Lorde has shared her contribution to A24’s Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. Listen to her rendition of ‘Take Me to the River’, originally written by Al Green before the Talking Heads recorded their version for 1978’s More Songs About Buildings and Food, below.
In an email newsletter marking the release, Lorde wrote:
Hey you, it’s me
Today my version of “take Me To The River” from the Stop Making Sense compilation comes out.
Do you remember the first time you ever heard Talking Heads?
I’ll tell you my story.
Ok, it’s 2008. I’m twelve years old, eyes painted black, jaw blasted with acne. My bedroom is a nest of posters, broken toys, street signs. I’ve kissed with tongue.
Something’s happening to me: i am beginning to ooze out in every direction. I feel a constant burning urge to express myself, to draw a map that leads to who l am. I can’t get it right; there’s deep discomfort in this, and I have no choice but to keep trying.
At the same time, I’m realising that if I look at a picture or listen to a song sometimes a surge of feeling will take over my whole body. In this way, I can remove my strange-feeling insides and replace them with whatever I want. I can’t predict what exactly will do this to me, so I have to try everything. Things are either corny, or they’re cool. Occasionally, the thing that replaces my insides is a total mystery to me, not corny or cool but somehow both, and through this feeling I have my first experiences with the divine.
My mother, an artist herself, sees the ooze. She brings her laptop into my room one night and puts on a Youtube video. It’s grainy, 240p at best. In the video I see a band from another time performing on a TV show. The lead singer wears a suit, has high cheekbones and slicked-back dark hair. To his left a blonde girl plays bass. They stand in pools of light. The dark haired man is singing a song about wanting someone, not being sure why. He is a preacher, a controlled fire, a wild animal. He’s moving like ive never seen anyone move, and his eyes are rolling back in his head. He knows how it feels to kiss with tongue. The wifi signal drops in and out from downstairs.
I feel a portal open between me and the screen. Humour, lust, rhythm and ritual course through me. I don’t understand what I’m feeling, but I do understand that the band in the grainy video live with the same strangeness that I do. My palms tingle.
My insides are replaced.
This version of the first Talking Heads song I ever heard was done in a few days in Echo Park, L.A. with my friend Jimmy. It’s my interpretation of that pixellated spiritual experience. We did it fast, I didn’t let myself tidy it up too much, it had to feel young and imperfect, the peeling posters, the jaw of acne. It’s beyond a great honour to be part of this compilation. In doing so, I am reaching
back through time and pinning something to that kid’s wall.
Hope you like it
Everyone’s Getting Involved also features covers by Miley Cyrus, BADBADNOTGOOD, Blondshell, girl in red, Jean Dawson, Kevin Abstract, the Linda Lindas, Toro y Moi, and more. So far, we’ve heard Paramore’s take on ‘Burning Down the House’ and Teezo Touchdown’s version of ‘Making Flippy Floppy’. A release date for the project has not yet been announced.
