“Take Me to the River” by Talking Heads

Talking Heads took "Take Me to the River", the 1974 soul song written by Al Green and guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, and turned it into one of the standouts of More Songs About Buildings and Food, their 1978 album. Theirs became one of the hit versions of the song, and it makes the case that this wiry, nervous band had a soul groove in them all along.

Brian Eno produced with the band, and he's all over the track, adding guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and backing vocals. The groove is the thing: Tina Weymouth's bass rolls slow and deep, Chris Frantz keeps a patient, heavy-lidded beat on drums and percussion, Jerry Harrison layers organ, piano, guitar and synthesizer, and David Byrne sings lead over his own guitar and synthesizer like a nervous preacher who has finally caught the spirit. It's cool and swampy at once, a soul sermon beamed in from a lab. Rhett Davies engineered it, with Benjamin Armbrister assisting.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.