i'm just an animal, looking for a home.

on Stop Making Sense. dec 19, 2025

I recently had the privilege of attending a theatrical screening of Talking Heads’ concert film Stop Making Sense, one of my favorite movies ever and, at this point, a small obsession. The movie was filmed during the band’s 1983 tour, and is in my opinion a perfect entry point to their music—the setlist performed spans their entire career up to that point and features not only their biggest hits (“Burning Down the House” and “Once in a Lifetime”), but a great mix of deep cuts as well (“Thank You For Sending Me an Angel” and “Swamp”).

I had seen the movie once before in theaters, during its rerelease in IMAX in 2024, but this time was special; I traveled to LA to see it with my older sibling, who introduced me to Stop Making Sense in the first place. This showing also had the distinction of being a “dance party” screening, and let me tell you—you haven’t truly seen this movie until you’ve bunched up at the front of a theater with a sold-out crowd, sweating your ass off dancing to a song you’ve heard a hundred times before, and watching David Byrne flap around with his signature erraticism on the big screen, surrounded by a cadre of some of the most talented musicians of the time. (Bernie Worrell! Lynn Mabry! Endah Holt! Alex Weir! Tina fucking Weymouth!!)

And if you’ve never seen Stop Making Sense before, first: I envy you. Second: I would encourage you to do so as soon as possible, even (and perhaps especially) if you’ve bounced off of Talking Heads and their music before. The performances in the film are immaculate—and immaculately recorded, especially in the new A24 remaster—a testament to the collaborative joy of live music. The rendition of “Burning Down the House” captured by director Jonathan Demme and his crew is one of the most infectiously joyous musical performances of all time.

The key piece of Stop Making Sense to me is that it doesn’t stop, not until the credits are rolling. The film begins with Byrne walking calmly onstage, placing down a tape deck, and performing the band’s first major hit “Psycho Killer” completely alone, with only an acoustic guitar and a drum machine backing track. In all honesty, the opening minutes are quite haunting; after “Psycho Killer,” Weymouth joins the stage for “Heaven,” a song about a never-ending party, in a place where nothing ever happens. It’s an eerie song, and a strangely slow one to be so early in the setlist, but it establishes the tone beautifully, and states one of the theses of the film outright:

“When this party’s over / It will start again.
Won’t be any different / Will be exactly the same.”

After that, drummer Chris Frantz joins the stage, and the party truly kicks off. “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel” is a rowdy little tune, an asymmetric jaunt where Byrne boasts that “with a little practice, you can walk, you can talk just like me.” Although, it might take more than just a little practice. If you’ve ever seen David Byrne’s dance moves, you probably know what I mean. Throughout the entire runtime of Stop Making Sense, he’s a veritable jitterbug, running and twitching and bobbing and bending and twisting and contorting in ways that seem impossible at first. There were plenty of people at the showing attempting to match what Byrne was doing onscreen, but no one can do it quite like him.

As the film continues to progress, more musicians join the stage; first Jerry Harrison to round out the original four members (with whom they perform the underrated number “Found a Job”—for my money one of the most danceable songs in the whole thing), then backup singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt and percussionist Steve Scales for “Slippery People,” and finally keyboardist Bernie Worrell and guitarist Alex Weir for “Burning Down the House.” These first six songs are in essence the first act, establishing the players, tone, and visual language of the film. From there, “Life During Wartime” launches us into the second act, where things get more harrowing.

Not to say that Stop Making Sense ever stops being a good time. Far from it—but for the next several songs something seems off. The aforementioned “Life During Wartime” is anxious, sweaty, and tense, filled with piercing synthesizer solos, and punctuated by Byrne running laps around the stage. “Making Flippy Floppy,” with its near-nonsensical lyrics and swirling, psychedelic synth lines is disorienting and freakish, especially paired with the disconnected words projected behind the band, casting them in shadows. “What a Day That Was” is driving and grimy, and the soaring vocals in the chorus contrast wonderfully with Byrne’s staccato delivery of the verses.

“This Must Be the Place” brings the drama down for perhaps the most overtly magical part of the film—the band huddles around a floor lamp and delivers a gorgeous rendition of the song, ending with Byrne dancing romantically…with the lamp. The whole thing is backed by towering projector photos of the tiniest domestic scenes; intimate closeups of a stomach, a chair turned on its side, an old house, a sunset.

Finally, the climax arrives in the form of “Once in a Lifetime,” a sweeping performance that sees Byrne in the height of his stilted, jerking dances. The camera remains locked on him for nearly the entire six-minute runtime, seemingly just as enamored with his performance as the audience is. When the shot finally cuts (after tracking with Byrne as he leans backward and pulls himself back up, through sheer force of will), the next shot seems even more impossible. Byrne hunches desperately forward, delivering the final few lyrics “Time isn’t holding us / Time isn’t after us” while Mabry and Holt echo his previous, limbo-esque pose—shrouded in theatrical fog—and Harrison and Worrell stand above, slightly in the background and half-covered by shadow. It’s one of the most striking images in a movie that’s utterly filled with striking images, and the performance surrounding it imbues the scene with a powerful dream-like haze.

After a brief intermission from the Tom-Tom Club, Byrne returns to the stage in his now iconic gigantic suit for the final act of the film, beginning with the punchy “Girlfriend is Better.” In his big suit, Byrne is finally free to dance. He enters flanked by crew members holding stage lights that cast larger-than-life shadows on the back wall of the stage, making the already enormous costume even bigger. He flaps his arms and the suit turns the motion into waves that ripple down his sleeves. He runs all over the stage, sharing moments with each band member and moving more naturally than he has for the entire rest of the film—though still distinctly Byrne-ian.

After only two more songs, a wonderfully bouncy cover of “Take Me to the River” and the frenetic “Crosseyed and Painless” (featuring the only direct shots of the audience), the show is over. The curtain falls, the credits roll, and that’s it.

It’s difficult to pin down exactly what it is about this movie that keeps me coming back to it, whether in a crowded theater or at home with the people I love. Maybe it’s the obvious elation that everyone is wearing so plainly on their faces as they perform. Maybe it’s the music—Talking Heads has become one of my favorite bands largely because of the film, and there is no filler here whatsoever. Maybe it’s the staging; the way each member is added one by one so you can feel what they add to the soundscape, the way the stage begins completely bare but is soon filled with equipment and instruments, the way the crew is not only visible but emphasized, the way the camera moves to capture every square inch that it can. Hell, maybe it’s the cinematography itself, all the little details in the way that this film is captured and edited that elevate it tremendously—there is that one shot from “Once in a Lifetime” that never leaves my head—the way that each song has an entirely different visual identity.

Or maybe it’s simply the fact that when the party is over, whenever I want, it can start again. It won’t be any different. It’ll be exactly the same. But even within something unchanging, there’s always more to uncover—details that you’ve overlooked—a guitar line that you hadn’t noticed before—even a “mistake” that made it through—it’s all part of the bar called Heaven.