[[quoteright:254:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dbyrne.png]]
[[caption-width-right:254:''And the music comes from the hydrogen bomb.\\
Rock bands died when amateurs won.'']]

->''"I've made money, and I've been ripped off... I've had creative freedom, and I've been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored... If you think success in the world of music is determined by the number of records sold, or the size of your house or bank account, then I'm not the expert for you. I am more interested in how people can manage a whole lifetime in music."''
-->-- '''David Byrne''', ''How Music Works''

David Byrne (born 14 May 1952) is a well-rounded individual, {{cloudcuckoolander}} extraordinaire, and something of a maverick in the music world. He's most famous for his tenure as the frontman and primary songwriter for the wildly influential PostPunk[=/=]NewWaveMusic band Music/TalkingHeads, but he's also a solo musician whose [[GenreRoulette genre-hopping]] makes the already aurally diverse Heads sound normal by comparison. [[RenaissanceMan He's also]] a visual artist, a [[Film/TrueStories one-time]] film director and actor, a published author, an avid bicyclist, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs the author of a column about bicycling]] in ''The New York Times''.

While most of it is vaguely definable as AlternativeRock or art pop, Byrne's music is impossible to pigeonhole and difficult to generalize. Even within a single album, he won't stick to one genre, nor does he play any given style straight. That said, elements that pop up frequently across his discography include art-punk, funk, African-inspired polyrhythms, Latin American influences, and ''very'' surreal lyrics delivered in a fashion that is either [[LargeHam passionately hammy]] or [[DullSurprise utterly deadpan]].

Byrne is also fairly notable for being one of few known autistic musicians to achieve critical and commercial success; he revealed that he was autistic in 2009, specifically stating that he had UsefulNotes/AspergersSyndrome (which was absorbed into Autism Spectrum Disorder by the APA in 2013). Music, like acting, is often considered to be an extremely hard field for autistic people to make any headway in, making Byrne's success and influence on popular music quite significant in that regard.

UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows users may recognize his single "Like Humans Do" (from the album ''Look into the Eyeball''), which was used as a stock song for Windows Media Player on XP.

----
!!Discography:
* Byrne's discography with Music/TalkingHeads is on their page.
!!!Solo studio albums
* ''Music/ReiMomo'' (1989)[[note]]Byrne's first proper solo album, having previously done only collaborations and soundtracks. A collection of Latin American genres like salsa, rumba, merengue, and cumbia. Produced the singles "Make Believe Mambo", "Dirty Old Town", and "Independence Day".[[/note]]
* ''[[Music/UhOhDavidByrneAlbum Uh-Oh]]'' (1992)[[note]]A fusion of new wave, funk, and Latin American styles, carrying on from [[Music/{{Naked}} Talking Heads' final album]]. Produced the singles "Hanging Upside Down", "She's Mad", and "Girls on My Mind".[[/note]]
* ''Music/{{David Byrne|Album}}'' (or as it's written on the cover, ''davidenryd'') (1994)[[note]]90s AlternativeRock with some darker, Byrne-esque touches. Produced the singles "Angels" and "Back in the Box".[[/note]]
* ''Music/{{Feelings}}'' (1997)[[note]]Genre roulette, with TripHop and AlternativeDance as the glue (barely) holding everything together. About half the tracks were produced by Music/{{Morcheeba}}. Gave us the single "Miss America".[[/note]]
* ''Music/LookIntoTheEyeball'' (2001)[[note]]Genre roulette. Produced the singles "Like Humans Do" and "U.B. Jesus".[[/note]]
