Elizabeth Obermeyer

I went to see Stop Making Sense at the Playhouse Cinema earlier today. I was excited, yet a little apprehensive. On the surface, it was a fun afternoon adventure with my kid who has just recently discovered that they really love Talking Heads. But deeper, much deeper, it was something so much more.

The film, deemed by some to be the greatest concert film of all time, has been recently restored for the lead-up to its (gasp!) fortieth anniversary. The date at the end of the credits read MCMLXXXIV (this is 1984 for those who might not have been taught Roman Numerals in school which my generation was for some reason, but it comes in handy for film situations) so the showings are just a little ahead of its anniversary. When it was released, I was in grade eleven or early grade twelve, and I remember being excited to see it in the theatre on a giant (for the time) screen. And I remember that I was extra excited to go and see it with my friend Ric.

I wrote about Ric in another blog, my very first blog. I’m not going to link it here but the reason I wrote about him in the spring of 2008 is because he died very suddenly that year, the year we both turned 41. 

Ric was a transfer student to our public high school from the Catholic school system. In the mid-80s, if you wanted to go to university, if you wanted an education that would prepare you for university, you left your Catholic school and did the final few years at a public school. At least in Hamilton you did.

He and I had a few classes together and we developed a friendship quickly. We liked the same films (never movies, how pretentious we were at seventeen) and the same music and we had similar senses of humour. And it was with Ric that I first saw Stop Making Sense.

Some movies (I’m so much less pretentious now) can change you and that’s how it was for me with Stop Making Sense. I have never once thought about or heard mention of that movie in the past forty years without thinking about Ric. About him and his Datsun (a very old-fashioned word) with its strategically placed floor mat on the passenger side because the floor itself was mostly missing. About how we would get in trouble for laughing in English class. About how he wrote in my yearbook, “I like you because you like David Byrne and plain donuts.” About how after university we would only ever see each other every couple of years—usually at Christmas when he was home—but we’d manage to squeeze in a movie and a couple of drinks and we’d spend so much time laughing.

When I read that the film was being restored and re-released I knew I wanted to see it, but I also knew it would conjure a lot of feelings and now that I am home after the showing, I can confirm that it was a very emotional ninety minutes.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it opens with a shot of a shadow on the floor. You can hear crowd noises. Eventually, the shadow moves and is revealed to be a person and a guitar. As the shadow moves to cross the floor the crowd noises increase. David Byrne walks to the centre of the stage and places a small boombox beside him. He presses play and launches into Psycho Killer. It’s a brilliant beginning to a brilliant concert. By the second song, Tina Weymouth, bass player extraordinaire is also onstage with Byrne and they play Heaven, which—oof— gave me big, big, feelings. I managed to keep it together (mostly) for a while but then This Must Be The Place sucker punched me and I just let it all out.

Memory is wild and memory association is wilder, still. I think I will always associate Stop Making Sense with Ric and 1984, but I was really glad I got to experience it again, almost forty years later, with Chuck. And I think Ric would appreciate that, too.

This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb, burn with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It’s ok I know nothing’s wrong… nothing

Hi yo I got plenty of time
Hi yo you got light in your eyes
And you’re standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money
Always for love

Cover up + say goodnight… say goodnight

Home, is where I want to be
But I guess I’m already there
I come home, she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place
I can’t tell one from another

Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born

If someone asks, this where I’ll be where I’ll be
Hi yo we drift in and out
Hi yo sing into my mouth
Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view
I’m just an animal looking for a home
Share the same space for a minute or two
And you love me till my heart stops
Love me till I’m dead
Eyes that light up, eyes look through you
Cover up the blank spots
Hit me on the head ah ooh