New Wax Wednesday

Take me to the box set, and drop me in the vinyl. And what I mean by that is to announce Talking Heads’ second studio album on Sire, July 1978’s More Songs About Buildings and Food, will be getting the Super Deluxe Edition 4LP treatment from Sire/Rhino on July 25, 2025. Released in conjunction with the Heads officially celebrating their own 50th anniversary this year, the MSABAF collection expands upon a pivotal moment in the band’s evolution that also marks the first of three of their albums produced with Brian Eno. (The other two being, of course, August 1979’s Fear of Music and October 1980’s Remain in Light.)

The More Songs About Buildings and Food 4LP Super Deluxe Edition features the 2025 remastered core album on LP1, rarities on LP2, and a live recording of the band’s August 1978 show at New York’s Entermedia Theatre on LP 3 & LP4. Footage from that New York gig will also appear as part of the MSABAF companion 3CD/1BD collection. (Footnote 1) A 60-page hardcover book rounds out the 4LP package, with previously unseen photos and new liner notes with recollections from bassist Tina Weymouth, vocalist/guitarist David Byrne, drummer/percussionist Chris Frantz, and keyboardist/guitarist/background vocalist Jerry Harrison.

In advance of the box set, the Heads have just released a clip of one of its included rarities, “Found a Job (Alternate Version),” on YouTube, and you can check it out below.

Though still awaiting full confirmation from the Heads’ PR team, we expect to learn the vinyl in the box set was pressed at GZ in the Czech Republic and the first, original LP in the set is AAA. I will insert more details here about the pressing and the source(s) used for the collection as I get them, but it would be more than logical to find those stats likely mirror how 2024’s most excellent Talking Heads: 77 – Super Deluxe Edition box set came together. (Footnotes 2 & 3)

The Talking Heads’ More Songs About Buildings and Food – Super Deluxe Edition 4LP box set sports an SRP of $124.99, and it can be purchased from Music Direct at this link, or via the MD link graphic near the end of this review ahead of the tracklisting section. The 2LP black vinyl edition that features the core album remaster and the rarities has an SRP of $34.99, and it can be ordered from MD here.

A second version of the MSABAF box set that’s available exclusively at the Talking Heads’ official site store also includes reissues of four international 7in singles — the first three being the U.S., U.K., and Japanese versions of “Take Me to the River” with differing B-sides, and the fourth being “The Good Thing” b/w “Found a Job” from the Netherlands. Each 45 comes in a reproduction picture sleeve, all of them packaged alongside the 4LP set in a custom die-cut folio.

The expanded version of the 4LP MSABAF box set with the quartet of 45s has an SRP of $174.98, while the site-exclusive version of the 2LP set that also includes the four 45s has an SRP of $74.98. If you want to get either/both of those versions, you can preorder them from the Heads’ store here. A red vinyl pressing of the 2LP set (shown below) is also purported to be available for preorder, most likely for at least $34.99, but it is not currently being shown as such in the official site store at the time of this posting. (It’s also said to be available at select indie retailers as well.)

I’m quite looking forward to getting and diving into this box set (no surprise there, really). My own original MSABAF 1978 Sire pressing (SRK 6058) is currently in storage, but I’ve continued to enjoy spinning my 2013 Sire/Rhino reissue (8122796358), which I did more than a few times while working on this story. The burble and flow of “The Good Thing” (Side 1, Track 3), along with Byrne’s quirky yelpings of “Work! Work!” lead quite nicely into the mindmelded bass-and-drums intro to “Warning Sign” (Side 1, Track 4), which also features complementary guitar janglings panned wide in each channel while the Weymouth/Franz rhythm section and Byrne’s processed, edge-of-panic vocals reside right down the middle.

And is it just me, but is that key, sustained-twang riff in “The Big Country” (Side 2, Track 5) the precursor to the riff guitarist Peter Buck oh-so-deftly deploys on R.E.M.’s “Man on the Moon,” the Athens, Georgia, alt-rock pioneers’ Andy Kaufman pastiche hit track from October 1992’s Automatic for the People on Warner Bros.? (Things work together, as the Heads’ line goes.)

Some additional background now, courtesy the band themselves (with select added notes from my end). The seeds for More Songs About Buildings and Food were planted in London in 1977, when the Talking Heads met producer Brian Eno while touring behind their debut album on Sire, September 1977’s 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,” Harrison recalls in an official press statement. “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 Chris Blackwell’s then-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. “To our great relief, [Eno] realized we were a tight live band at this point, so it made sense to record us all playing together in the studio,” Byrne says. “We weren’t all that comfortable in a recording studio, so this arrangement made us comfortable and put us at ease.”

Frantz recalls that slowing the tempo of “Take Me to the River” was Eno’s most significant contribution. “We were used to playing the song at a pretty fast tempo like Al Green’s original, but we gave it a go,” he observes. “After several takes, we got what he was looking for, and everyone loved his treatment of the snare drum. This song became our first radio hit.” (More on that in a bit.)

