When you’re working with perfect source material, it should be a given that your song is good, right? Well, the new Talking Heads tribute album, released by A24’s new music imprint, might have something to say about that. I haven’t listened to it properly yet but I have heard it is underwhelming. What I can say for certain, however, is that DJ Tunez’ cover of ‘Life During Wartime’ should not be lumped in with the pack.

Tunez manages to do something I truly did not believe any of the admittedly talented artists involved in Everyone’s Getting Involved would do: take his perfect source material beyond everything it already was. It is a quiet marvel. Managing to improve upon a Talking Heads song, let alone fucking ‘Life During Wartime’, is enough to secure your place in music legend for time immemorial.

His take on ‘Life During Wartime’ is a faithful reinterpretation, leaning without hesitation into amapiano and Afrobeat. The instrumentation is slick – skipping drums, mobile bass, bulbous keys and soulful horns – a world away from the Heads’ jumpy, agitated funk’n’roll. But therein lies a subversive power. Where Byrne and Weymouth and Frantz and Harrison match the urgency of the scene at hand from the outset – choppy and staccato as the words roll in – Tunez lulls you into a false sense of security. The music is initially comforting, then mysterious as soon as he starts singing. Why are you serenading me with the line “heard of a van that is loaded with weapons / packed up and ready to go” in a warm baritone drawl? Why do you sound so calm?

Tunez imbues ‘Life During Wartime’ with a solemn sense of familiarity. When you hear Byrne sing “this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around” on the original, it feels like pure escapism. You’re allowed to forget the dire significance of the words and revel in their chaotic delivery. But here, Tunez’ vocals are so closely mic’d that you’re compelled to engage with every line. When he sings “the sound of gunfire, off in the distance / I’m getting used to it now”, it’s hard not to believe it. Tunez’ narrator is someone deeply resigned to their bleak fate.

The song builds into something eerie and disquieting. With each successive chorus, the horns, strings and choirs that fill the mix grow slightly more discordant, and the music absorbs the panic and tension that was absent before. In this way, Tunez’ arrangement has an inverted momentum compared to the original – the Heads eventually settle into a groove, as if growing comfortable with the grim scene they’re describing, then let the song come to rest with an almost 30-second-long fadeout. But the lyrics that were once obscured by the fadeout are clear and devastating here: “You make me shiver, I feel so tender / We make a pretty good team / Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving / You ought to get you some sleep”. The war that Tunez sings of is one he seems to know intimately well, and yet the words aren’t even his.

92

Sam Gollings

27 May 2024