David Byrne has shared a new single, ‘T-shirt’, co-written by his longtime friend and collaborator Brian Eno – check it out here.
Byrne, who’s currently touring North America on his ‘Who Is The Sky?’ tour, named for his September album of the same name, has played ‘T-shirt’ live a number of times while across the Atlantic.
The former Talking Heads frontman gave the song, a bright electropop track about the importance of helping others amid the current political climate, its live debut in Pittsburgh on September 16 and has now released it on streaming services.
“I believe in helping others / I will sing my freedom song / I donate to worthy causes / I go along and get along,” sings Byrne on the track’s first verse, before the chorus of, “See my t-shirt, take it off / Dance these shoes off ‘till we drop.”
The cover art features a slightly creased T-shirt with the quote “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” first written by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in a 1976 article, and the video features a series of T-shirts sporting various slogans.
The song itself has become a fan favourite on Byrne’s tour, where it’s accompanied by slogans including ‘Make America Gay Again’ and ‘No Kings’. Byrne has previously spoken out about US politics, notably sharing a playlist called ‘The Beautiful Shitholes’ in 2018 in response to comments President Donald Trump was reported to have said regarding “shithole countries” in a meeting.
He kicked off the tour by playing the Talking Heads’ classic ‘Psycho Killer’ for the first time in 19 years, while Hayley Williams joined him in New York City to play Paramore’s ‘Hard Times’ as well as their recent collaboration, ‘What Is The Reason For It?’ from ‘Who Is The Sky?’.
The album was recorded with the NYC-based Ghost Train Orchestra, and alongside Williams also features St. Vincent and The Smile’s Tom Skinner.
Byrne’s North American tour is set to come to an end on December 6 with the second of two Miami shows – find tickets to his remaining US dates here. He’s then off to Australia and New Zealand in January before coming to Europe in February, including nine UK and Ireland dates. Find Australia and New Zealand tickets here and UK and Ireland tickets here.
He’s already been announced to play a handful of festivals in the summer, too, including Latitude – which he’s headlining – Open’er and Mad Cool.
Earlier this month, meanwhile, Byrne opened up about the possibility that he could be on the autism spectrum and explained that music has helped him with social skills. He has also touched on rumours of another Talking Heads reunion in recent months, with the band celebrating the 50th anniversary of their first live performance earlier this year.
“Musically, I’ve gone to a very different place,” he told Rolling Stone. “And I also felt like there’s been a fair number of reunion records and tours. And some of them were probably pretty good. Not very many. It’s pretty much impossible to recapture where you were at that time in your life.”
As for Eno, whose work with Byrne dates back to the 1978 Talking Heads album ‘More Songs About Building And Food’, he organised the Together For Palestine concert at London’s Wembley Arena in September, seeing huge performances from the likes of Damon Albarn, Paul Weller, Rachel Chinouriri and Yasiin Bey.
Speaking to NME backstage, he assured music fans: “Don’t be hopeless. You are in the middle of the biggest social movement in human history. The climate movement and all of these social justice movements are all part of the same thing, it’s all part of people thinking, ‘The thing is really fucked up, we can do something about it, we have to do something about it’. They’re doing that in the absence of political leadership.”
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