David Byrne: 'Bicycle Diaries'

I’m a longstanding Talking Heads enthusiast, being old enough to remember the impact of their first records in unashamedly bringing ‘Art’ into the post-Punk/New Wave equation, back in the late 1970s [1.].  It’s far from original to point out that their real genius lay in marrying leader David Byrne’s unconventionally analytical (possibly autistic) songwriting and twitchy mannerisms, with an unerring rhythmic nous, and willingness to prioritise the Funk, over tired Rock cliché.

Talking Heads. (L-R): David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Martina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison
(Photo: Rock Hall Library & Archive)

I’ve returned to the T.H. back catalogue consistently, since their somewhat rancorous dissolution in 1991, and their best recordings really never wear out.  For all that, I never really followed David Byrne’s prolific solo career with anything like the same dedication, despite his continuing exploration of numerous avenues of expression, through a variety of parallel media, over the intervening years.

David Byrne.  Still From: 'Stop Making Sense', (Dir.) Jonathan Demme, 1984,
Talking Heads/Arnold Stifle Co.

David Byrne, 2015

However, I couldn’t help noting the P.R push surrounding the release of his latest album, ‘American Utopia’, [2.] with its typically ironic (I assume) title, and associated, and very timely, drive to find much-needed 'Reasons To Be Cheerful' in our current global situation.  The media hype didn’t fulfill its assumed ambition of driving me to purchase the album.  However, it has generated some income for Mr. Byrne, in reminding me that he had written a couple of books in recent years (with both of which I’d been meaning to catch up) - and persuading me they might be exactly the kind of thing I could fancy reading right now.

David Byrne, New York City, 2011 (Photo: Buzz Photo)

David Byrne Aboard Folding Bicycle

I’ve yet to open ‘How Music Works’ [3.], but my impressions of the earlier ‘Bicycle Diaries’ [4.] are very favourable so far, it being an account of David Byrne’s enthusiasm for one of my own loves – namely, exploring cities by bike.  He’s quite rightly identified the pedal cycle as the perfect vehicle for conducting an expedition of urban discovery [5.].  It’s particularly pleasing to discover that he routinely travels the world with a folding bike, using it to devote much of his down-time from various creative endeavours, to exploring the cities he visits.  Byrne isn’t totally disengaged from a variety of constructive cycling activism, but this is a book about how the bike might be deployed as a creative tool - rather than a Bible for the gear-heads, fitness obsessives, lycra bores or two-wheeled warriors.  Most of his accounts focus on the things he finds out in the world, rather than on each turn of the crank it took to get there.

North Leicester, March 2018

Northwest Leicester, March 2018

It’s also encouraging to find he’s lost little of the fascinated objectivity, which made his early work so refreshing – and which always gave the suggestion of a visitor conducting a detailed research project into humanity and its self-built environments.  Of course, true objectivity is far from attainable for any artist (and this is what David Byrne remains, after all).  Nevertheless, I like the (now, often unfashionable) relativism of his approach, and the general attitude it seems to encapsulate, that ‘Everything Is Interesting’ [6.].  I particularly enjoy the fact that any emotional responses he may have, or any political, philosophical or otherwise theoretical conclusions he may draw, stem from simply going out to see what is actually there.  It is, closely akin to my own favoured approach, and represents a guiding principle that I aspire to maintaining in my process.

Northwest Leicester, March 2018

It would be foolish and unfair to attempt to review a book I’m still reading.  Instead, here are a couple of quotes that have impressed me, as I’ve jumped back and forth through the text, (it originated as a blog – which seems to encourage such a reading approach).  The first is from David Byrne’s own introduction, and the second concludes his Epilogue:

“This point of view [from a bicycle] - faster than a walk, slower than a train, often slightly higher than a person - became my panoramic window on much of the world over the last thirty years – and it still is.  It’s a big window and it looks out on a mainly urban landscape.  (I’m not a racer or a sports cyclist).  Through this window I catch glimpses of the mind of my fellow man, as expressed in the cities he lives in.  Cities, it occurred to me, are a manifestation of our deepest beliefs and our often unconscious thoughts, not so much as individuals, but as the social animals we are.  A cognitive scientist need only look at what we have made – the hives we have created – to know what we think and what we believe to be important, as well as how we structure those thoughts and beliefs.  It’s all there, in plain view, right out in the open; you don’t need CAT scans and cultural anthropologists to show you what’s going on inside the human mind; its inner workings are manifested in three dimensions, all around us.  Our values and hopes are sometimes awfully embarrassingly easy to read.  They’re right there – in the storefronts, museums, temples, shops, and office buildings and in how these structures interrelate, or sometimes don’t.  They say, in their unique visual language, “This is what we think matters, this is how we live and how we play”.  Riding a bike through all this is like navigating the collective neural pathways of some vast global mind.  It really is a trip inside the collective psyche of a compacted group of people.  A Fantastic Voyage, but without the cheesy special effects.  One can sense the collective brain – happy, cruel, deceitful, and generous – at work and at play.  Endless variations on familiar themes repeat and recur: triumphant or melancholic, hopeful or resigned, the permutations keep unfolding and multiplying.” [7.].

“I’m in my midfifties, so I can testify that biking as a way of getting around is not something only for the young and energetic.  You don’t really need the spandex, and unless you want it to be, biking is not all that strenuous.  It’s the liberating feeling – the physical and psychological sensation – that is more persuasive than any practical argument.  Seeing things from a point of view that is close enough to pedestrians, vendors and storefronts combined with getting around in a way that doesn’t feel completely divorced from the life that occurs on the streets is pure pleasure.

“Observing and engaging in a city’s life – even for a reticent and often shy person like me – is one of life’s great joys.  Being a social creature – it is part of what it means to be human.” [8.].

[1.]:  It’s fair to say that not only is 1979’s ‘Fear Of Music’ my favourite album by Talking Heads, but remains amongst my favourite albums by anyone.

[2.]:  David Byrne, ‘American Utopia’, Nonesuch/Todo Mundo, 2018

[3.]:  David Byrne, ‘Bicycle Diaries’, London, Faber & Faber, 2010 (Paperback)

[4.]:  David Byrne, ‘How Music Works’, London, Canongate Books, 2013

[5.]:  It extends one’s pedestrian range (particularly if your dodgy old legs don’t permit extended forays on foot).  It still embeds you firmly within your surroundings – being a physical extension, rather than an insulating capsule.  When deployed non-competitively, it affords a constructive connection between rhythmic physical activity and creative mental ‘flow’ - without becoming tediously all about the exercise (improved physical wellbeing as a side-effect of an engaged life sounds like a perfect win-win to me).  It negates the need for parking provision (especially if of the folding variety) – allowing one to simply jump from the saddle, lean it against a wall, and collect the next tranche of photos/impressions/evidence.  And (admittedly, after a little initial outlay) the running costs are pretty negligible.  Along with my camera, I can honestly say that my own bike has become so much of a trusted tool as to feel effectively like an inanimate friend, with which I share numerous invaluable small experiences.

[6.]:  ‘Everything Is Interesting’ is actually the title of a 2003 exibit at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, by Canadian Conceptualist, Kelly Mark.  They’ll still sell you a badge bearing the same legend, and it seems to me - an admirable dictum by which one might live a life, creative or otherwise.

[7, 8]:  David Byrne, ‘Bicycle Diaries’, London, Faber & Faber, 2010 (Paperback)