Song of the Day 2/2: Talking Heads, “Road to Nowhere”

Coachella, the festival where bands go to reunite, this year will feature shows by Gwen Stefani’s old band No Doubt and Sublime, now fronted by the son of long-dead frontman Bradley Nowell. So SoCal’s 30-year-old ska-punk craze will be well represented. Rock might not be dead, but it’s sure getting old.

One act organizers couldn’t convince: Talking Heads. The ’80s art-rockers turned down a reported $10 million for one show. The quartet also spurned an $80 million offer from LiveNation for six to eight headlining gigs on the festival circuit, too – apparently the lure of lucre couldn’t make Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz work with David Byrne again. It probably helps that, unlike the members of No Doubt and Sublime, all the Heads are worth eight figures.

Don’t think I’ve overlooked the fact that today is Groundhog Day: There’s a connection between this song, or rather its video, and the classic Bill Murray film. The scenes in the swimming pool were shot at the Hollywood home of actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who had met Byrne through director Jonathan Demme and playwright Beth Henley, Tobolowsky’s longtime girlfriend. Byrne asked Henley and Tobolowsky to write a screenplay that, much altered, became Byrne’s film “True Stories.” Tobolowsky has had an amazingly varied career, but he’s of course most famous for playing Ned Ryerson – Needlenose Ned, Ned the Head – in “Groundhog Day.”