Song of the Day 5/6: Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer”

Kristi Noem’s dog murder-career suicide exposed her inhumanity, but as this writer pointed out, to really understand what a sicko she is, consider the poor billy goat who caught her attention on her way back from the Gravel Pit of Doom. He got offed, too, and not on the first shot.

Though Noem justified the second slaughter by claiming the goat chased children and smelled bad – last time I checked, those were goat features, not bugs – it’s pretty clear that once she lost her temper with the dog, one death wasn’t going to slake her bloodlust. She’s a psycho killer.

David Byrne wrote this tune in 1975, years before the band started calling itself the Talking Heads, but it was released in 1977 on their first LP, “Talking Heads: 77,” just a month after the arrest of serial killer David Berkowitz, the notorious Son of Sam, so naturally people thought the murderer inspired the lyrics. The song originally had a much slower tempo; Byrne said, “I imagined Alice Cooper doing a Randy Newman-type ballad.”

The single was the band’s first song to make the Billboard Hot 100, but just barely, peaking at No. 92. This performance for the BBC’s “Old Grey Whistle Test,” filmed in January 1978, gives the tune a raw growl that conveys a little more menace than the recorded version.

Talking Heads also recorded an alternate version with avant garde cellist Arthur Russell.

Several bands, including Velvet Revolver, Duran Duran and Miley Cyrus have covered the song. Byrne himself gave the thumbs-up to this recent version by Wet Leg, the distaff duo from the Isle of Wight.