Byrne sported an iconic oversized suit in 1983’s
Stop Making Sense, a critically acclaimed
Jonathan Demme film featuring Talking Heads in
concert. The band, founded by Byrne, pioneered
new wave music by integrating elements of
punk, funk and art rock.
Byrne has since explored various musical
genres, releasing critically praised albums —
most recently collaborations with Brian Eno,
Norman Cook and St. Vincent — and appeared
as himself on an episode of The Simpsons.
He has also made forays into theater
choreographer Twyla Tharp.
tracks, most notably with Ryuichi Sakamoto
and Cong Su on Bernardo Bertolucci’s The
Last Emperor, which won an Oscar in 1987
for Best Original Score.
In 2005, Byrne and Fatboy Slim wrote Here
Lies Love, a disco-style operetta about the
life of Imelda Marcos, the controversial former
First Lady of the Philippines known for
her massive collection of shoes.
Here Lies Love was originally released as
an album that featured vocals by Byrne
along with Tori Amos, Steve Earle, Cyndi Lauper
and Natalie Merchant, among others. A
stage version premiered off-Broadway at the
Public Theater in New York City in 2013.
In 2006, Byrne published a book of diagrams
and pencil drawings called Arboretum,
which he describes as “mental maps of
imaginary territory.”
The collection contains essays, snatches of
poetry and pencil sketches — mostly in the
form of trees — mapping everything from the
roots of philosophy to the tangles of romantic
destiny to the ecosystem of the performing
arts. His most recent book, 2012’s How Music
Works, intersperses autobiography with music
theory.
In 2008, Byrne released Big Love: Hymnal,
the soundtrack to season two of Big Love,
the award-winning HBO drama series. He
has also contributed songs to an array of
compilation and tribute albums, including
In 2016, Byrne wrote another musical,
Joan of Arc: Into the Fire. He was attracted
to the story, he says, because “it’s about
the power of the individual to make a difference
and, for me, the hubris and sometimes
oversteps that often go along with that. In
other words, it’s completely relevant.”
34 artsLife | SUMMER 2018
Like Here Lies Love, the show premiered
off-Broadway at the Public Theater. Most critics
liked the thoroughly modernized Maid of
Orléans, who wore black leather pants and
sported a blonde punk mullet as she belted
out Byrne’s inspirational power ballads.
Last year, rock ‘n’ roll’s Renaissance man
launched a website called Reasons to be
Cheerful, on which he explores real-world
solutions to such social and political issues
as incarceration, climate change, arts education
and urban renewal.
He describes the project as “a quasi-therapeutic
collection of pieces of good news that
reminded me, ‘Hey, there’s actually some
positive stuff going on.’” He has also given lectures
on ways in which grass-roots activism has
been successful at the community level.
Byrne’s stated goal of bringing joy back
into a world that seems to grow more joyless
American Utopia.
Take, for example, the song “Every Day Is A
Miracle,” which examines the world through