The Summer of Speaking in Tongues

by editor Michele Catalano

I had this friend, Christie. Christie came from money and often treated us to the usual accompaniments of your early twenties; beer, weed, munchies. But the best thing she treated us to was her house. Her parents were often traveling or else just not interested in what Christie was doing. A few of us underemployed slackers would take up residence in her family room, where we would watch MTV for hours at a time, or play Christie’s records, or do both at the same time. We ate their food and drank their beer and ran up their utility bills, and no one seemed to care that we were essentially freeloading. This was the summer of 1983, the best few months of my life.

It was early June when Kevin (the same Kevin as in the Genesis story) brought into Christie’s house what would be the gift of the summer. Talking Heads had just released their fifth album, Speaking in Tongues, and “Burning Down the House” was all over the radio. When he pulled the album out of the Record World bag (the same Record World I would get a job with later in the year), we immediately turned down the volume on MTV and prepared to hear the rest of Speaking in Tongues. Preparation just meant a couple of bong hits.

I’ve been a Talking Heads fan since ‘77. I wasn’t a superfan or anything in the earlier years, but I did enjoy their music enough to own all their records. Speaking in Tongues had only been out a week, and my broke ass couldn’t afford it; so I was so grateful to Kevin for bringing it over to Christie’s for a listen. I was expecting a completely serviceable album that I would eventually buy and listen to a couple of times.

It’s hard to find the words to express what happened when we listened to the album for the first time. There were four of us: me, Christie, Kevin, and Ed. We were sprawled out on the couches in the family room, eating potato chips. It wasn’t quite summer, and there was still a cool breeze to be had. The windows were wide open. The volume was set to something that would break the town noise ordinance. Ed was still stuffing his hand in the crinkly chip bag; we shushed him as the opening notes to “Burning Down the House” floated out of the speakers and filled the family room. We bopped our heads and tapped our feet. Kevin did some air drumming. I knew this song was going to come to define my summer. I wanted to hear if the rest of the album would follow suit.

What followed was 47 minutes of pure bliss. All four of us were completely locked in. We nodded, we said “hell yeah” a couple of times, we danced to “Making Flippy Floppy,” and we sighed our way through “This Must Be the Place.” When it was over, Christie flipped it and put it on again.

What I remember most is the joy, the exhilaration. I knew we were listening to something special, an instant classic. And I knew that even though 1983 was shaping up to be an incredible year for music, this would soundtrack the summer. We had new music from U2 and R.E.M. and The Police. We had offerings from New Order and Depeche Mode. We had the early days of new wave. We had so much going on musically, but the four of us fixated on Talking Heads.

Speaking in Tongues was my companion as I drove around looking for a job (you just went into stores and asked in those days), as I watched Braves games on mute, while I was in the pool. It remained on the turntable at Christie’s house for weeks and weeks; we would break from it only to watch baseball and tennis.

I developed a big crush on Ed at some point that summer. He was two years older, a singer and bass player, and he was so damn hot. Like 6’4”, long black hair, hazel eyes, worked out every day hot. But when I found out he had feelings for me, I balked. There was a slight problem: I had a boyfriend. Wait, I had a fiancé. We were set to get married the following May. The bigger problem was that I didn’t want to get married at all, least of all to the guy I was dating. But I was 21 and afraid of him; so I hung onto the relationship out of a sense of safety. I had to distance myself from Ed, I thought. But how could I do that when he was one of my best friends?

And then I found myself alone with Ed in Christie’s family room while Kevin and Christie did a Taco Bell run. We were, of course, listening to Speaking in Tongues. It had just about run its course, and we both settled into our separate couches for “This Must Be the Place,” a song we both marked as our favorite on the album. I was uncomfortable, knowing that we had unspoken feelings for each other. I concentrated on the song, willing Kevin and Christie to walk through the door with my Taco Bell Grande (RIP).

The less we say about it the better

Make it up as we go along

Feet on the ground, head in the sky

It’s okay, I know nothing’s wrong, nothing

The less we say about it the better, indeed. I wanted the song to end at this point. I wanted to escape, because I felt like I was suffocating. If my fiancé found out about my crush, there would be trouble. If he found out Ed liked me, well, there would be double. My fiancé was a hothead who owned a gun (he was a corrections officer), and while I did’t think he would shoot Ed or me, he would absolutely threaten to. Which was enough for me to think about making an excuse about going to the bathroom just to end this excruciating scenario.

I’m just an animal looking for a home, and

Share the same space for a minute or two

And you love me ’til my heart stops

Love me ’til I’m dead

Ed was singing. Not just singing along in a quiet way, but singing in his band voice, which was very nice. His words carried across the room and wrapped around me. My heart started doing triple time. Hand sweaty, knees weak. You’ve been there. You get it. I was melting.

I looked down, averting my eyes from his perfectly constructed face. I thought about my fiancé, my upcoming wedding, my incredibly dire predicament. I don’t know what might have happened if Kevin and Christie hadn’t walked through the door at that moment with my beloved Taco Bell Grande (RIP). I just know that when they entered the house, the spell broke. The song was ending, a chorus of Ah-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh fading away. Christie walked over to the record player, flipped the album, and “Burning Down the House” found its way around the family room. I exhaled deeply, letting a million little points of emotion work their way out of my body. I knew at that moment Ed and I would never hook up.

The summer started to fade. Ed and I carried on as friends as if nothing had happened. And nothing really did, except for turning a beautiful song into a moment I’d never forget. I fell in love with Ed then; in the thirty seconds between the verse ending and the Taco Bell arriving. I knew it was silly and senseless, and I let the feeling go.

We started spending less time in Christie’s house and more time going to clubs and the beach before summer left us completely. One of the last days we were at Christie’s house was in late August. We were watching the U.S. Open and listening to Speaking in Tongues. Kevin and I had gotten jobs in the last week. Christie was getting ready to start her second year at Hofstra. Ed was in the studio daily. It was just as well that summer was ending; it had been near perfect, and to stretch it out any longer would surely stretch its perfection thin. This was the right way to end it. On Christie’s couch, watching tennis on a sweltering day, listening to Speaking in Tongues.

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