Back in March, I had the idea of putting together a tournament-style bracket of the best running songs. The idea was to take the best 64 songs and put them in brackets based on the types of run. Songs for slow, easy runs would occupy one corner, while songs for tempo and speed workouts would be in the others. Lastly, a wild card bracket of motivational songs would round out the list. Originally, the songs could be from any era, not tied to a particular year, but then I altered the criteria to songs only from 2024.
I scoured the collections on Spotify as well as playlists created by other users. I scrolled through the lists of new releases each Friday when Spotify publishes their updates lists. And I sorted through the recommended songs their algorithms provided. The results? Depressing, to say the least. I currently have 9 songs on the list and it’s only 28 minutes long. It turns out, if you want to create a running playlist that doesn’t involve EDM, techno, or an overabundance of Dua Lipa songs, you are up music creek without a paddle. This, dear reader, is why this piece was never published.
But while I have been trying to create the perfect playlist for logging miles and content engagement alike, I was also trying to create a summer playlist for the months ahead. With marathon training out of the way, the downtime needs a playlist to match the vibes. That playlist is much better. We’re up to nearly 9 hours of continuous, non-skippable tracks. Unlike the running playlist, these songs could be from any time, and my only initial rule was that there is only allowed to be one song per artist on the list. This was followed until requests for multiple songs by friends were made. I, am a DJ of the people after all, and obliged to the requests. But as of this writing, I am proud to say only 3 artists have multiple tracks.
But here is where I have to confess. I have cheated the system because unknowingly, I added a song that wasn’t the original, but rather a cover of a song of an artist already on the list. And this sent me down a musical rabbit hole that had paid enough dividends in the last week to make this year a success.
The vibe of this song is light, the tune catchy, and had a simple melody. Being the perfect track for a beach day, I added it to the list. The song is called “This Must Be The Place”, by a band called Sure Sure, a band I had never heard of but seem like a nice group of guys, dabbling in the alt-rock space, who record their music in their garage (according to the artist bio). But they weren’t the only ones with this song title. No, if you scroll through Spotify there are many songs bearing the same name. There is a version in the violin. There is a version sung by The Lumineers that seems like they are singing of a longing for Appalachia. There are live versions and recorded versions. A ton of versions in acoustic guitar in the tune of that specific type of music you hear in the background of a TikTok or Instagram reel of some recently renovated tiny home in the woods. There is a playlist for this specific song on Spotify that is 4 hours and I am sure that there are more options out there if I look hard enough. I moved on, adding other go-to, can’t-fail numbers to the list. And like any self-respecting Millennial raised by parents of the 80’s, “Burning Down The House”, by Talking Heads needed to be added. To my surprise, in the Top 5 most popular Talking Heads songs, there is also a song called “This Must Be The Place”. Curious, selected it to listen, and to my surprise, that same melody played. To my surprise, the song I had selected previously was a cover of this.
This is where the rabbit hole starts. I pride myself on being the type of person who has an unhealthy amount of head space devoted to pop culture. I can point out an actor who shows up in a movie that was last seen on screen a decade ago in an obscure television show no one but I seemed to watch. In many cases, I can listen to the first chords of a song and tell you the artist and song title. This is why the discovery of this song was so disturbing. I needed to close this knowledge gap, and for the next hours, I dove in head first, playing Talking Heads hits and deep cuts.
There is a certain joy that can only be provided by the rabbit hole of discovering a new batch of music to listen to. The surprise of stumbling upon a hidden treasure in an artist’s catalog can make your mood improve and cause you to feel physically lighter. Time doesn’t pass. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible. The lyrics may or may not matter when this happens. Half the time, I didn’t know what David Byrne, the strange but awesome lead singer of the Talking Heads was trying to tell me, but it was irrelevant. I could only come to one conclusion on the afternoon I spent exploring their catalog: this Rocks, with a capital R.
