70s/80s New Wave music symbolism

[EatZeBug]

Well I’m not sure what you could’ve done better in regards to the deep dive post you made on them; I think it’s awesome. As for the Talking Heads song that’s about blood sacrifice, can you give me a hint, by telling me which album it’s on?

Alright, as I said I would, here is the Talking Heads song which I think is very likely about blood sacrifice:
It is called 'Swamp'







I've heard interpretations of this song of anything from a criticism of nuclear weapons to an 'indictment of organized religion', however I think the true meaning of this song is hiding in plain sight and I'm surprised that I have seen nobody else raise the possibility of it being about blood sacrifice.
The first lines are clearly about someone 'Selling their soul to the devil' in exchange for temporary pleasure as Jesus was tempted to do in the Desert in Luke chapter 4.
The lines about dirty hands, having a window to slip out of and click click (gun sound) suggest someone being exposed or caught red-handed in the act or getting Epsteined maybe.
I'm not too sure what the 'touch monkeys' or 'medical chart on the wall' is about. Is it because he has an evolutionary view of humanity and sees us as nothing more than 'monkeys'? Perhaps the medical chart is referring to how the rituals are like a medical chart? I can't say for certain at this point because I don't have enough information but like I said he is very cryptic with lyrics but in a way that is 'hidden in plain sight'.
THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK IN THIS SONG!

 

[Diogenes]

I've looked over the evidence to see if it's a thing. It's definitely a thing. Pretty overwhelming when all the evidence is laid out and presented. It's why Lennon had to go. He was finally gonna tell it. So they (intelligence) did what they said they would do if any of them ever told. He knew the consequences. Wasn't the patsy what done him in, it was the doorman who had a history as a trained killer. Look into that.

Interestingly this doorman is depicted in a picture,taken in Cuba just before this famous Bay of the Pigs event. He's been pictured with two other people - one of them is no other than Leonard Cohen, before he reached star status ! Years later, this man is the doorman at the Dakota building in NY, where Lennon and Ono resided and he was supposed to witness the killing. I mean, come on ! More interestingly enough,Leonard Cohen happened to be in the city one or two weeks before the killing and he "predicted" that "something big will happen soon in NY". Mind you that the Dakota building is the same building where the movie Rosemary's Baby was filmed,lol. And to make it all more and more interesting, Michael Chapman, the supposed killer of Lennon, received an envelope days before the event, inside of which were two bullets. The sender of this envelope ? Kenneth Anger ! These people are absolute psychos - never trust a celebrity !

 

[Diogenes]

Talking Heads have also this song in their back catalogue, Road To Nowhere, which is also very weird - the accompanying video as well, David Byrne running but still staying on the same starting point. Like the common pattern we see in our dreams. Could also be interpreted as disassociation.

 

[Diogenes]

About Blondie - Debra Harry used to work as a waitress (before stardom reached her), wearing bunny ears . I think she also posed for the Playboy magazine, although I am not quite sure about it. The original keyboard player for Blondie, Gary Valentine,is officially a researcher for all things occult and he has scripted (among others) the book Turn Off Your Mind,in which he describes how the occult has consistently influenced pop music.

 

[Diogenes]

A very weird scene, this CBGB scene, lots of shady characters there.

 

[Diogenes]

Sure, it's from Speaking in Tongues

Speaking in Tongues suggests demonic possession as well.

 

[Stucky]

I've heard interpretations of this song of anything from a criticism of nuclear weapons to an 'indictment of organized religion', however I think the true meaning of this song is hiding in plain sight and I'm surprised that I have seen nobody else raise the possibility of it being about blood sacrifice.
The first lines are clearly about someone 'Selling their soul to the devil' in exchange for temporary pleasure as Jesus was tempted to do in the Desert in Luke chapter 4.

Well done on getting your thread up and running.

