Talking Heads, new reunion: David Byrne and co. come together again for a book

Talking Heads are reuniting once again, but once again not to play together. David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison and Chris Frantz have announced a new collective project: "Talking Heads: New Feeling", a book that retraces the band's history through first-hand accounts, previously unseen documents and archival material. The volume, published by Abrams Books, will be released on May 18, 2027, the year marking the fiftieth anniversary of "Talking Heads: 77", the debut album that in 1977 helped change the face of American new wave.

The book "Talking Heads: New Feeling"

The four musicians unveiled the project in a video shared on the publisher's social media channels, stressing the exceptional nature of this new collaboration. Each of them wrote an essay for the book, which will also feature original manuscripts of songs like "Psycho Killer" and "Life During Wartime", cover art sketches, private photographs and behind-the-scenes images from "Stop Making Sense", the celebrated concert film directed by Jonathan Demme in 1984.
"For this book we dug out handwritten lyrics, original album sketches and private photos, some of which hadn't left our archive in over 40 years", explained Jerry Harrison. Chris Frantz, meanwhile, recalled the band's origins, born out of the meeting of three Rhode Island School of Design students, Byrne, Weymouth and Frantz himself, before they landed at New York's CBGB, one of the iconic venues of the budding punk and new wave scene of the 1970s. The book will also feature contributions from artists and public figures such as Lorde, Debbie Harry, Jeff Bridges and Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard.

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The project marks a further chapter in the rapprochement between the four Talking Heads members, who first reappeared together in public in September 2023, on the occasion of the premiere of the restored version of "Stop Making Sense" at the Toronto International Film Festival. On that occasion they took part in a conversation hosted by Spike Lee, kicking off a new season of reunions after decades of strained relations. They have since come together for other initiatives tied to the film and, more recently, for the launch of Talking Heads Radio, a dedicated channel on the SiriusXM platform.
A return to the stage as a band, however, remains off the table, despite multi-million-dollar offers reportedly having circulated in the past to convince them to perform together again. "I try not to look back too much, but I'm very proud of everything we did", Byrne said during one of his recent appearances with his former bandmates. "It's quite amazing how this stuff has sort of stood the test of time, and keeps finding a new audience".

The "Fear of Music" reissue

Meanwhile, the band's back catalogue also continues to be given fresh attention. On November 13, a new super deluxe edition of "Fear Of Music" will arrive, the third Talking Heads album, originally released in 1979. The box set will include the remastered album, alternate recordings, material scrapped during the studio sessions and two previously unreleased concerts recorded in Boston and Passaic that same year. Other recent initiatives include the rarities collection "Tentative Decisions: Demos and Live" and a series of playlists individually curated by the four musicians, titled "The Name of This Band Member Is…", a tribute to the band's classic 1982 live album "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads".

Nearly forty years after breaking up, then, Talking Heads continue to rediscover and recount their own story. For now, though, the reunion remains confined to books, archives and public appearances: no new album and no concerts on the horizon.

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