THE TALKING HEADS, REMAIN IN LIGHT (1979, Sire)
by SOPHIE TOPORKOFF

My mother's hairdresser told me yesterday : "Now That you' ve got the money you got to have the looks!". My opinion : some had the look without caring about the money. "How can that be darling ?" For the sake of argument I flashed her the sleeve of my Talking Heads favorite.

Ok so let's start from the top. Straight bold type, check! Highlighted white on black background check ! Rigor and Sobriety. Two inverted As ...chec....um no wait is it some kind of satanic message or what ? Never mind.

As our collective glare screened down the sleeve four faces hit ours in a violent crash. All masked in fiery red. (This, we learn from the sleeve-notes is "computer image" style - we are in 1980.) Musicians? No, more likely warriors, Armageddon knights as if they bolted right out of John' s Revelation :

"I looked on when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a thunderous voice, "Come!" So I looked, and here came a white horse! The one who rode it had a bow, and he was given a crown and as a conqueror he rode out to conquer.
Then when the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, "Come!" And another horse, fiery red, came out, and the one who rode it was granted permission to take peace from the earth, so that people would butcher one another, and he was given a huge sword. Then when the Lamb opened the third seal I heard the third living creature saying, "Come!" So I looked, and here came a black horse! The one who rode it had a balance scale in his hand.
Then when the Lamb opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come!" So I looked and here came a pale green horse! The name of the one who rode it was Death, and Hades followed right behind. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill its population with the sword, famine, and disease, and by the wild animals of the earth."

This is it ! Those four masked Talking heads were unleashed by some mysterious lamb in record exec's clothing. They were set to take the world over, to go mad for it to rescue/kill us to the sound of Once In a Lifetime or Crosseyed and Painless. They just got rid of the bloody horses using four fighter airplanes instead (cf.the backcover) Again, we are in 1980.

Back onto the sleeve., in smaller print at the center bottom, the title reads more like a statement "Remain In Light". Again St John's Revelation is the key "Now when Lamb opened the last seal there was silence in heaven for about half an hour."
Puke and Cry.

(My mother hairdresser is long gone but I am sure she would have liked : you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, you may ask yourself -- Well ...how did I get here ?")

Sophie Toporkoff