In my previous post , I made the claim that Remain in Light was overrated when compared to the latter three albums, for reasons such as emotional depth, lack of melody, etc. I had mentioned taking ketamine and rediscovering the Heads after many years without them. For context, they were my favorite band from 7th grade to college; I had to listen to other shit for a while but was on ketamine a few weeks ago and decided "well why not listen to More Songs" (my favorite album of all time). This was life-changing, and led me to audibly say "oh, right, this is actually the greatest album of all time." I then watched the South Bank Show. This really fucked me up. I'm a musician, that's the only thing I care about. Eye opening. Truly the best band ever I suppose. And when Tina said the thing about imagining Chinese children floating down the Ganjes (? I took Chinese for 7 years but had no idea what river she was talking about, even after googling) river, singing "Don't Worry About the Government" like it's a propaganda song, made me shit my pants laughing. I had to rewind it several times. Bas[s]ed.
So last night, I decided it was my calling to at least try out Remain in Light. I'd actually decided I'd need to listen to it before, but I'd been putting it off out of fear, maybe. And I'd spent the last four hours or so working deeply on lyrics. Anyway, I took a bunch more ketamine and had my weird Canadian first pressing of RiL on my table and ready to go. It was a religious experience for me. I even discovered a new way of writing lyrics I'd been stuck on--I simply began to sing my own song, with the melody modified where needed, over whatever song was playing. The whole experience is hard to describe, but it was religious. I still wouldn't call this record better than the first three, but it is truly special in its own way and I certainly would say I love it now. I'm shelving the ketamine now that I've gotten the insights I sought, and will live my life for a long while before returning to it (I have a stint with ketamine once a year or so for a couple weeks lol).
TL;DR listen to Talking Heads on ketamine if you're looking to get out of a rut, or merely for a religious experience