The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
What about the time?
You were rollin' over
Fall on your face
You must be having fun
Walk lightly!
Think of a time.
You'd best believe
This thing is real
Put away that gun
And this part is simple
Try to recognize
What is in your mind
God help us!
Help us lose our minds
These slippery people
Help us understand
What's the matter with him? (He's alright!)
I see his face (The lord won't mind)
Don't know no games (He's alright)
Love from the bottom to the top
Turn like a wheel (He's alright)
See for yourself (The lord won't mind)
We're gonna move (Right now)
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel
I remember when
Sittin' in the tub
Pulled out the plug
The water was runnin' out
Cool down
Stop acting crazy
They're gonna leave
And we'll be on our own
Seven times five
They were living creatures
Watch 'em come to life
Right before your eyes
Backsliding!
How do you do?
These slippery people
Gonna see you through
You were rollin' over
Fall on your face
You must be having fun
Walk lightly!
Think of a time.
You'd best believe
This thing is real
Put away that gun
And this part is simple
Try to recognize
What is in your mind
God help us!
Help us lose our minds
These slippery people
Help us understand
What's the matter with him? (He's alright!)
I see his face (The lord won't mind)
Don't know no games (He's alright)
Love from the bottom to the top
Turn like a wheel (He's alright)
See for yourself (The lord won't mind)
We're gonna move (Right now)
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel
I remember when
Sittin' in the tub
Pulled out the plug
The water was runnin' out
Cool down
Stop acting crazy
They're gonna leave
And we'll be on our own
Seven times five
They were living creatures
Watch 'em come to life
Right before your eyes
Backsliding!
How do you do?
These slippery people
Gonna see you through
Lyrics submitted by weezerific:cutlery
Slippery People Lyrics as written by Christopher Frantz Chris Frantz
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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The religious allusions are overt and obviously intentional. References to living creatures and wheels inside wheels obviously evoke the more ecstatic and visionary books of the Bible, such as Ezekiel and Revelation. The Talking Heads frequently discuss different ways of dealing with the crushing oppressiveness of modernity, of life, of certainty. In this song, they seem to defer to the 'slippery people': the prophets, the uncertains, the extremely crazy, hallucinatory elements that inspire faith, foster religion, and provide a counterpoint to the mundanity and meaninglessness of the day-to-day.
i like your post, paraclete. very well said.
Those spirits, those angels, those slippery people that take you by the hand and dance you til you lose your mind and fill yourself with love. They are living creatures and they can come to life, right before your eyes. And when they leave, keep moving like a wheel within a wheel. Yeah. They really were heads. And they really talked...
pleasantly out of proportion? been speaking with the self-transforming machine elves?<br /> <br /> I mean, just based on calling yourself a variation on "delysid" people will tend to make certain assumptions.<br /> <br /> before a certain infamous drug was made illegal, it had a tradename.<br /> <br /> long before Time Magazine ruined everything (yeah it was That "T" thing, not the usual scrapegoat), more than 10 years was it? when a bunch of important people in academia--and in secretive alphabet govt. agencies--were doing nasty "pranks," of which slipping mickeys was kid-stuff. compared to such Mengele-worthy efforts as "psychic driving" (imagine someone putting a locked football helmet on your head which plays a 5-second tape loop over and over and over for six months, in bed in a room in the dark..."you are a happy productive citizen...you are [ZOMG]"<br /> <br /> and yet, we're led to believe the danger (!!) was in things like the early, serious work of a certain Harvard psychiatrist attempting to reach out to inmates and maybe reprogram them, a bit--not coercively! though as the delysid began to take hold, tension was building in the long silences. the ice broke when timmy admitted he was afraid of the big black men, and when the hardcore longtime inmates admitted they were scared of the mad scientist.<br /> <br /> oh it turned into a party almost. guess that was the danger huh? get people of different races & backgrounds to speak friendly and want to help each other. wall st. businessmen deciding their jobs were dull and they'd rather tune in, etc. ad infinitum.<br /> <br /> then there was the (definitely-not-serious!) "work"--and these were important, productive tasks IMO--of the folks whose pranks were intended... no! not to break minds of the lesser races who threatened us from across the waters. they only wanted to show people a good time. free your ass, and your mind will follow.<br /> <br /> hear the ripping as the veil is parted & walk into a brave new world with such creatures in it...
you shoulda seen me a month ago, when I was still at the peak of my (first ever!) manic episode. truthfully it's not that different from my usual schizotypal self: except more engaged with life and other people, more productive and...extremely disorganized.<br /> <br /> not that I believed I was writing the Great American Novel, no: but you shoulda seen how I buried myself in those twelve sheets of foolscap, don't ask me why. uh, I mean reams and reams of paper with scrawled ramblings which were roughly my own personal equivalent of Finnegan's Wake. rereading it now, I can still understand (most) of it. but I couldn't possibly write that way now: where I was cramming four different meanings into each invented word, that sorta thing. not anymore. back then, it flowed effortlessly.<br /> <br /> OK I'm still kinda amped up but not quite manic anymore. probably it's close to a happy medium, though my shrink is terrified I'll never entirely come back to reality. wants to clamp down on my newfound freedom with Zyprexa. oooh nasty stuff.<br /> <br /> (not down on meds in general. thanx to mirtazapine aka Remeron w/o which I might not be alive today, truly. oh man went through perhaps a dozen antidepressants over a 10-year period before I found the one which really works for me, and doesn't make me too miserable with side-effects either.)<br /> <br /> why write? compulsive & grandiose perhaps, but mostly just I was having difficulty expressing myself in a spoken voice--and, I was feeling a great need to express myself--so I found something else, something which worked.<br /> <br /> tonight evidently I'm trying to recapture some of that scary but exciting madness, and what comes out is actually pretty close to my ordinary analytical self. but also freer and more creative, in some ways. I'm grateful for it. though I'm sorry the mania made my loved ones fear for me, it was--in many ways--a blessing. haven't felt so happy and energetic in years.