I think if this song is about blood sacrifice then it's about the sacrifice of the whole of humanity...in the one go. Personally i don't think it is about sacrifice or at least the sacrificial part is not the whole story. I think Byrne is comparing someone like Oppenheimer to Faust but it's Byrne so it's not that simple. I wont give an interpretation but i will point you in the direction of Twin Peaks S03 Episode 8. Is that episode and Swamp telling the same story? Is the Byrne universe and Lynch universe connected or is it just an unhappy coincidence?. Are Bob and Judy from 'found a job' the same as the Bob and Judy from Twin Peaks? Is the 'good' Cooper who appears in the glass box (s03 can't remember exact episode) similar to Once in a Lifetime, Burning Down the House and Road to nowhere. Is the Lynchian Giant (the fireman) and the elderly fellow (senor droolcup) both in Psycho Killer SMS? Byrne starts off as a small guy on a giant stage then transforms to a giant on a small stage (and why the hell is there a subliminal cut of fly on screen during Psycho killer). Talking Heads also have a video called 'Storytelling Giant'. Is there more 'coincidence' between Byrne and Lynch's work...are they telling the exact same story in all their work only varying in the medium they use to relay that story?

Just thougt i'd throw that into the mix.

Edit: the 'click click' lyric if it were a gun then it would have to be an empty gun.

 

[Stucky]

Talking Heads have also this song in their back catalogue, Road To Nowhere, which is also very weird - the accompanying video as well, David Byrne running but still staying on the same starting point. Like the common pattern we see in our dreams. Could also be interpreted as disassociation.

Byrne has this recurring theme of dreams and Cities

Dream Operator - True Stories.

City of Dreams - True Stories

Cities - Fear of Music

'I'm dreaming of a city
It was my own invention
I put the wheels in motion
A time for big decisions

What A Day That Was- Songs from the Catherine Wheel


'There's a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it's all right, baby it's all right'

Road to Nowhere- Little Creatures

 

[Stucky]

David Byrne running but still staying on the same starting point

 

[Diogenes]

Rxact

Exactly this. Which actually can prove very stressful when you see it in a dream. Personally that's how I felt, whenever I dreamt it. And it's a recurring theme in the dreams of many people.

 

[EatZeBug]

Well done on getting your thread up and running.

I think if this song is about blood sacrifice then it's about the sacrifice of the whole of humanity...in the one go. Personally i don't think it is about sacrifice or at least the sacrificial part is not the whole story. I think Byrne is comparing someone like Oppenheimer to Faust but it's Byrne so it's not that simple. I wont give an interpretation but i will point you in the direction of Twin Peaks S03 Episode 8. Is that episode and Swamp telling the same story? Is the Byrne universe and Lynch universe connected or is it just an unhappy coincidence?. Are Bob and Judy from 'found a job' the same as the Bob and Judy from Twin Peaks? Is the 'good' Cooper who appears in the glass box (s03 can't remember exact episode) similar to Once in a Lifetime, Burning Down the House and Road to nowhere. Is the Lynchian Giant (the fireman) and the elderly fellow (senor droolcup) both in Psycho Killer SMS? Byrne starts off as a small guy on a giant stage then transforms to a giant on a small stage (and why the hell is there a subliminal cut of fly on screen during Psycho killer). Talking Heads also have a video called 'Storytelling Giant'. Is there more 'coincidence' between Byrne and Lynch's work...are they telling the exact same story in all their work only varying in the medium they use to relay that story?

Just thougt i'd throw that into the mix.

Edit: the 'click click' lyric if it were a gun then it would have to be an empty gun.

Thanks! Wow, I must say, I am blown away by you picking all this stuff up! I have never seen Twin Peaks before but definitely noticed many people in the comment sections of Talking Heads videos bring it up a fair bit so I thought in the back of my mind that there must be some kind of overlap. I want to watch it now because this sounds like a very intriguing theory to follow.

 

[EatZeBug]

Byrne has this recurring theme of dreams and Cities

Dream Operator - True Stories.

City of Dreams - True Stories

Cities - Fear of Music

'I'm dreaming of a city
It was my own invention
I put the wheels in motion
A time for big decisions

What A Day That Was- Songs from the Catherine Wheel


'There's a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it's all right, baby it's all right'

Road to Nowhere- Little Creatures

Yes, he certainly has a hyperfixation on buildings, factories, cities, highways and infrastructure in general. I guess I just assumed it was his 'special interest' (You know one of those intense obsessions us aspies tend to have) or that he had some unrealized passion to be an architect. I guess the guy did design bike racks in NYC and set up a 'playable building'.

