Talking Heads - The Big Country (alternate version)

Talking Heads - The Big Country (alternate version) (FRESH ON YOUTUBE)
audio only

Lyrics:

I see the shapes,
I remember from maps.
I see the shoreline.
I see the whitecaps.
A baseball diamond, nice weather down there.
I see the school and the houses where the kids are.
Places to park by the fac'tries and buildings.
Restaunts and bar for later in the evening.
Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas.
And I have learned how these things work together.
I see the parkway that passes through them all.
And I have learned how to look at these things and I say,

(CHORUS)

I wouldn't live there if you paid me.
I couldn't live like that, no siree!
I couldn't do the things the way those people do.
I couldn't live there if you paid me to.

I guess it's healthy, I guess the air is clean.
I guess those people have fun with their neighbors and friends.
Look at that kitchen and all of that food.
Look at them eat it' guess it tastes real good.

They grow it in the farmlands
And they take it to the stores
They put it in the car trunk
And they bring it back home
And I say ...

(CHORUS)

I say, I wouldn't live there if you paid me.
I couldn't live like that, no siree!
I couldn't do the things the way those people do.
I wouldn't live there if you paid me to.

I'm tired of looking out the windows of the airplane
I'm tired of travelling, I want to be somewhere.
It's not even worth talking
About those people down there.

Goo Goo Ga Ga Ga
Goo Goo Ga Ga Ga

Category:

Music

Tags:

• talking
• heads
• the
• big
• country
• alternate
• version
• more
• songs
• about
• buildings
• and
• food
• brian
• eno
• david
• byrne
• new
• york
• wave

[weaseldragon]

This is a beautiful (non-Eno) recording, but I don't understand the commenter who loved Talking Heads before Stop Making Sense, but says that Eno ruined the band. Eno produced (and performed on) three of the five studio albums BEFORE Stop Making Sense:

1978 Songs About Buildings and Food

1979 Fear of Music

1980 Remain in Light

[MrMonsterstiffy]

I was a rabid fan until stop making sense. Byrnes ego got it the way. Eno ruined this band.

[SirHatchporch]

I actually prefer this version to the final album version.

[newfuckingwave]

this sounds like the core of the song they had before working with eno

[VirginiaPatriot]

I stand corrected on the sequence. I never heard it before. But I stand behind what I said about nothing good from them since Stop Making Sense.

[koldfushen]

Virginia.....

This was written and recorded about 7 years prior to Stop Making Sense. I like this early stuff because it shows them really struggling to find the style that you like from SMS.

[VirginiaPatriot]

Byrne's voice is like a screeching catterwalling of cats. I haven't heard a good album out of him since the Heads did "Stop Making Sense" Uninspired, boring, repetitious this was.

[vinto34]

nice ...good to hear alternate versions of these songs.