* ''Music/GrownBackwards'' (2004)[[note]]Genre roulette, though mainly acoustic music, with a full string section on most of the tracks.[[/note]]
* ''Music/AmericanUtopia'' (2018)[[note]]A new solo album with production by Brian Eno.[[/note]]

!!!Collaborative studio albums
* ''Music/MyLifeInTheBushOfGhosts'' (1981)[[note]]A collaboration with Music/BrianEno. A pioneering example of {{sampling}}, setting spoken-word clips to electronic, ambient, and funk rhythms. Produced the singles "America Is Waiting" and "The Jezebel Spirit". A remastered version was released on CD to commemorate [[MilestoneCelebration its 25th anniversary]] in 2006, featuring several additional bonus tracks.[[/note]]
* ''Music/EverythingThatHappensWillHappenToday'' (2008)[[note]]A second collaboration with Music/BrianEno. Electronic pop with Gospel and soul influences. Produced the singles "Strange Overtones" and "One Fine Day".[[/note]]
* ''Music/LoveThisGiant'' (2012)[[note]]A collaboration with Music/StVincent. A fusion of brass band music and electronic beats. Produced the single "Who."[[/note]]
** ''Brass Tactics'' EP (2013)

!!!Soundtracks
* ''The Catherine Wheel'' (1981)[[note]]A soundtrack for the interpretive dance show by Twyla Harp of the same name. Initially released as a truncated LP before being released in its entirety on cassette; all CD releases use the full-length version. Sounded enough like Talking Heads that one of its songs was featured on ''Film/StopMakingSense''.[[/note]]
* ''Music from The Knee Plays'' (1985)[[note]]Songs intended as interlude music for Robert Wilson's opera, ''[=CIVIL warS=]''. Brass band music. Rereleased on CD in 2007 under the title ''The Knee Plays''.[[/note]]
* ''Sounds from True Stories'' (1986)[[note]]A partial soundtrack for ''Film/TrueStories''. Completely different from the Talking Heads album ''Music/TrueStories''. [[/note]]
* ''The Last Emperor'' (1987)[[note]]Soundtrack for the film ''Film/TheLastEmperor''. A collaboration with Music/RyuichiSakamoto and Cong Su. Won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Original Score.[[/note]]
* ''The Forest'' (1991)[[note]]An orchestral score for Robert Wilson's play of the same name. Mixes the classical traditions of Europe, the Middle East, and Japan, among other places.[[/note]]
* ''In Spite of Wishing and Wanting'' (1999)[[note]]Soundtrack for the Ultima Vez dance troupe's stage show of the same name.[[/note]]
* ''Lead Us Not Into Temptation'' (2003)[[note]]A soundtrack for the film ''Film/YoungAdam'', and a collaboration with members of Music/{{Mogwai}} and Music/BelleAndSebastian.[[/note]]
* ''Big Love: Hymnal'' (2008)[[note]]Soundtrack for season 2 of ''Series/BigLove''.[[/note]]
* ''Here Lies Love'' (2010)[[note]]A collaboration with Music/FatboySlim and 20-something featured singers, created as the official soundtrack to [[Theatre/HereLiesLove the Broadway show of the same name]] (which would first premier 3 years later). A [[RockOpera dance-popera]] about the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines. Produced the single "Please Don't".[[/note]]

!!!{{Live Album}}s
* ''Live from Austin, Texas'' (2007)[[note]]Recorded from a 2001 show, while touring in support of ''Look into the Eyeball''.[[/note]]
* ''Everything That Happens Will Happen on This Tour'' EP (2009).
* ''Theatre/HereLiesLove: Original 2013 Off-Broadway Cast Recording'' (2014).
* ''Live at Carnegie Hall'' (2012)[[note]]A collaboration with Caetano Veloso. Stripped-down, acoustic songs.[[/note]]
* ''"...The Best Live Show of All Time" -NME'' (2018)[[note]]A live EP with several recordings of songs performed during the ''American Utopia'' tour, bundled exclusively with the deluxe edition of the eponymous studio album.[[/note]]

!!!{{Remix Album}}s
* "The Forestry" maxi-single (1991).
* ''The Visible Man'' (1998).
* ''The Remix Collection from Here Lies Love'' (2014).

