"Lethem pays particular attention to David Byrne's use of pronouns, finding the songwriter lets them slip not to imply, as in most rock music, informality or off-the-cuffness, but to disturb and unsettle. In 'Mind,' for example, with its chorus of 'I need something to change your mind,' Lethem wonders if the I and you of the song are not in fact the same: whether there's an edge of solipsistic madness to the enterprise, with the listener overhearing a nutter trying to convince himself of something—what, we're never sure. In 'Life During Wartime,' Byrne flips the first-person from the singular to plural: 'We dress like students / We dress like housewives,' he sings, masking his personality in a way that would play out more fully on Remain in Light, where the lyrics rarely reveal a narrative voice, let alone one that could be mistaken for 'David Byrne.'"
Brian Gresko at The Atlantic reviews Jonathan Letham's Talking Heads' Fear of Music.
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