"Burning Down the House" is a song by new wave band Talking Heads, released in July 1983 as the first single from their fifth studio album Speaking in Tongues.

Inspiration and composition

"Burning Down the House" is a new wave, funk, and art rock song. "This song started from a jam," says bassist Tina Weymouth in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads. "[Chris Frantz] had just been to see Parliament-Funkadelic in its full glory at Madison Square Garden, and he was really hyped. During the jam, he kept yelling 'Burn down the house!' which was a P-Funk audience chant, and [David Byrne] dug the line, changing it to the finished version, 'Burning down the house'." The initial lyrics were considerably different, however. In an interview on NPR's All Things Considered aired on December 2, 1984, David Byrne played excerpts of early worktapes showing how the song had evolved from an instrumental jam by Weymouth and Frantz. Once the whole band had reworked the groove into something resembling the final recording, Byrne began chanting and singing nonsense syllables over the music until he arrived at phrasing that fit with the rhythms—a technique influenced by former Talking Heads producer Brian Eno: "and then I [would] just write words to fit that phrasing... I'd have loads and loads of phrases collected that I thought thematically had something to do with one another, and I'd pick from those." According to Byrne in the NPR interview, phrases that he tried but ultimately did not use in the song included "I have another body," "Pick it up by the handle," "You travel with a double," and "I'm still under construction." As for the title phrase in the chorus, one early attempt (as heard on a worktape) had him singing a different line, "What are we gonna do?", and at another point in the process, "instead of chanting 'Burning Down the House,' I was chanting 'Foam Rubber, USA.'"

Music video

The video, produced and directed by Byrne, alternates primarily between footage of the band performing the song in an empty ballroom, Byrne playing while facing a projection screen that displays a concert crowd or a wall of flames at different times, and images projected on the outside wall of a house. A young boy resembling Byrne takes his place from time to time; eventually, younger counterparts start moving the arms of all four band members to play the music. After the screen goes blank, both young and adult Byrne leave the stage, and the video ends with an extended close-up of Byrne's face projected on a highway at night. The house used in the video is located on Myrtle Street in Union, New Jersey. Max Illidge (credited as Max Loving), vocalist of the band 40 Below Summer, and Rockets Redglare appear as the younger selves of Byrne and Jerry Harrison, respectively.

Chart performance

"Burning Down the House" was Talking Heads' highest-charting hit single in North America, becoming their only top ten single on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at, as well as reaching the top ten in Canada. Despite this success, the song was not a hit outside of North America. In Australia it peaked at a modest, while in the UK, where Talking Heads would release 14 charting singles, it failed to chart. A year later, an extended live version of the song is a highlight of the band's landmark concert film Stop Making Sense. In September 2023, commemorating the film's 40th anniversary, a remastered version was released across America in IMAX theaters, and later in conventional theaters worldwide.

Track listings

7-inch single UK 12-inch single

Personnel

Credits adapted from the Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads liner notes. Additional personnel

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Tom Jones and the Cardigans version

Welsh singer Tom Jones recorded a version of "Burning Down the House" with Swedish pop band the Cardigans for his 1999 collaborations album, Reload. In common with the other tracks on the album, the recording was made with the collaborators' choice of producer and studio, in this case Tore Johansson and Tambourine Studios in Malmö, Sweden. The track was released as the lead single from Reload on September 13, 1999, and became a hit across Europe and Australia, reaching No. 1 in Iceland, No. 2 in Sweden, and the top ten in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Norway and the United Kingdom. The single was backed with Jones' live recordings of the EMF song "Unbelievable" and the Beatles' "Come Together", as well as remixes of "Burning Down the House" by Delakota, Pepe Deluxé and DJ Scissorkicks. As one of the major hits of Jones' later career, it appears on numerous compilations of Jones' work. It also features on the Cardigans' 2008 Best Of album.

Track listings

UK CD1; Australian CD2; Japanese CD single UK CD2 UK cassette single European CD single European maxi-CD single Australian CD1

Credits and personnel

Credits are adapted from the Reload album booklet. Studio Personnel

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Paramore version

In 2024, Paramore released a cover version of the song for the Talking Heads tribute album Everyone's Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense, with this cover serving as the album's lead single. Byrne called this version of the song "amazing", and he would also go on to cover Paramore's 2017 song "Hard Times", which was itself inspired by Talking Heads. Both covers were released together on one twelve-inch single for Record Store Day 2024, for which Paramore were the ambassadors. Later that year, the band would debut the song live on Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, regularly performing it at a number of shows in Europe for which they served as the opener.

Personnel

Adapted from the description notes given in the song's behind-the-scenes YouTube video. Additional personnel

Charts

Other versions

A number of musical acts have covered the song in their live performances, including Bonnie Raitt, and John Legend. In 2009, the Used recorded a rendition of the song that was heard in the soundtrack of the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Dave Matthews Band has covered the song numerous times, and released their cover on multiple live albums. The band covered the song again for the encore at the 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.