!!Filmography:
* ''Film/StopMakingSense'' (1984)[[note]]ConcertFilm with Music/TalkingHeads from the 1983 ''Music/SpeakingInTongues'' tour; directed by Creator/JonathanDemme.[[/note]]
* ''Film/TrueStories'' (1986)[[note]]Narrative vignette film directed by and starring Byrne; to date his only stint as a film director and a live-action actor in a fictional role (the unnamed Narrator).[[/note]]
* ''Between the Teeth -- Live'' (1993)[[note]]Direct-to-video ConcertFilm from the 1992 ''Uh-Oh'' tour; directed by David Wild and Lou Angelo. Byrne also composed the soundtrack.[[/note]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' (2003; 2012)[[note]]Appears AsHimself in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS14E18DudeWheresMyRanch "Dude, Where's My Ranch?"]] and [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS23E16HowIWetYourMother "How I Wet Your Mother"]]. His only voice-acting roles to date.[[/note]]
* ''Film/ThisMustBeThePlace'' (2010)[[note]]Narrative film directed by Paolo Sorrentino; Byrne appears as himself performing the song of the same name, and wrote the soundtrack.[[/note]]
* ''John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch'' (2019)[[note]]Creator/{{Netflix}} children's comedy special directed by Rhys Thomas; appears as himself.[[/note]]
* ''American Utopia'' (2020)[[note]]ConcertFilm from the 2019 Broadway residency show in support of the ''American Utopia'' album; directed by Creator/SpikeLee.[[/note]]
----

!!David Byrne and his works provide examples of:
* AllLowercaseLetters: The cover and liner notes of the self-titled album.
* AlternativeRock: Most of his solo material loosely qualifies as this, especially in regards to his 1990's output. His material since 2001 is more closely categorizable as art pop, though traces of alternative rock can still be found here and there.
* AmbiguousGender: Mentioned in "In the Future":
-->In the future, it will be next to impossible to tell girls from boys, even in bed.
* AnachronismStew: ''Here Lies Love'' covers a period from 1965 to 1986, yet the song "American Troglodyte" references the average US citizens surfing the internet and listening to Music/FiftyCent.
* AnimatedMusicVideo: The 2013 re-recording of [[Music/RyuichiSakamoto "Psychedelic Afternoon"]] received one as part of the associated charity project, featuring Byrne as a mystical hippie grandpa helping his grandson cope with the trauma left by the 2011 earthquake in Japan.
* ArcWords: "Todo Mundo" (Spanish for "whole world"). First it showed up in the lyrics of "Make Believe Mambo". Then it appeared in the ''Feelings'' album art, written on the doll's jacket. Then Byrne used it as the name for his record label.
* AuteurLicense: Generally agreed to have received it in 1980, with the success and acclaim of Talking Heads' ''Music/RemainInLight''. Since then, he's had free reign to do more or less whatever he wants, not only in music (both with Talking Heads and with his solo career), but in practically every other art form he's touched.
* AuthorAppeal: He's intrigued by the effects of mass media, in part because he spent a good deal of time in the 70's watching TV to try and learn more about connecting with the people around him, so the act of watching TV pops up a lot in his lyrics. Also he frequently references malleable or completely false identities.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: In "Wicked Little Doll".
-->Make a little love, some parts are missing.
* BoleroEffect: "Strange Ritual", "I Feel My Stuff".
* {{Bowdlerise}}: The album version of "Like Humans Do" includes the line "I never watch TV except when I'm stoned." For the Windows XP version, the line was changed to "We're eating off plates and we kiss with our tongues."
* BreakupSong: "The Accident", where the accident is just a metaphor for the hurt feelings in the wake of a relationship's end.
* BritishRockStar: '''Hugely''' [[AvertedTrope averted]]. While David Byrne ''is'' British (more specifically Scottish, hailing from Dumbarton), he's generally very tame personality-wise, has never been interested in drugs or alcohol[[note]]he stated in an interview that he ''has'' tried drugs before, but either couldn't get any effects out of them or just felt ''worse'' while high, leading him to lead an otherwise clean life[[/note]], and tends to dress in a very business-casual manner. He's also lost any trace of a Scottish accent in his speaking voice through years of living in the U.S.
* TheCameo: Downplayed as he never says anything, but he was briefly seen in the audience of the ''Series/InsideTheActorsStudio'' episode featuring the six core voice actors of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: It's telling that being the driving force behind Music/TalkingHeads is just considered the tip of the iceberg in terms of eccentricity.
* ColorMotifs: The color red seems to show up a lot throughout his album art. In particular, ''Music/TalkingHeads77'', ''Music/MoreSongsAboutBuildingsAndFood'', ''Music/RemainInLight'', ''The Catherine Wheel'', ''Music/TrueStories'', ''Music/{{Naked}}'', ''Rei Momo'', the "Make Believe Mambo" single, and ''Brass Tactics'' all prominently feature red on their covers. "She's Mad" took things in a slightly different direction, with a translucent red jewel case and a red CD label, and the first 100,000 CD copies of its parent album, ''Uh-Oh'', concurrently featured a translucent red tray.
* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: In ''American Utopia'' he told the story of how the protagonist of "Everybody's Coming To My House" wasn't supposed to be 100% delighted about the prospect of everyone coming to his house, but that he (Byrne) later heard a cover version of it by a group of teenage singers from the Detroit School of the Arts that completely made him rethink the song: the Detroit version was a joyful song about how people didn't have to be alone. In a rather heartwarming gesture, the Detroit version is played over the end titles.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The liner notes of the self-titled album are (other than a tiny bit of color on the jewel case's spine) solely black and white photos and text.
* {{Dismotivation}}: The narrator of "Lazy" claims to be a LazyBum, but he gives a surprisingly long list of activities he does in a lazy way. He comes across instead like a guy who works really hard to convince everyone he's cool and lazy.
--> I'm lazy when I'm loving. \\
I'm lazy when I play. \\
I'm lazy with my girlfriend, a thousand times a day. \\
I'm lazy when I'm speakin'. \\
I'm lazy when I walk. \\
I'm lazy when I'm dancin'. \\
I'm lazy when I talk.
* DistantDuet: Both the duets in ''Here Lies Love'':
** "Seven Years" has Benigno Aquino (first in prison, then in exile to the US) and Imelda Marcos (in the capitol in Manila) singing to each other.
** "Why Don't You Love Me?": "This song is sung in an imaginary duet between Imelda and Estrella, who have no contact with one another at this point."
* DoomedMoralVictor: In "Seven Years" and "Why Don't You Love Me?", Benigno Aquino winds up killed for opposing Ferdinand Marcos. However, this assassination "triggers the collapse of the whole house of cards"--Ferdinand loses his office, and the whole family flees the country.
* DreamWalker: In "The Dream Police", there's an entire justice system to prosecute crimes committed in sleep.
-->Everyone has the same dreams, on different days of the week.\\
We are the watchdogs of your mind, we are the dream police.
* DullSurprise: One of Byrne's two trademark vocal styles, when he's not being a LargeHam.
* EpicRocking: "Strange Ritual" from ''David Byrne'' (6:51). "Lazy" from ''Grown Backwards'' (9:35).
* EverythingIsAnInstrument: For ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'', Byrne and Eno augmented their percussion with "basically anything that was lying around". For example, they used a cardboard box as a kick drum, and a biscuit tin as a snare drum. He later took this trope to its logical extreme with an art installment called "Playing The Building," in which guests were invited to play on an organ Byrne had rigged to manipulate the inner workings of an abandoned warehouse.
* FaceOnTheCover:
** Almost all of his non-soundtrack solo albums (with ''Uh-Oh'', ''Here Lies Love'', and ''American Utopia'' being the exceptions). ''David Byrne'' and ''Grown Backwards'' are completely straight examples. Others are odd variations on mugshots: ''Rei Momo'' is a photo of a human heart, with Byrne's face visible through cut-out parts of the picture, ''Feelings'' has a plastic doll in Byrne's likeness, and ''Look Into the Eyeball'' has two interlaced mugshots.
** Among Byrne's collaborative studio albums, this trope is instead the exception rather than the norm: ''Love This Giant'' is the only album of Byrne's in this category to feature his face on the cover art, specifically utilizing a photo of Byrne and Music/StVincent posing in prosthetic chins.
* FadingIntoTheNextSong: ''The Remix Collection from Here Lies Love'' is dancefloor megamix, with no breaks between any of the songs.
* FemmeFatale: "Miss America" uses this an extended metaphor. America is a woman who seduces men, then tosses them aside once she no longer needs them.
-->I'm not the only heart you've conquered.
* FiftiesHair: This was his look in Music/TalkingHeads, with his slicked-back clean-cut hairstyle unusual among rock stars at the time. He's mostly kept this style since the band's breakup, save for briefly growing out his hair for his SelfTitledAlbum and the recording of Talking Heads' ''Music/{{Naked}}'', as seen on the inside cover, though he made sure to cut it for the album's music videos.
* FourthDateMarriage: Covered in "Eleven Days". Ferdinand Marcos meets Imelda Romualdez, and she agrees to marry him eleven days later. They don't even meet again in the interval--Ferdinand courts Imelda by sending messages and gifts.
