Talking Heads ‘More Songs’ Super Deluxe Shines Light on Process

“More Songs About Buildings and Food,” the 1978 second album by the band Talking Heads, was re-released this July in a Super Deluxe Edition from Rhino Records.

Unveiled as the band celebrates its 50th anniversary, the collection captures a pivotal moment in Talking Heads’ evolution. And marks the first of three albums produced with Brian Eno.

The 3-disc Super Deluxe Edition features the remastered album alongside 11 rarities, including four previously unreleased alternate versions of album tracks. The set also includes a live recording of the band’s August 1978 show at New York’s Entermedia Theatre. 

According to the press release from Rhino, the seeds for “More Songs About Buildings and Food” were planted in London in 1977. When the band met Eno while touring behind their debut album, “Talking Heads: 77.”

“When we went over to his flat, there was the immediacy of recognizing in his library books [and records] from our own collections,” said keyboardist and guitarist Jerry Harrison. “There was both mutual respect and a sense of shared sensibilities—all harbingers of a comfortable and successful collaboration.”

Soon after, plans were made to record together. Sessions began in March 1978, when the band traded their drafty Long Island City lofts for the Bahamas’ sunny beaches. They set up shop for several weeks at Island Records producer and founder Chris Blackwell’s newly built Compass Point Studios, becoming the first band to record there. 

Having been road-tested over a long tour, the new songs were ready to go.

Drummer Chris Frantz recalls Eno’s most significant contribution was to slow the tempo of the song “Take Me To The River.” The band had been used to playing the song at a pretty fast tempo like Al Green’s original, but they gave it a try. The song became the band’s first radio hit.

The Polaroid mosaic that gives the album its striking visual identity came together later, back in New York City. Principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist David Byrne suggested the cover concept, says bassist Tina Weymouth.

Byrne took the pictures of Frantz, Harrison, and Weymouth on the roof above Frantz and Weymouth’s loft. Weymouth took the pictures of Byrne.

Released on July 14, 1978, “More Songs About Buildings and Food” earned the band their first appearance on the Billboard 200. Their reimagining of Green’s “Take Me To The River” cracked the Billboard Hot 100 and became a left-field radio success, helping introduce the band to a wider audience.

At the time, critics took note of the album’s sharp songwriting and Eno’s layered production—with The New York Times naming it the “No. 1 disk of 1978” and Vogue calling Talking Heads the “most fascinating experimental rock band in the world.”

Upon this 2025 re-release, Will Hermes at Rolling Stone said the album has always been a dark horse candidate for Talking Heads’ all-around greatest.

While there’s nothing earthshaking among the bonus cuts (10 alternate takes plus an instrumental version of “Electricty,” which would appear on the later album “Fear of Music”) Hermes says, they do shine light on process.

The instruments are more clearly defined on the alternates, before, one assumes, Eno artfully smeared the final takes, according to Hermes. His touches made all the difference however, pulling the songs into a pulsing turbo-charged whole.

Side two of the finished LP in particular, was one of the great house party soundtracks during the era of its original release.

That version of Talking Heads, the house party dance band, gets showcased on this Super Deluxe Edition’s third disc through a cleaned up copy of a widely-circulated concert bootleg. Recorded just a short walk from the band’s early home base of East Village music club CBGB.