Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)

I heard “Born under punches” on the radio the other day and it caught my attention, to the extent that I really started thinking about the song. It is one of the most weirdly wonderful of any Talking Heads numbers, and highlights in many ways the best and the worst of the band, as does the entire album which it leads, Remain in Light. It is probably, along with Speaking in Tongues, the band’s most “arty” album, and as many of the band members were indeed art students, they seem to be making an, at times, awkward effort to bring the world and tradition of modern / post-modern art to the sphere of pop music. Recently, I discovered some outtakes of the album that were entirely instrumental, and immediately wondered why they were not included on the original record, because in my mind, they would have strengthened the case for its anti-pop aesthetic. It also seems, however, that while the band was expanding, using multi-instrumentation and guest artists, it was also contracting. See the video of Once in a Lifetime, it is a one-man show, and one that pretty much announces itself as a parody of a parody at that! Looking at some other posts online, there is some speculation that David Byrne is an aspie, which could explain some things I guess. But I am skeptical, its almost like saying yeah, so now apparently there’s a certified diagnosis for creativity (or “art,” or anything else that does not rigidly meet collective consumer expectations), cast now as its own form of mental illness! The words are not quite poetry, and not quite psychosis either; the song does have discernable insight and purpose, but its so vague and inconclusive. The lyrics are disjointed and dreamlike, forming confused connections that may or may not be meaningful. The main refrain throughout the song is “hands of a government man,” and some of the posts suggest that the song is about government oppression. Interestingly, this song was made almost ten years before the full on government assault on art and art funding – maybe this is in part a premonition of censorship and government meddling in peoples affairs in general, alluded to in part in other Heads songs like Don’t worry about the government and Life during wartime. The hands which “speak” and which are “passing in between us” certainly may allude to this kind of power, meddling and surveillance. But throughout the song, the narrator identifies himself as the government man. He is trying to gain control over a life that was “born under punches” through the acquisition of power, perhaps. A cool, distanced authority that’s used to saying “no thanks, you don’t have to mention it,” and one that ironically lectures to listeners that “some of you people just about missed it.” Of course, the counterpoint to this identity of authority is an ominous chorus singing about “falling bodies” and the beautifully crazy solo that sounds like some high tech instrument exploding into a full on red alert siren, “and the heat goes on…” The song does set the tone for the record: arresting, beguiling, haunting, and mystifying all at once. The only song on that album that seems to clearly be about anything is “listening wind,” another lyric that even more explicitly alludes to government and technological interference in the lives of others. Remain in Light, like a lot of works of modern art and most of the Talking Heads catalogue, for all its beauty and allure, is also pretentious and esoteric, self-conscious and ironic; it has all sorts of tantalizing hooks but don’t ultimately seem to say anything clearly or directly. Indeed because its so astonishing and arresting, it also somehow sets itself up for failure and or disappointment.