It was exactly this sort of hero’s-journey narrative into which Fear of Music seemed to cast a wrench.
And for fans of the New York band in the late ’70s, hearing “I Zimbra” might have felt like watching their hero obliterated in the first frame of the movie.
Dadaism mocked the very idea that words could convey meaning, that speakers could carry authority for a band so devoted to verbal communication they named themselves after it, it was a forbidding gesture. The words, meanwhile, consist of barked nonsense syllables from Hugo Ball, a German poet of the Dada School. The groove feels uncanny, a little inhuman, like a flag rippling in no wind. A guitar figure like a crying baby keeps tripping the song’s downbeat, and in the closing seconds, a phased guitar line comes in played by Robert Fripp, layering 5/4 over 4/4 and effectively erasing whatever forward momentum this blank, pistoning thing was creating to begin with. Congas, funk guitar, chirping synths: Everything is in motion, and yet curiously, nothing seems to be moving. Fear of Music, the third album by Talking Heads, begins at maximum velocity and minimum warmth.