* GeniusLoci: Maaaybe? In "The Forest Awakes":
-->A song is a road.\\
A road is a face.\\
A face is a time,\\
and a time is a place.
* GildedCage: In "Solano Avenue", Estrella Cumpas writes a biography of Imelda Marcos, based on their years together. Imelda doesn't want the world to know of those years when her family was destitute. She arranges for Estrella to move into a "safe house" in Manila, with guards "for her own protection".
* GoodIsNotNice: Maaaybe? In "The Gates of Paradise":
-->And the laws of Man are not the laws of Heaven,\\
and the Angels' breath is like the desert wind,\\
and terrorists are acting out of love, sweet love,\\
to bring us home again.
* HappyPlace: The narrator of "Back in the Box" can't deal with the outside world.
-->And now love's terrifying.\\
I cannot hide what I want.\\
You cannot hear me or see me\\
when I go back in the box.
* AHellOfATime: The first verse of "You & Eye" involves winding up in Hell, and finding that it has good music, and better barbecues and beer than on Earth. "And darling, I think you'll like it here."
* HeroicBSOD: In "Walk Like a Woman", the newly-married Imelda Marcos has trouble adjusting to life as the wife of a politician. She has a nervous breakdown, undergoes treatment at a psych ward in New York, and returns to the Philippines a changed woman.
* HollywoodExorcism: "The Jezebel Spirit" includes an audio excerpt of a real priest performing a real exorcism, from 1980.
* HonorBeforeReason: In "Seven Years", Imelda Marcos warns Benigno Aquino that he'll be killed if he returns to the Philippines. He goes anyway. Sure enough, Ferdinand Marcos has him assassinated.
* ImmigrantPatriotism: A U.K. citizen by birth, Byrne obtained U.S. citizenship in 2012 so he could vote in elections there, as he'd lived in the U.S. since childhood.
* InTheStyleOf: "The Rose of Tacloban" is, in Byrne's own words, a "quasi-Disney song [about] a young girl about to make her way in the world".
* {{Japandering}}: Around the time Music/TalkingHeads were promoting ''Music/SpeakingInTongues'', Byrne appeared in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC38khscy2M a Japanese whiskey commercial]] that simply consisted of him (and only him; none of his bandmates were present) doing a pigeon dance and gawking at a whiskey can to the tune of "Girlfriend is Better". It's about as "David Byrne" as a commercial starring David Byrne could get.
* KabukiSounds: Byrne initially wanted to score ''all'' of the Knee Plays with traditional kabuki music--but he changed his mind and went with brass band music instead. Still, the 2007 CD reissue of ''The Knee Plays'' includes five selections from the original kabuki score as bonus tracks.
* LargeHam: When he's not being deadpan, Byrne tends to sing with enough gusto to give Creator/WilliamShatner a run for his money.
* LegoGenetics: In "Self-Made Man", the characters literally swap chromosomes like they're baseball cards.
-->Well I'll trade you my potential mental illness\\
for your bad teeth.\\
How about trading your sexy body\\
for a full head of hair?
* LiteraryAllusionTitle:
** ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'' was named after a 1954 novel by Creator/AmosTutuola. Eno and Byrne hadn't read the novel at the time, but they were already fans of Tutuola's other writing.
** The title of ''Grown Backwards'' is taken from a quote in the Creator/FlanneryOConnor novel ''The Violent Bear it Away''.
-->"Bishop looked like the old man '''grown backwards''' to the lowest form of innocence, and Rayber observed that the boy strictly avoided looking him in the eye."
* LongestSongGoesFirst: ''Rei Momo'' starts with "Independence Day" (5:45).
* LongestSongGoesLast:
** ''Music for The Knee Plays'' ends with "In the Future" (6:35).
** ''Grown Backwards'' ends with "Lazy" (9:35).
* LossOfIdentity:
** "Somebody":
-->Somebody, somebody took away our name.\\
Somebody, somebody tell me who I am.
** "Angels":
-->I can barely touch my own self. How could I touch someone else?\\
I am just an advertisement for a version of myself.
** "Strange Ritual":
-->A town in which\\
even the people who live there\\
can't remember its name.
