Mo-om! Dad’s writing about his music again!
The Great Curve: A song so immense it generates its own gravitational field.
— Johnny_Segment on Reddit.
I popped into Walmart after work yesterday. My mood was low, even though it was Friday afternoon. A Friday with something other than rain forecast for Saturday. We’ve just endured five consecutive rainy Saturdays. Instead of thinking about what triggered my depression (is this the right word?), agitation (?), I ignored it. Instead, I fired up my Radio Jeff playlist on Spotify, twenty-three hours and four minutes of my favorite music randomly shuffled for my enjoyment.
A Talking Heads song, The Great Curve, came on. I came late to listening to Talking Heads. My older brother was an instant fan when they released their first album in 1977. I had no time for them. In 1977, at fourteen, the only band I listened to was the Beatles. When Talking Heads played Saturday Night Live in 1979, I went to the kitchen to get ice cream.
Talking Heads didn’t capture my interest until my college dormmate began playing their 1982 live album The Name of this Band is Talking Heads. Specifically, their song the Great Curve grabbed me. It took me years to understand this, but one of my favorite rock music conventions is when a song builds to a tight climax and then explodes in release. Some good examples of this are the Doors’ LA Woman, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody does this a couple of times, and I even harbor a secret love of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off for her talky/shouty part near the end of the song.
The Great Curve, I think is the best example. The song builds with a complex African groove and scrapy guitars for almost three minutes. Just past the halfway mark, framed as if it’s maybe the whole point of the song, singer David Byrne screams out:
World moves on a woman’s hips
World moves and it swivels and bops
World moves on a woman’s hips
World moves and it bounces and hops
Looking online, there are countless interpretations about the meaning of this song. Many reference Mother Earth as ‘the woman.’ Or the need for nurturing womenkind to take over global leadership roles. One in-depth analysis gets quite a bit more from the song than I do:
“The Great Curve” touches on various themes such as the passage of time, the elusive nature of truth, the unpredictability of life, and the individual’s struggle to find purpose. Through cryptic lyrics and evocative imagery, Talking Heads delve into these universal themes, leaving room for personal interpretation and introspection.
Credit: The Meaning Behind The Song: The Great Curve by Talking Heads – Old Time Music
Urm… maybe. In 1982, the same year the live version was released, Debbie Parsons, the girlfriend of my manager at the pizza joint where I worked, walked across a shopping center parking lot in tight jeans and a sheer off-white shirt. Her long mocha hair springing while her purposeful walk that set her body in motion. After appreciating the image for a moment, I looked around the busy parking lot. All action ceased. Every eye was glued to Debbie. She stopped the world on a busy Saturday afternoon. The world moves on a woman’s hips…
So is that it? Could the song be that simple? Are they singing about a hot woman? I’ve never doubted it. After the lyric I copied above, David Byrne sings: A world of light, she’s gonna open our eyes up. And that’s exactly what Debbie Parsons did that afternoon. She brought Congressional Plaza to a standstill and woke everyone up from their mundane shopping errands. Every time I hear the song, my brain retrieves that image.
Driving home from Walmart, when The Great Curve faded to silence, the opening notes of Neil Young’s Like a Hurricane ground out of my speakers. After a two-year hiatus, Neil’s ban of Spotify ended. The ban he started because Spotify wouldn’t remove Joe Rogan from their platform. Neil gave up. He acknowledged that Apple Music and Amazon Streaming are broadcasting the same sort of right-wing crap. If he wants to be available to his fan base, he needs to share the platforms with content he despises. And just like that, my bad mood evaporated. A couple good songs, a happy surprise, and my mind balanced out.
If you’d like to read the rant I wrote when Neil Young abandoned Spotify, click HERE.
I freely admit my self-consciousness when spooling out eight hundred words about a rock song (especially when I include my own sketchy and questionable analysis). If you’re still reading, thank you for your indulgence. And listen to this song, it effing rocks.
The Great Curve by Talking Heads—not the live version I wrote about but the studio version from the album Remain in Light that came on my car stereo yesterday.
The Other Stuff 
I assume the lyricist is saying nothing, but the lyrics do lend themselves to a metaphorical interpretation. It’s not as much fun as your earthy explanation.