The Polaroid mosaic that gives the album its striking front-cover visual identity came together later, back in New York. Byrne suggested the cover concept. “David took the pictures of Chris, Jerry, and me, while I took the pictures of David,” confirms Weymouth. “We used a close-up attachment and a red cloth for the backdrop. It was shot on the roof above Chris’ and my Long Island City loft. I still have that camera!”

More Songs About Buildings and Food earned Talking Heads their first appearance on the Billboard 200, where it reached No. 29. It was later certified as Gold, having sold over 500,000 copies — though it’s probably sold much more than that number, certainly, by now. Their reimagining of the aforementioned “Take Me to the River” cracked the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 26 — and it became a left-field radio success, especially on FM stations, helping introduce the band to a wider audience. Brief sidenote here: I still love dropping the needle on “River” (Side 2, Track 4) to hear Harrison’s wide organ swirls and multiple organ response-stabs to supplement Byrne’s vocals on the choruses, along with those consistent right-channel guitar counters. Dip me in the water, indeed. . .

As noted at the outset of this piece, the release of the MSABAF Super Deluxe Edition coincides with a yearlong celebration of Talking Heads’ 50th anniversary — and I’d like to point out the band is also celebrating this milestone with a new video for “Psycho Killer” (originally from Talking Heads: 77) that debuts on June 5, 2025. Featuring Saoirse Ronan in the lead role, the clip is directed by Mike Mills. The trailer is embedded below, along with a link/button for you to be notified of the actual premiere time. (If you’re reading this post on/after midday June 5, however, the full video should appear below accordingly.)

Naturally, we here at AP very much look forward to all the aural enrichments the Talking Heads’ More Songs About Buildings and Food 4LP Super Deluxe Edition box set are expected to bring — and those four cool 45s too, for that matter. Or, to borrow a line from the original LP: Here’s that rhythm again. . .

Footnote 3: To read our deep-dive, tag-team combo review of the 2LP edition of Talking Heads’ seminal 1984 live release Stop Making Sense that posted on August 25, 2023, go here.

TALKING HEADS
MORE SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND FOOD – SUPER DELUXE EDITION
4LP (Sire/Rhino)

LP One: Original Album (2025 Remaster)

LP One, Side One
1. Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
2. With Our Love
3. The Good Thing
4. Warning Sign
5. The Girls Want To Be With The Girls
6. Found A Job

LP One, Side Two
1. Artists Only
2. I’m Not In Love
3. Stay Hungry
4. Take Me To The River
5. The Big Country

LP Two: Rarities

LP Two, Side One
1. Thank You For Sending Me An Angel (Alternate Version)
2. With Our Love (Alternate Version)
3. Found A Job (Alternate Version)
4. The Good Thing (Alternate Version)
5. Warning Sign (Alternate Version)
6. Electricity (Instrumental)

LP Two, Side Two
1. The Girls Want To Be With The Girls (Alternate Version)
2. I’m Not In Love (Alternate Version)
3. Artists Only (Alternate Version)
4. The Big Country (Alternate Version)
5. Thank You For Sending Me An Angel (Country Angel Version)

LP Three & LP Four: Live At Entermedia Theater, New York, NY (August 10, 1978)

LP Three, Side One
1. No Compassion
2. Warning Sign
3. The Book I Read
4. Stay Hungry
5. Artists Only

LP Three, Side Two
1. The Girls Want To Be With The Girls
2. Uh-Oh, Loves Comes To Town
3. With Our Love
4. Love Goes To A Building On Fire
5. Don’t Worry About The Government
6. The Good Thing

LP Four, Side One
1. Electricity
2. The Big Country
3. New Feeling
4. Pulled Up
5. Psycho Killer

LP Four, Side Two
1. Take Me To The River
2, Found A Job
3, Thank You For Sending Me An Angel

Talking Heads Official Site Exclusive: 7In 45s Collection

Take Me To The River – U.S. Picture Sleeve
Side A, Track 1. Take Me To The River (Edit) [2025 Remaster]
Side B, Track 1. Thank You For Sending Me An Ange” (Country Angel Version) [2025 Remaster]

Take Me To The River – U.K. Picture Sleeve
Side A, Track 1. Take Me To The River (Edit) [2025 Remaster]
Side B, Track 1. Found A Job (2025 Remaster)

Take Me To The River – Japan Picture Sleeve
Side A, Track 1. Take Me To The River (Edit) [2025 Remaster]
Side B, Track 1. Thank You For Sending Me An Angel (Country Angel Version) [2025 Remaster]

The Good Thing – Netherlands Picture Sleeve
Side A, Track 1. The Good Thing (2025 Remaster)
Side B, Track 1. Found A Job (2025 Remaster)