To add to your list, there's also "I'm Dreaming of a city, it was my own invention, I put the wheels in motion" from What a Day That Was.

This song was from the soundtrack he did for his friend's dance project movie 'The Catherine Wheel' but immortalized by its inclusion in the 'Stop Making Sense' canon. It has quite interesting lyrics about lightning bolts and '50 thousand beggars roaming in the streets' but I'd need to watch that movie to understand the context.
Man don't even get me started on 'Heaven' though, would you say it's like the Talking Heads edition of Lennon's 'Imagine'?
I suppose it's not quite as... sinister. Imagine has those creepy sacharine Tower of Babel Own Nothing Be Happy NWO ivory tower 'utopian vision' undertones whereas Heaven just sounds like a tired, emotionally numb but edgy Reddit atheist who is mocking religious ideals of an afterlife to me. I've also heard people say it's about a gay bar in the UK.
When I see comments like this though it does seem rather sinister to me as a Christian.

 

[EatZeBug]

About Blondie - Debra Harry used to work as a waitress (before stardom reached her), wearing bunny ears . I think she also posed for the Playboy magazine, although I am not quite sure about it. The original keyboard player for Blondie, Gary Valentine,is officially a researcher for all things occult and he has scripted (among others) the book Turn Off Your Mind,in which he describes how the occult has consistently influenced pop music.

Yeah I found this weird comment in a YouTube comment section about Debbie Harry. Might be a joke but it made me raise an eyebrow.

I found a 'family tree' drawn by Pete Frame of which bands or musical involvement the members of different New Wave groups in New York were in and Byrne was in two groups before Talking Heads, one called 'Bizadi' and the other 'The Artistics'. I can't remember which one of them it was but I read elsewhere that apparently one of those groups used to perform at Playboy clubs too....

 

[Diogenes]

Yeah I found this weird comment in a YouTube comment section about Debbie Harry. Might be a joke but it made me raise an eyebrow.
View attachment 88506
I found a 'family tree' drawn by Pete Frame of which bands or musical involvement the members of different New Wave groups in New York were in and Byrne was in two groups before Talking Heads, one called 'Bizadi' and the other 'The Artistics'. I can't remember which one of them it was but I read elsewhere that apparently one of those groups used to perform at Playboy clubs too....
View attachment 88507

Good post.
Another weird fact about Harry is that she once claimed that she hitchhiked outside of NY, only to realize minutes after she got on board of a stranger's car,that he actually was a serial killer (don't know if this was Ted Bundy though). She understood that because she had seen photos of him in the newspapers or on TV. I read this post of yours and I remembered about this. Now, what is this fixation with the CBGB scene and serial/psycho killers ?

 

[Diogenes]

Remember also that the NY scene is the one that actually gave birth to the British Punk phenomenon of the mid to late 70s, through the androgyny image of the NY Dolls, which was the blueprint for Malcolm Mc Laren to create/manufacture/handle the Sex Pistols. You also had the Ramones, who took their name from Paul McCartney. Whenever he signed incognito to hotels around the world, he used the name Paul Ramone. This CBGB scene was always weird and perverted to my eyes (and ears). Bands like Suicide (smh, really), Television and the lot.

 

[UnderAlienControl]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1672928985343205376

 

[BananaLaser]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1672928985343205376

He does the illuminati sign so clearly, yet so subtly. :0

 

[Lizard King]

A very weird scene, this CBGB scene, lots of shady characters there.

I saw the Dead Boys and the Plasmatics at CBGB'S.

 

[UnderAlienControl]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1672982989393784832

 

[EatZeBug]

Madonna, who was signed to Sire Records (Company that signed Talking Heads and several other CBGB and New Wave acts.

What do you guys know about Seymour Stein and his company, Sire Records?
I can't remember where I found this comment btw sorry.