* LoveableSexManiac: The narrator of "Girls on My Mind".
* LoveMartyr: The narrator of "Miss America" is fully aware that America was using him and doesn't feel anything for him, but he still loves her all the same.
* LuddWasRight: In "Dance on Vaseline":
-->My baby saw the future\\
she doesn't want to live there any more.\\
It's lousy science fiction,\\
gets on your skin and seeps into your bones.
* LyricalDissonance:
** "Empire" has grandiose backing music with swelling brass. The lyrics involve a narrator singing the praises of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Big Business]] and advocating [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinism]].
** "Lazy" has lyrics about how darn lazy the narrator is. The music sounds the opposite of lazy: a fast electronic beat, frantic strings, and driving electric guitar. This is even more apparent on the version recorded with X-Press 2, which is outright HouseMusic.
* MarsAndVenusGenderContrast: "Women Vs. Men":
-->Women have their world, and men, we have ours.\\
We're into sports, and they're into flowers.\\
The women are talking. We do not understand.\\
They speak in a language we do not comprehend.\\
No one knows how it started, and God knows how it will end.\\
The fightin' continues, women versus men.
* TheMasochismTango: "They Are in Love":
--> She put the scar on the side of his face.\\
He disappeared for three days.\\
They say they are in love.\\
He took her cocaine when she was asleep.\\
Friends say he gave half away.\\
They say they are in love.
* MindScrew: "Horses."
* MinisculeRocking: Track 13 on ''Feelings'' is an interlude just a few seconds long. It's so short it doesn't even have a name.
* MiseryBuildsCharacter:
** "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now)".
-->Green grass grows around the backyard shithouse,\\
and that is where the sweetest flowers bloom.\\
We're all flowers growing in God's garden,\\
and that is why he spreads the shit around.
** In "Seven Years", Benigno Aquino is in prison on trumped-up charges. He realizes:
-->This moment was a gift from above.\\
Maybe it's some kind of test.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: His lyrical style, especially with Music/TalkingHeads, writing songs about civil servants and pieces of paper. This even extends outside of music as well; ''Film/TrueStories'', for instance, revolves entirely around deriving entertainment out of the minutiae and undiscussed strangeness of everyday life.
* MyGirlIsNotASlut: Played with in "She Only Sleeps". The narrator's girlfriend dances at topless bars, flirts with others, and for all the world seems to be sleeping around. But the narrator knows "that she only sleeps with me", so he doesn't care what anyone else thinks of her.
* MythologyGag: Early in the 2013 "Psychedelic Afternoon" music video, the album art for ''Feelings'' can be seen as a poster in Seiji's room right when he wakes up from his nightmare, though only for a split second.
* NeverMyFault: In "The Moment of Conception":
-->Blame my school, and blame my parents\\
and the genes that I inherit.\\
Blame it on my older sister\\
for showing me those dirty pictures.\\
Blame the TV and the movies,\\
blame the judges and the juries.
* NewMediaAreEvil: Byrne published [[http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world an op-ed]] in ''The Guardian'' arguing that the Internet would kill creativity by making artists unable to make money from their creations, citing the low royalties from digital downloads and streaming and how it disproportionately affects newer, less established artists.
-->Some of us have other sources of income, such as live concerts, and some of us have reached the point where we can play to decent numbers of people because a record label believed in us at some point in the past. [...] But up-and-coming artists don't have that advantage-- some haven't got to the point where they can make a living on live performances and licensing, so what do they think of these services?
* NewSoundAlbum: The tendency for every Music/TalkingHeads solo album to sound noticeably different than the rest carries over to Byrne's solo work. ''Look Into the Eyeball'' however is the most significant example in that it established the distinctively leftfield art pop sound that would serve as a base for Byrne's later work.
* NoManWantsAnAmazon: In "The Rose of Tacloban": "Ninoy was my first love, but he said I was too tall."
* NonIndicativeName: "Make Believe Mambo" is an Orísa song, not an actual mambo.
* NothingIsScarier: The album art for ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today''. It's CG art of a house with a pond in the back yard. It's completely deserted, except for a shadowy figure in an upper story window, looking through binoculars. There are a number of unsettling details upon closer inspection--an open box of bandages on a table, a discarded condom wrapper in a rain gutter, a thick metal door on the living room wall--but nothing that truly explains what's going on in the house.