.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I won’t be swayed, but I recognize many people, much smarter than me, have agreed on the metaphorical interpretation. Your suggestion that the lyrics mean nothing is a point John Lennon focused on time and again. People will find meaning in anything.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I once read that there are bands, like Aerosmith, that specialize in lyrics that are wonderfully catchy but aren’t intended to be meaningful (that article, I believe, called them nonsensical). Doesn’t mean I don’t ascribe meaning to them, especially when they appear in movies I like 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Never got into Talking Heads, now I understand why! (no offence)
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL! No offence taken. No band is for everyone, and TH have far more accessible songs… but why write about them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I enjoyed your post, but not the song 😆
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Barry. An acquired taste? Probably. It took me years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Okay I have a train ride ahead of me so going to listen either on the walk there or the ride. After a certain age those songs start to mean different things. I have this image of future retirement homes with punk rock blasting in the hallways and metal in the dining room as the aging children of the eighties move towards their twilight years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sure you’ll punch holes all over my theory, but you’ll have listened to a first-rate song, so: win. Yes, our generation won’t grow old with grace. I personally worry about my saggy tattoos in my 90s.
LikeLike
Flying to Newark today and just downloaded a Neil Young live record from 1970. Best start of my day ever. Best song ever too, that TH one! I like that the band Phish plays their favorite band records every Halloween live, or used to anyways. And I have a copy of them doing Remain in Light, which is pretty tight boyyyyyeee
LikeLiked by 1 person
My Like a Hurricane moment was magical. The song came on and my jaw dropped. It was the Weld version which I never downloaded because I like the Live Rust version better. I thought spotify was sending me and a million other Neil fans a message. When I got home, I learned the restoration happened a few days ago. Mourning time wasted. Happy travels.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful story, nothing like Neil. Hope Joni follows suit.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think you should stop apologizing for writing about music. I’d never heard this Heads song before. I love it! And I like your interpretation. I became a Heads fan just a few years ago, when I listened to them while painting my kitchen.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know you’re right about the apologizing. I can’t seem to help myself. Other than this song, which has been in my playlist all along, I’ve kind of forgotten about Talking Heads. Listening to a podcast about them recently reminded me that they have created so much great music.
LikeLike
Seeing the epic ”Stop Making Sense” by Talking Heads in the movie theater last year was an entertainment highlight for me. One regret is never having seen them live.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Still haven’t seen that yet. I’ve actually only ever watched one concert movie — Live Rust. Stop Making Sense is surely the next one I should watch. I love the soundtrack.
LikeLike
I don’t listen to a lot of music, preferring silence (especially to write) and conversation. Perhaps I don’t know what I’m missing, although I couldn’t make much sense from Curve. I love your passion for music and this song, but much of music-talk is lost on me. Apologies. X
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, I get it. As an American man uninterested in (American) Football, basketball and baseball. I listen to people prattle on and on about nuances I don’t want to spend time searching for. It makes me roll my eyes. It’s why I usually accompany an apology with these posts. Plus, the music I listen too almost always has an element of noise to it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Spooling out thoughts and words about Talking Heads is never a waste of time! And Byrne’s lyrics are perhaps unrivaled when it comes to that perfect rock juggling act of the poetic, the visceral, and the deliberately-absurd-but-the-words-sound-cool-in-this-combination (ranging all the way from parts of “Once in a Lifetime” to the actual gibberish of “I, Zimbra”)
Side-note anecdote from my own adolescence: My high school was hosting a drama competition, and I was playing Talking Heads in the common area in the background. Someone came and said there’d been requests to change the music because it was “too weird” (and these were drama kids!). Being a teenager, I – of course – got super self-conscious. Years later, as I was listening to them I remember that moment and had a nice moment of righteous anger. WAIT A MINUTE: I WAS RIGHT!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yay, I was hoping a talking heads fan would drop by. It’s funny, I don’t really think their music is weird at all, but I recall it being portrayed that way in the movie 13 going on 30. I was a bit shocked when some of the commenters said they didn’t like the great curve. Thanks for dropping by to read.
LikeLike