Lorde covers ‘Take Me to the River’ for Talking Heads tribute album

She continues: “I feel a portal open between me and the screen. Humour, lust, rhythm and ritual course through me. I don’t understand what I’m feeling, but I do understand that the band in the grainy video live with the same strangeness that I do.”

The dark-haired man Lorde is referring to is, of course, the lead singer of Talking Heads, David Byrne, with whom she shared a cover for Rolling Stone’s Musician on Musician issue in 2021. She confessed in their conversation that being able to interview Byrne has always been a dream of hers, as his music meant so much to her as an teenager.

Lorde is one of 16 musicians who will record a cover from the band’s 1984 live album. The rest of the lineup includes Paramore, who released their rendition of “Burning Down The House” in January and Teezo Touchdown, who released his version of “Making Flippy Floppy” in February. The covers of Miley Cyrus, Girl in Red, The National, Kevin Abstract, BadBadNotGood, Toro y Moi, Blondshell, DJ Tunez, Jean Dawson, Chicano Batman, The Linda Lindas, El Mató and The Cavemen have yet to be released. 

Last year, A24 remastered and re-released Talking Heads’ iconic 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense for its 40th anniversary. It became IMAX’s highest-grossing live event, earning $640,839 in the US.

Listen to the full track above.