We are excited to introduce a new blog series which will serve as an ongoing platform for our friends and collaborators to share long form essays on music related topics of their choosing. Thinking critically about creative output is essential to good product development, whether the product is an album, record packaging, a poster, or a t-shirt. The introductory post, from sociologist, strategist, and critic Michael Winter, provides a refreshing perspective on “Seen and Not Seen”, a standout track from Talking Heads’ Remain in Light.
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Seen and Not Seen: Identity Formation in the Talking Heads
On “Remain In Light”, the Talking Heads’ magnum opus they explore the theme of identity formation and self-awareness on the apt titled “Seen and Not Seen”. The song written in 1980, sets up against a changing national, political and cultural landscape on the verge of reinvention – gas lines, the Iran hostage crisis and stagflation of the maligned Carter administration giving way to the incoming optimism, Morning in America of the yuppie Reagan presidency; the death of disco, CBGB and explosion of alternative DIY music genres (punk, new wave, hip-hop, world beat) and an influx of young artists such as Basquiat who was merging street art and African-American cultural icons with political/poetical slogans. Juxtaposed against an atmosphere for the band, which had released a series of critically acclaimed records on which they explored “existential futility, suburban limitations, mental disorders and the evils of corporate culture.” (“Talking Heads: Once In A Lifetime: The Stories Behind Every Talking Heads Song”, Ian Gittins, 2004); that was in flux - rumors of disbanding fueled by their front man, the encroaching influence and accreditation of Brian Eno (producer) and increasing national and international attention of their contemporaries.
From the moment one sees the cover of “Remain in Light” they are confronted with the question of identity. Psychoanalyst Michael A. Brog called the front cover a “disarming image, which suggests both splitting and obliteration of identity” and which introduces the listener to the album’s recurring theme of “identity disturbance”; he states, “The image is in bleak contrast to the title with the obscured images of the band members unable to ‘remain in light’.” To create the cover image the band called upon M&Co. Design affiliated with MIT Media Lab founded that same year and whose “domain is applying unorthodox research approaches for envisioning the impact of emerging technologies on everyday life - technologies that promise to fundamentally transform our most basic notions of human capabilities.” It is evident that this subtext that the role technology plays in our own identity transformation and human evolution was critical in the duality of the band’s exploration of their evolving musical identity and devolving band identity. By inverting the A in their name on the cover they clearly are challenging the role of ones name in defining oneself and illustrating the fissure/’identity disturbance’ happening behind the scenes.
The opening lyrics of “Seen and Not Seen” pronounce “He would see faces in movies, on T.V., in magazines, and in books….”. Exploring the function that media and cultural influences one encounters plays in identity development and then through self actualization seeks, as J.J. Arnett writes in his piece on “Adolescents’ Uses of Media for Self-Socialization” (Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 24, No. 5, 1995), “the ones that best suit their individual preferences and personalities” mirroring as the character in the song thinks “that some of these faces might be right for him…” On this album the band was reaching beyond their urbane art-punk borders and blending emerging cultural influences from that of continental African culture, music and storytelling via mythology and the music of Fela Kuti to the emergent African American hip-hop cultural generation of Kurtis Blow’s The Breaks. Not only were the Heads looking at different faces they were going global and to the street, co-opting an entirely different skin, not unlike Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly taking from gospel hymns and the blues of southern black culture as the root of rock n’ roll, in similar respects equally repressed from the main street white cultural identity of the time.
As the song continues through its narrative - the writing style continues the use of visual cues to show how this image is different from the rest, not following the formal line breaks of standard song structure it adopts the run on prose style of stream of consciousness; represented as blocks. As one listens to “Remain in Light” they are assaulted by a repetitive polyrhythm that forms the basis and formal hook of each song on the album - ‘almost by force of will’ creating a uniformity, a signature persona projecting an ‘ideal[ized] image’ onto themselves, away from the monochromatic Americanism to a more tuned in world view. This was achieved by moving away from previous album constructs and so by changing their own working process, their identifying characteristic, and instead relying on jam sessions, deconstructing and looping sequences that were then moved in a non-linear fashion across the entire album they were able to “arrive at an appearance that bears no relationship to them…” altering their born identity of earlier premature albums with that of this complex subconscious or developed cultural identity like the multi-textured, cultural beat sampling coming from rap music like Afrika Bambaattaa sampling Kraftwerk in the Bronx to the radiant child graffiti of Keith Haring downtown.
Turning the lens away from the formation of the identity in the first stanza to the self-realization and questioning of this idealized persona in the second stanza they sing/chant “Maybe they imagined that their new face would better suit their personality….Or maybe they imagined that their personality would be forced to change to fit the new appearance….” Jon Pareles wrote, (“Talking Heads Talk”, Mother Jones, May 1982) “they refuse to formalize their music or their image. Each successive album has been more experimental and more ambiguous.” Going on to say, “they try a bunch of concepts and personas and want to be judged by the resulting work, consistency be damned.” The following year would see individual side projects from all of the Heads, through these non-group works the full vision and identity of “Remain in Light” is realized via these fractured prisms of David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” a more deeply explored cultural mash-up blending African instrumentation with televangelists, husband and wife Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz’s eponymous “Tom Tom Club” album a send up to the dialectic rap/hip-hop and house music of the African-American and gay ghettos and Jerry Harrison’s first solo effort “The Red and the Black” a veiled critique of the red faces and black border of “Remain in Light” which incorporated many of the same musicians and back-up singers to create a funkier version.
“Remain in Light”, the fourth of eight studio albums, places the band in its adolescent stage revealed through its increased fascination and awareness with the outside world and wide-eyed exploration of something individual to them, internal rebellion and formation of social cliques and political side-taking. The resulting effect as is common in adolescence is that of something unique and often fleeting yet profound in its prophetic naivety; not yet approaching the jaded self-doubt of the closing phrase “He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake.”
