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THE FIRST TIME WITH... SERIES 36 - 1. DAVID BYRNE (320kbs-m4a/137mb/60mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 27th July 2026
Matt Everitt presents in-depth, exclusive and revealing interviews with major artists revealing the pivotal moments and songs that shaped their lives and their careers.
Matt Everitt picks up where he left off in 2010 as David Byrne becomes the only artist to return for The Second Time. We talk collaborations, $80 million offers, and American Utopia.
The first First Time season started in July 2010, and since then we've had 224 guests. And we've never had the same guest on twice. Until now.
Since we last spoke in September 2010 David Byrne has been very busy. He made Here Lies Love, a concept album and stage disco musical about Imelda Marcos with Fatboy Slim. He collaborated with Arcade Fire, Son Lux and Mitski and on a whole album - Love This Giant with St Vincent. And in 2023 he took part in the reissue of Talking Heads' famous and brilliant concert film Stop Making Sense, to the absolute joy of old and new fans of the band. Plus, and this brings us up to date, he recorded his 2018 album American Utopia which became an epic, and groundbreaking, 160 date tour and a Broadway show and now a concert film directed by Spike Lee – which you can see in cinemas on 5 August.
A BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 6 Music.
Talking Heads - Burning Down The House [EMI]
David Byrne - Toe Jam (Live) [Nonesuch]
Arcade Fire - Speaking In Tongues [Sony Music CG]
Arcade Fire (feat. David Byrne) - This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) [Rough Trade]
David Byrne - Here (Live) [Nonesuch]
David Byrne & Mitski & Son Lux - This Is A Life [BWSCD, INc. d/b/a SC Distribution]
Talking Heads - Girlfriend Is Better (Live) (2023 Remaster) [Rhino/Warner]
Bill Lee & Branford Marsalis & The Natural Spiritual Orchestra - Mookie (Orchestra) (Album Version) [Columbia]
David Byrne - Hell You Talmbout (Live) [Nonesuch]
David Byrne - Once In A Lifetime (Live) [Nonesuch]
David Byrne - Every Day Is A Miracle [Nonesuch]
TRACKS OF MY YEARS - DAVID BYRNE (320kbs-m4a/131mb/57mins)
BBC Radio 2 broadcast: 3rd August 2025
Vernon Kay, welcomes a real rule-breaker, David Byrne. A Scottish-born musician and interdisciplinary artist who was best known as the front man of the influential American art-rock group Talking Heads.
Byrne has released solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera, fiction, and non-fiction. He has received an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, a Special Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award, and as part of Talking Heads he is an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, where they were reunited to play four tracks: "Psycho Killer", "Burning Down the House", "Once In A Lifetime" and "Life During Wartime".
David's new single "Everybody Laughs" is out now: the new album "Who is The Sky" comes out on 5th September and you can catch David and his band on tour in the UK and Europe next year.
Pete Seeger - Waist Deep In The Big Muddy [Smithsonian Folkways]
Woody Guthrie - Do-Re-Mi [Smithsonian Folkways]
The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man [Global Television]
James Brown - Cold Sweat [Polydor]
Bill Lee & John Kerr - Carefully Taught [Hallmark Music And Entertainment]
KC And The Sunshine Band - Keep It Comin' Love [Knight]
D‐Train - You're The One For Me [Warner Strategic Market]
Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets [Virgin]
Television - Venus [Elektra]
Miles Davis - Black Satin (Edit) [Source Columbia/Legacy]
SOUL MUSIC: SERIES 30 - 7. ONCE IN A LIFETIME (320kbs-m4a/64mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 29th December 2020
Talking Heads emerged out of the post punk scene of the late 1970s. Once In A Lifetime is the iconic single taken from their album Remain In Light. With its looped synthesizer and Afrobeat inspired by Fela Kuti it seemed to pre-empt the consumerism and ennui of the 1980s. Writer Ian Gittins interviewed David Byrne and later wrote his book Once In A Lifetime. He says David Byrne had in mind people of a certain middle class existence who seemingly breeze through life with ease when he wrote the lyrics. They may get to middle age or reach a crisis point and ask "How did I get here?" For a song that invites us to question our lives it has a suprisingly emotional core that encourages people to be grateful and make positive changes in their lives where necessary. For Glaswegian Gerry Murphy that meant becoming more present for his family after serious illness forced him to reconsider the amount of time he devoted to his career. He went on to write a book about his experience - And You May Find Yourself: A Guided Practice To Never Fearing Death Again.
Ian Peddie was inspired by the song to leave his dead end existence in Wolverhampton in the mid 1980s to 'find himself in another part of the world' following his dreams. Kelly Waterhouse says the song symbolises gratitude for all the things she takes for granted and sometimes struggles with in her life as a busy working mother.
And singer Angelique Kidjo recorded her own version of Once In A Lifetime in 2018 after coming full circle with the song from her arrival in Paris in 1983 after fleeing the dictatorship in her home country of Benin. She heard the song at a student party and recognised the Afrobeats adopted by David Byrne and Brian Eno that made her feel both joyful and homesick at the same time.
Producer: Maggie Ayre
DESERT ISLAND DISCS: DAVID BYRNE (320kbs-m4a/97mb/42mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 23rd March 2018
David Byrne was a founding member of the band Talking Heads. Born in Dumbarton, Scotland, he emigrated first to Canada and then to the USA before the age of ten.
He started playing in bands at school and, when art school didn't work out for him, he founded Talking Heads with a couple of friends. They played their first gig, opening for the Ramones, at the legendary New York club CBGB's, in June 1975. Eight studio albums later, cracks were beginning to show in the relations between band members, and by 1991 Talking Heads had officially split up.
Since then, he has enjoyed a solo career, and also made films, published photographic books, composed scores for musicals, created art installations and written books. He has received an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score, as well as a Golden Globe and a Grammy, for his soundtrack to the 1987 film The Last Emperor.
He and his fellow Talking Heads members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. He lives in New York and has a daughter in her late twenties from his 17 year marriage to Adelle Lutz.
Presenter: Kirsty Young
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
Halsey - Bad At Love [Astralwerks]
Jean Redpath - The Rowan Tree [Greentrax Recordings]
Woody Guthrie - Do-Re-Mi [Music Club]
The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man [Sony]
The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog [Elektra]
Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove [Charly Groove]
Tom Zé - Toc [Luaka Bop]
Joubert Singers - Stand On The Word (Larry Levan Mix) [Next Music]
THE FIRST TIME WITH... SERIES 1 - 10. DAVID BYRNE (320kbs-m4a/132mb/58mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 9th November 2017
As he curates this year's Meltdown at London's South Bank, there's another chance to hear David Byrne talking Matt Everitt through the musical milestones of his life - from high school combos to The Talking Heads to Eno, Luaka Bop and beyond...
Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime [EMI]
Talking Heads - Radio Head [EMI]
The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man [Global Television]
The Temptations - Get Ready [Motown]
Paul Revere & The Raiders - I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone [Sony]
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer [EMI]
Talking Heads - Don't Worry About The Government [Sire]
Brian Eno & David Byrne - The Jezebel Spirit [EG]
Brian Eno & David Byrne - Moonlight In Glory [EG]
X‐Press 2 - Lazy (feat. David Byrne) [NOW]
James Brown - Mother Popcorn [Polydor]
Talking Heads - Life During Wartime [Rhino]
Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) [Rough Trade]
Brian Eno & David Byrne - Moonlight In Glory [EG]
Brian Eno & David Byrne - Strange Overtones [Todo Mundo/Opal]
David Byrne & Dirty Projectors - Knotty Pine [4 A.D.]