in a forum such as this, I feel awkwardly pedantic making such a statement: but certain facts to which I alluded were incorrect, some of which might be considered important. particularly by folks who don't already know this stuff & are getting their first taste of it secondhand. though anyone on an informal internet forum ought to be aware: though participants might seem knowledgeable, they sure as hell don't have teams of fact checkers and lawyers like newspaper & book publishers.<br /> <br /> one example: the notorious Harvard professor was a psychologist. I'd used the word "psychiatrist." it felt natural for me to stereotype him as an M.D. because in his early days he was surprisingly "uptight," until many sessions with Delysid--combined with the experiences he learned (and shared!) with experienced psychonauts such as Neal Cassady + his circle of friends--convinced him that he did indeed retain elitist Ivory Tower attitudes which required demolition. in younger days he'd been far more intellectual and professiorial in manner, though his evangelical zeal was regarded with amusement by such luminaries as Aldous Huxley; the good Dr. TL in turn felt such early experimenters as Albert Hoffman, Henry Luce, and Huxley himself--who he met, and appreciated--were, unfortunately, surly gate-keepers preventing the great unwashed from partaking of a sacred gift from above.<br /> <br /> Were there other mistakes? Probably, but folks today have unique opportunity and ability (some would say "responsibility") to search and educate themselves. Regarding the nasty non-consensual activities alluded to only in passing, folks should search on keywords such as:<br /> <br /> "Project Bluebird"<br /> "Project Artichoke"<br /> MKULTRA<br /> <br /> those considering new forays into self-experimentation would be well-advised to immerse themselves in sources of helpful (potentially life-saving!) info, one such resource being lycaeum.org<br />
@de1ysid I hope Foreverdrone got the professional help he needed
Personally I think this is derived from David Byrne's experience from taking hallucinogens at his own house party and the confusion and anxiety it brings, whilst this is what I think the base of the meaning comes from I feel it relates to analyses of society and our perceptions of other people.
The chorus section seems to be a cathartic reaction to such confusion
"What's the matter with him? He's Alright!"
Is a release of judgement as to save oneself from becoming too judgemental of another.
"They're gonna leave.. and we'll be on our own"
^For me that is expressing the discontentment and paranoia of not feeling in control of what is going on yet "we'll be on our own" is the antithesis of the want for people to leave; a dilemma. To dismiss people for your own comfort or accept them and be with them.
Overall I see this song as a balanced and intelligently creative analysis of the naturally judgemental human condition and the benefits from attempting or practice-of unification with other people for mutual benefit.
Hey, it might just be me, but this song seems like it was inspired by Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". I mean, things like "turn like a wheel inside a wheel" are almost a direct quote from the play (obviously they both came from the Bible). Other lines like "God help us!/ Help us loose our minds!" and "What's the matter with him?/ He's alright" seem to pretty closely reflect the ideas in that play as well. Of course David Byrne wouldn't keep a song restricted to one meaning, like he said about "Girlfriend is better", "I started writing a song about love, and ended up writing a song about something else" (as butcherjuj puts it)
Anyone agree?
Seems to me this is a song about aliens - slippery people - landing on earth during a time of turmoil and offering a solution.
Some people are not ready to accept the aliens, and the people that see them as the only hope are trying to dissuade those that would want to kill them.
@Trebuchett Did the aliens show up yet?
crazy song. one of the most energetic songs on stop making sense. oh to have been at that show... or any of em.
My favourite Heads song. The SMS version blows the studio version out of the window.
It seems to me that a "wheel inside a wheel" ultimately goes nowhere...
could be a reference to Ezekiel's Wheel, for which "wheel in the sky" is also a frequently-heard colloquialism.<br /> <br /> there are a surprising proportion of otherwise-orthodox Bible believers who are convinced that the "wheel" was a UFO (as best as could be described, given the vastly different frames of reference at the time the Old Testament was written), and the "angels" were aliens.
Angel as aliens...interesting.
Yeah, besides the reference to the wheel inside a wheel which is a common reference to UFOs in ancient times (there is a reference to a wheel inside a wheel in the old testament that is interpreted as a UFO) the whole song speaks to a first encounter with aliens.
Sounds like a new parent not liking their neighbors, maybe house-mates?
I agree with the analysis that this is a song about religion and the slippery people are religious leaders and the religious aspects of ourselves.
Further to what other people have said I think this song revolves arround the internal conflict between mans rational side and religious thinking that comes to many of us naturally as a coping mechanism for, among other things, the problems made by other religious people. So for instance the second versus starts out as this calm rational coping:-
"Put away that gun This part is simple Try to recognize What is in you mind"
but then when rationality reveals the woes of the world it degenerates into fleeing from rationality to relgion to cope with the religious:-
"God help us! Help us loose our minds These slippery people help us understand"
Then in the final verse we see the protagonist trying to cope with religion by consoling himself that it'll go away in time: -
"Cool down Stop acting crazy They're gonna leave And we'll be on our own"
before having a religious vision himself:-
"Seven times five They were living creatures Watch 'em come to life Right before your eyes"
Rebeling against this relgious thought which his rational side sees as a backward step: -
"Backsliding!"
Before acknowledging his vision, accepting it and getting on with his life with the help of his religion:-
"How do you do? These slippery people Gonna see you through"