“Well, we know where we’re goin’. But we don’t know where we’ve been.”
The final song of the album. And what a final song it is. I don’t think it’s a hot take to say this is the most popular song on the album and one of the more popular Talking Heads songs of all time. As mentioned above, we get a beautiful a capella opening that lasts 36 seconds before we hear the march of the drums and David Byrne’s low “yeahhhhhh” that sets the stage for the journey. Chris Frantz’s drumming here makes the song for me. I really do feel like I am marching on this road to nowhere and I don’t care where I’m going, as long as it forwards. The song feels like it is recruiting you to join along on this adventure and it’s hard to say no. Listening to this song as a soon to be 27 year old, it makes me optimistic. Trying to figure out life is daunting, and sometimes may seem impossible, truly like a road to nowhere. Yet, the lyrics about "a city in my mind” and “it’s very far away but it’s growing day by day” reassure me that there is an end goal. The city is what you seek in life and what will fulfill you. Right now, sometimes, it seems very far away from me, but the more I understand what’s important to me, the more I feel I am getting closer to that city.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! I did not plan on the first review to be this long but here we are. I think every review will vary in length, depending on if I’m familiar with the album or not, or if the album “speaks” to me the way Little Creatures does. If you have any thoughts or stories to share about this album, please comment below!
On the off chance David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison ever read this…Thank you for your beautiful music. It is a gift to the world.
