Trivia / Rei Momo

• Channel Hop: After a long stint on Sire Records that stretched back to Talking Heads' debut album, Rei Momo marked Byrne's first release on his vanity label, Luaka Bop, which had opened just one year prior. Sire would distribute the label until the late '90s, and Byrne would eventually part ways with Luaka Bop in 2001 due to it becoming increasingly difficult to both manage a record label and record new music at the same time.
• Reality Subtext: "Make Believe Mambo", a song about a boy who's Taught by Television to such an extent that the narrator fears that he'll suffer from a Loss of Identity, gained added resonance after Byrne revealed in 2009 that he's autistic and that television was how he learned to mask in neurotypical society. While Byrne didn't know that he was autistic when he wrote and recorded the song, its lyrics nonetheless invoke common autistic experiences with masking and concerns about abandoning their distinct identities in favor of becoming a mishmash of learned cues.
• Refitted for Sequel: "Carnival Eyes" is a reworking of "In Asking Land", an outtake from the sessions for Talking Heads' Naked the year prior. The original version of the song would eventually be released on the 2005 Talking Heads Boxed Set Once in a Lifetime.
• Sequel Gap: Discounting soundtrack releases, the album marked Byrne's first studio album since the Brian Eno collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts eight years prior, owed to Byrne prioritizing his work with Talking Heads during the interim.

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