Or, your latest song rec
I hadn’t heard of the Australian trio STUMPS until last week when YouTube recommended the music video for their new song “David Byrne.” Now, I’m a simple man. I see something Talking Heads-affiliated, I click. And taking inspiration from David is a pretty good starting point for a song. I hope he’s heard and/or seen this. I’m sure he’ll approve.
I also hope this means we’re about to see a resurgence of the trend of naming songs after singers. The success rate has been high so far: Weezer with “Buddy Holly,” the Barenaked Ladies with “Brian Wilson.” Those were debut singles, so I imagine a band with something of a catalogue already, as STUMPS have, would fare even better.
Then there’s “Bob Dylan” by Nine Days—you know, those guys who did “Absolutely (Story of a Girl),” the song whose name no one knows and whose lyrics no one understands but everyone of a certain age can sing—and “Marvin Gaye” by Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor. And that’s to say nothing of the song titles that are more than just the singer’s name, like Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said” and Paul Simon’s “The Late Great Johnny Ace.”
The band were smart with this single, capitalizing on the expanded 40th-anniversary release of Stop Making Sense. But any time would be about time one of my favorite frontmen got his tribute. And in such catchy fashion.
Does anybody have any questions?
Image: from the video