Trivia / Speaking in Tongues

• Cut Song: One outtake from the sessions, "Popsicle", was later reworked into the track "Walk It Down" on the next album before appearing on the 1992 retrospective compilation Sand in the Vaseline.
• Distanced from Current Events: "Burning Down the House" was one of the songs temporarily pulled from rotation on Clear Channel radio stations following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
• Late Export for You: While the 47-minute version of the album would supplant the 41-minute one for North American CD releases from 1990 onward, buyers outside of those countries wouldn't receive it on the format until the 2005 remasters.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The album received a limited-edition clear vinyl LP release in the US and Europe, featuring a custom clear plastic case with cover art designed by Robert Rauschenberg. The artwork consists of two clear plastic discs tucked inside the case, with each one displaying a colorful collage of urban imagery. The actual record also received custom red and blue picture labels on each side. This mode of packaging would later be replicated with a similarly limited-edition, Japan-exclusive SHM-CD release in 2009, based off of the 2005 remaster.
• No Export for You: The single release of "Swamp" was only available in the Netherlands, Australia, and South Africa, with Australia exclusively getting a 12" release. A white-label test pressing of the "Swamp" single was also produced in France, but the country never got an actual release for the single.
• Referenced by...:
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic: "Polkas on 45" features a snippet of "Burning Down the House".
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean features a Stand named Burning Down the House, the second of two Talking Heads references in the series (the first being a Stand in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind named after the band themselves).
  • The initial version of Kanye West & Future's "Keep It Burning" includes a sample from "Burning Down the House". Clearance issues resulted in the track being dropped from its parent album, Donda 2, and re-released on Future's I Never Liked You with the sample removed.
• Refitted for Sequel: An outtake from the album, "Popsicle", was reworked into "Walk It Down" on the next album, Little Creatures. The original version would eventually be completed for the 1992 Greatest Hits Album Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The elaborate Robert Rauschenberg-designed cover was intended to be used for all releases of the album, but budgetary limitations forced it to be cut down to a limited-edition release, resulting in David Byrne painting an abstract reinterpretation of Rauschenberg's work for the general release of the album. The original intention was to just reproduce Rauschenberg's design on a conventional LP sleeve, but Byrne apparently went around the other band members and substituted his own design, typical of his autocratic approach toward managing the band's affairs. No word on whether or not they intended to carry over the packaging style to the CD and cassette releases, though the European remastered CD+DVD release in 2006 features disc art showing what this would've looked like.
  • Following Brian Eno's parting of ways with the band, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth approached former David Bowie producer and consequent Eno associate Tony Visconti about producing this album, but Visconti declined, saying the band didn't need a producer, only a great engineer.
  • In an interview with NPR, David Byrne listed off various lyrical phrases that he thought up for "Burning Down the House" but ultimately didn't use. Among these were "I have another body," "pick it up by the handle," "you travel with a double," and "I'm still under construction."
• Working Title: "What Are We Gonna Do?" and "Foam Rubber USA" for "Burning Down the House", taken from some of David Byrne's rejected lyrics.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: As with Remain in Light, the songs emerged from jams in the studio. This is also true for the song's lyrics, with the blurb on the back of the CD inlay stating the following:
  As [David] Byrne has said, he rarely uses the kind of story-song lyrics he used to; his newer work evolves from randomness he contributes as the band develops the songs instrumentally.

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