Twice in a Lifetime: Byrne, Eno Reunite for New Disc

The pair's new record is not Bush of Ghosts II. In fact, the gently rolling blends of pop-song structure, Byrne's bright, country-church singing and Eno's creamy keyboards and programmed guitar in songs like "Home," "My Big Nurse" and "The River" are closer to the sneaky magnetism of Eno's Seventies LPs Another Green World and Before and After Science. "I was surprised that's what came out," Byrne says. "The tracks are very different from what I would have done myself. I lean toward things that are more complicated."

"Part of the warmth is because I'm not interested in ironic music," claims Eno, whose production work for U2 includes their 1991 techno-irony smash, Achtung Baby. (He is currently finishing work on U2's next album.) "I like hearing it," Eno quickly amends, "but it's not what I want to make. That was very much a thought on this rec­ord, to make music with a set of feelings not associated with us, since David's Mr. Geeky and I'm Mr. Egghead." Byrne will support the record — out now as a digital release, with a physical CD to follow — with a world tour minus Eno, who hasn't done a full-scale tour since the early Seventies. The show, titled "David Byrne, Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno," will feature music from their entire history together.

Everything That Happens started with Eno's casual reference to Byrne, at dinner in 2006, about some instrumental beds, without words or vocals, that Eno had stockpiled over several years. "I intended them to become songs," Eno says, "and never wrote the songs." He offered some to Byrne, with whom he had first co-written during the Talking Heads era. (Byrne credits Eno with the chorus hook in "Once in a Lifetime," on Remain in Light: "He did a scat-vocal thing — I found some words to fit.") After Byrne hit pay dirt with "One Fine Day," he and Eno continued writing and recording by e-mail, shooting sound files between London and New York.

Byrne enjoyed the long-distance exchange. "There are people who like to sit next to one another and hammer out a song," he says. "I like more time to think things over. I don't want people looking over my shoulder."

Eno was content to have faith in Byrne's melodic and lyric instincts. "One reason so many new bands sound like Talking Heads is because they are nostalgic for the kind of hopefulness that was in that music," Eno says. "They're saying, 'Let's turn back the clock a bit and start again.' " Which, in a way, is what Eno and Byrne have done in their new songs. "And I was thrilled when somebody else was going to do the hard part," Eno says, gesturing happily at his friend. "The results were so good, much better than the songs I imagined."

[From Issue 1060 — September 4, 2008]

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