* TheOmnipresent: The audio clip of a preacher in "Help Me Somebody":
-->There's no escape from him. He's so ''hiiiigh'' you can't get over him. He's so ''loooooow'' you can't get under him. He's so ''wiiide'' you can't get around him! If you make your bed in Heaven, he's there! If you make your bed in Hell, he's there! He's everywhere!
* OutOfFocus: Allegedly, Imelda Marcos and Estrella Cumpas are co-protagonists of ''Here Lies Love''-- it even says so in the album subtitle. However, Estrella disappears from the story for a seven-song stretch in the middle of the album (from "Walk Like a Woman" to "The Whole Man").
* ThePerfectionist: A notorious example among musicians, to the point where, in an effort to get looped rhythms on ''Music/RemainInLight'' in an era when sound engineering technology wouldn't reliably allow that, he spent a significant chunk of the already breakneck recording sessions manually training his bandmates in Music/TalkingHeads to play particular rhythms over and over again with mechanical precision.
* ThePollyanna:
** The narrator of "Glad":
-->I'm glad I got lost,\\
I'm glad I'm confused.\\
[...]\\
I'm glad when the sex is not so great.
** In "Optimist":
-->How it is, is how it ought to be.
* PopStarComposer: He's done a lot of work for film and theater, and even won an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for his soundtrack for ''The Last Emperor''.
* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: Byrne was accused of this during the height of Music/TalkingHeads' popularity with his funk and WorldMusic influences.
* PrincessInRags: Remedios Romualdez in "Every Drop of Rain" and "You'll Be Taken Care Of". She's connected to a powerful and influential family, but can barely pay her housekeeper, Estrella Cumpas. She insists that one of her children will restore the family's fortune and repay Estrella some day.
* RageAgainstTheHeavens: "Something Ain't Right":
-->Come on down, you old fart!\\
Let's see if you have got a heart!\\
It ain't true! It's all lies!\\
Are you the Devil in disguise?\\
Won't give up, won't bow down!\\
I'm gonna tear your playhouse down!
* ReCut: ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'' got this treatment three times.
** When it was first released, "Qu'ran" was the first track on side B. Since the song contained spoken excerpts from the holy book of Islam, some Muslims took offense at the song. So all subsequent printings replaced the song with "Very Very Hungry", the B-side from ''The Jezebel Spirit'' EP.
** The original US CD release used the original track listing (with "Qu'ran" in its proper place) and added "Very Very Hungry" as a bonus track at the end. It wasn't until 1990 when the CD switched to the "Qu'ran"-free tracklist.
** Then the 2006 remastered version once again used the censored playlist, plus extended mixes of "Mea Culpa" and "The Carrier", and tacked a bunch of B-sides and demos on the end as bonus tracks.
* RearrangeTheSong:
** He's put out several remix [=EPs=] and albums. And whenever he tours, his setlist will feature songs from older albums (or even from the Talking Heads catalogue) arranged in the style of his most recent album.
** ''Music/GrownBackwards'' ends with a BaroquePop re-recording of Byrne and X-Press 2's 2002 collaboration "Lazy".
** In 2013, Byrne and Music/RyuichiSakamoto re-recorded their 1994 collaboration "Psychedelic Afternoon", with redone lyrics and Byrne taking up vocal duties this time, as part of a project to raise awareness and funds for children impacted by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
* RenaissanceMan: Musician, writer, visual artist, and one-time actor and director, Byrne's repertoire is fairly well-rounded. ''Time'' magazine even ran a 1986 cover story that named him "Rock's Renaissance Man".
* RubeGoldbergDevice: The music video for the 2002 version of "Lazy" features a man who stays on the couch all day, doing things like combing hair, getting food, and doing chores via many of these. Eventually, the machine designed to give him his breakfast short-circuits after spilling coffee on itself, forcing the man to settle for a dirty, half-eaten Snickers bar that he finds on the floor.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: "Don't Want to Be Part of Your World", where hundreds of boys and girls bid their parents farewell and disappear upstream or down tunnels.
* SelfDeprecation: "Make Believe Mambo" takes playful jabs at Byrne's habit of watching TV to try and better understand the world around him, featuring a story about a man who gets so into the habit that he becomes devoid of any real personality, operating solely on memorized cues and imitations.