I’m not a music journalist, so I can’t tell you about the impact Talking Heads had on music in any revelatory way, but what I can tell you is that judging by all the people who covered “This Must Be The Place” and the way their other tracks were making me feel on a Friday afternoon that it had to be significant. Other songs in their library have been covered by the likes of Miley Cyrus, Paramore, Lorde, and many other contemporary artists. “Genius of Love”, the funky track created by drummer Chris Frantz and bass player Tina Weymouth as a part of their Talking Heads spinoff the Tom Tom Club, is the foundation for Mariah Carey’s hit “Fantasy”. Every song that I played made me nod my head, dance, or proclaim out loud how funky and wonderful all of this music was.
In addition to the music, Talking Heads are the subject of the film Stop Making Sense, widely accepted as one of the best concert films of all time, documenting the band performing live at the Pantages Theater in 1983 while promoting their album Speaking In Tongues. I had heard the raving reviews but had never seen it, until I was able to find it on Max after the film was re-released in 2023, 40 years after the actual concert itself.
In the opening scene, David Byrne reaches the center of the stage, sets down a boombox, and greets the crowd. “Hi. I have a tape I’d like to play”, he says. What comes next is a solo version of Psycho Killer, the song from the Talking Heads album Talking Heads:77. If you look at the band’s top songs on Spotify, the recorded version of Psycho Killer is their most streamed song, and I think this scene is the reason why. Byrne performs alone onstage, accompanied only by his boombox and guitar. The live version performed in Stop Making Sense is the perfect opening song that grabs your attention with its 80’s beat and Byrne’s skills on the guitar. As the concert continues, the other band members join, one by one, song by song, until all the core band members are onstage. It continues to build over the next 90 minutes, and the music doesn’t let up until the show ends.
You can see easily see why critics and Talking Heads fans love Stop Making Sense. The concert wasn’t just a collection of songs, but rather a production that was carefully thought out and executed. But most important of all, the music is amazing. By the time the core four band members are on stage and they perform “Got A Job”, you have gone from an innocent viewer on the couch to one who is nodding along, watching them thoroughly enjoy the jam session occurring onstage. When “Burning Down The House” is performed midway through the show, you are singing along. And then, unconsciously, your body feels the urge to dance to songs like “Making Flippy Floppy” and “Girlfriend is Better” and keep dancing the rest of the show’s duration, reveling in the pure awesomeness of the music.
And then there is the band itself, engrossed in the music, dancing their way through the show. It’s captivating how enthusiastically they are into the songs they have probably played thousands of times. You are watching a band at the apex of its musical and creative powers, which is always an experience worth watching. And as if that weren’t enough entertainment, Byrne brings the weirdness with his big-ass suit, his running laps around the stage, and dancing with a prop lamp during “This Must Be The Place”.
When you arrive at “This Must Be The Place” on Speaking In Tongues, it is a drastic change of pace from the funk and complex polyrhythms in the earlier songs on the album. It is a love song where Byrne sings of finally feeling settled, although he doesn’t quite know what to do with that feeling. It is the last track on the album, and contrasted with the shouting on “Burning Down The House”, the opening track, it is a welcome landing of the plane. Like Byrne experiencing the confusion of that feeling, you as a listener don’t know what to do with the song at first listen, yet you know you can’t turn it off because it sounds too inviting. That invitation makes you slow down and listen to the lyrics, which stirs feelings of nostalgia, longing and love for the people and places that we call home. Many people post their favorite lines of the song and what it means to them. It’s a heartwarming Reddit thread. And it makes total sense why so many other artists would try and tackle this song in their own way, whether they are singing about their family, the love of their life, or the Blue Ridge mountains. For me, it’s in the second verse, when Byrne admits he can’t tell whether he found the home he is singing about or if it found him. It makes me think of my wife. Did I find her or did she find me? I can’t tell either, but who cares at this point?
This feeling, the obsessive rabbit hole, hours consuming listening, and deep dive band fact-finding is everything right with music. The overpowering and surprising joy it can bring never ceases to surprise me when it comes out of the blue. Who knew I would have to travel back to the 80s to find it? This is not new music, but I don’t care, and that is an insignificant point. It’s always new the first time you hear it.
As for the running playlist? That’s going to have to wait.
Yeah who cares at this point 😉
“Every song that I played made me nod my head, dance, or proclaim out loud how funky and wonderful all of this music was.”
I’m sold.