Remain In Light
Fourth studio album. Released on October 8th, 1980.
Title
The album's work title was Melody Attacks.
CF: "Brian had some suggestions for titles; the one we liked the best was Remain In Light. He said he had gotten the idea from an African poet and author he had been reading who was and remains unknown to us." [Remain In Love, 2021]
Production & Recording
The band rehearsed and recorded in Eldorado Recording Studio in Hollywood.
Above, a studio mix reel track sheet from the Remain In Light sessions, containing backup ("safety") mixes from early in the recording process. It shows several working titles for songs in progress, including "Right Start," later released as an unfinished outtake on the 2005 deluxe reissue, and essentially an early version of Once in a Lifetime.
JH: "It presented challenges for David when he wrote melodies and lyrics, because there weren’t many chord changes to help him go somewhere. It really was a new way for us to record. And for any band, I think. (...) Because these weren’t initially songs in the traditional sense, I would play a part for four or five minutes, and then the next person would go out and do something. The record was basically composed by using mute buttons on the console." [Guitar Player, 25 October 2022]
For this album, guitarist Adrian Belew was brought in as a session musician.
Adrian Belew (talking to Jerry Harrison): "I'd met Talking Heads on the Fear Of Music tour. You guys played three shows in Illinois. I went to all of them. I was just jumping around backstage when you were about to do your encore, and you guys said, “Come on out with us and play ‘Psycho Killer.’” I said I didn’t know the chords, and you guys said, “That’s okay. Just come out at the end and freak out like you do.”
JH: "Which you did. And then, when we got back from recording at Compass Point, I remember going to a club in New York, and I saw you there."
AB: "Yes. I remember we were in a stairwell, and you were with David, and you both asked me to come play on the record. I had to tell my band they would be hanging out in New York an extra day. But yeah, I went to Sigma Sound and jumped right in. I was super excited by the music. I was like, Wow, this is great. I can’t wait to play on this! (...) All of my parts were done in one day. They basically said, ‘Go into the studio and wait around till you think there should be a guitar solo.’ I played and I could see everybody all excited in the control room. So I thought, What the heck? I’ll play a second one. All in all, it turned out quite well." [Guitar Player, 25 October 2022]
Concept
On [Remain In Light], you seem to try and get a picture of how things really are. DB: “There are different ways to get a picture of reality. You can look outward, but you can also look inward and hope the images you find there also resonate with others. When introspection yields universal images, it's not so personal anymore, other people can be moved by it, too. Looking at the world directly also produces a subjective, colored image.”
According to the reading list included with Remain In Light, you’re quite interested in African religions and mythologies. DB: “That’s true. I’m very interested in Africa and African culture, because I think we can learn a lot from it here in the West. That whole culture revolves around music and dance. Some of those masks only have meaning when you see them in motion, when someone is dancing.” [OOR Magazine, 28 July 1982]
Above, the Remain In Light press kit essay / artist statement, written by David for journalists ahead of the album’s October 1980 release.
DB: "Everything became collaboration because of the method of recording and composition as we just went into the studio with nothing and gradually evolved things and added bits. So [the method of songwriting] has changed in that respect. Also a good part of the music was done before the lyrics and so I had to take my cues from the music." [Rip It Up, 1 November 1980]
DB: "The gently ecstatic nature of the tracks meant that angsty personal lyrics like the ones I’d written previously might not be the best match, so I had to find some new lyrical approach. I filled page after page with phrases that matched the melodic lines of the verses and choruses, hoping that some of them might complement the feelings the music generated." [How Music Works, 2012]
Artwork
CF: "Tina's brother, Yann, had told us about the work he had been doing at MIT with an outfit called the Architecture Machine Group. They were inventing software for the US Defense Department and they were creating new graphic images with a humongous mainframe computer. (...) We were met by Walter Bender and a charming young guy named Scott Fisher, who showed us around and explained some of what they were doing there. Scott couldn't tell us everything because we didn't have the proper security clearances, but he could show us how to create new digital images. Our intention was to create an arresting image that would somehow take the viewer by surprise. We had brought headshots of each band member, which Scott scanned and digitized. Then he scanned and digitized a photo Tina had brought of four Grumman Avenger airplanes like the ones Tina's father had flown in the Navy. We tried a few ideas but kept coming back to the idea of masks. Scott showed us how we could paint digitally on the headshot of each band member. After several tries with different colors we arrived at an image of the four band members with roughly painted red masks on their faces, and we were excited about that. We decided to keep that one as a possible front cover. Then we took a look at the image of the planes that were originally flying over a gray, flat Pacific ocean. While we worked on painting the masks, another guy from the Architecture Group, working from a different monitor hooked into the mainframe, delighted us by adding a background of the Himalayan Mountains to the photo of the planes. Then he printed the image and brought it to us, very excited to be part of our little collaboration. The working title of the album was Melody Attacks, so this combination worked perfectly. Digital technology is commonplace now, but in 1980 it was totally cutting edge." [Remain In Love, 2021]