* SelfHarm:
** Referenced in "Nothing At All":
-->And the knife is close at hand.\\
I cut myself to see who I am.\\
I reach inside, but I still can't touch\\
the policeman inside.
** And in "Walk Like a Woman":
-->And if I bang my \\
head on the wall for hours,\\
then I won't feel the confusion no more.
* SelfPlagiarism: The verses of "Angels" are remarkably similar to those from Talking Heads' SignatureSong, "Music/OnceInALifetime". That said, the choruses couldn't be any more different.
* SharpDressedMan: Byrne's wearing of suits was one reason he stood out from more casually-dressed rock stars during Music/TalkingHeads' commercial peak.
* ShmuckBait: The ''Feelings'' album art. The CD itself has a big arrow on it, and the tray insert has a wheel of colors, corresponding to different emotions. There's a note encouraging the listener to break the CD spindle and spin the disc to "determine your feelings". For anyone who doesn't get the joke, there's a warning that doing this repeatedly may or may not scratch the CD beyond repair.
* SillyLoveSongs: "My Love Is You", "Buck Naked", "They Are in Love", to name a few.
* SmallReferencePools: [[invoked]] Discussed in the ''Here Lies Love'' liner notes. To those outside the Philippines, Imelda Marcos is most famous for keeping a ludicrously massive collection of shoes--so Byrne decided not to mention the shoe collection in any of the songs.
-->I did a year's worth of research to see if there was a story, a narrative arc. I found that, yes, there was a lot more to tell in this case than just the famous shoes. In fact, early on I decided that the shoes, all 3000+ pairs, would never be mentioned.
* TheSocialDarwinist: In "Empire", the narrator sings "The weak among us perish, the strong alone survive," and clearly thinks this is a good thing.
* SpokenWordInMusic: On ''The Knee Plays'', about half of the songs are just David Byrne speaking a monologue over the backing music. (The rest of the album is instrumental.)
* TheStoic: He's earned a bit of a reputation for being an emotionless weirdo. He joked about it by releasing an album named ''Feelings'', with a plastic doll modeled after himself on the cover.
* TaughtByTelevision: "Make Believe Mambo" is about a kid who lives this way:
-->So how can we be strangers?\\
He's got no personality.\\
It's just a clever imitation \\
of the people on TV.\\
A line for every situation,\\
he's learning trivia and tricks.\\
Having sex and eating cereal,\\
wearing jeans and smoking cigarettes.
* TextlessAlbumCover: The remastered version of ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'', ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'', and ''Here Lies Love''. ''Grown Backwards'' meanwhile puts the title on a removable shrinkwrap sticker, with the main printwork being textless on both the front slipcase and the front of the liner notes.
* TransTribulations: "Now I'm Your Mom" is about a post-operative trans woman attempting to explain her identity to her son and daughter. Of note is that the song released just a year after the film adaptation ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'', which was both directed by Byrne associate Creator/JonathanDemme and criticized upon release for invoking anti-trans stereotypes.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: He'll drop bizarre imagery into lyrics with the same deadpan delivery he uses to describe a pleasant party. For example, in "Dinner for Two":
-->Tanks outside the bedroom window\\
we'll be okay with the curtain closed.
* VisualPun: The cover art for ''Uh-Oh'' is a painting of Heaven... with dog sitting on the throne instead of God.
* VoiceClipSong: The entire album ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'' excerpted spoken-word samples from radio interviews, field recordings, and TV broadcasts, and set them to looped instrumental tracks (some funky and syncopated, others ambient).
* {{Workaholic}}: He has a reputation of being this, to a point where he allegedly has trouble maintaining "human relationships", as Chris Frantz has said.
* WrongNameOutburst: "Glad":
-->I'm glad when I get my girlfriends' names confused.
* {{Zeerust}}: Byrne's predictions in "In the Future" were clearly not meant to stand the test of time: they're a mix of plausible guesses, hilariously implausible ones, and [[ImmediateSelfContradiction blatantly contradictory]] statements.
-->In the future, everyone will be very fat from the starchy diet.\\
In the future, everyone will be very thin from not having enough to eat.\\
In the future, no one will fight with anyone else.\\
In the future, there will be mini-wars going on everywhere.

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