True Stories (film) - Music

Music

True Stories features a number of songs written by Byrne and performed by various members of the cast, as well as by Byrne's band, Talking Heads (the members of which make cameo appearances).

Talking Heads released an album titled True Stories in which the band performs most of the songs from the film, including songs that were performed by the actors in the movie itself. As such, the album is not generally considered a true soundtrack album, a fact Byrne points out in his liner notes on the release. Later, Byrne released an album containing primarily instrumental music from the soundtrack titled Sounds from True Stories, though it was never released on CD.

While several of the cast performances were released as bonus tracks on 12-inch single releases, no full album of cast performances has yet been released. As such, few of the original versions of songs from the film have found release. The Pops Staples version of "Papa Legba" and Tito Larriva's version of "Radio Head" appear as extra tracks on the 2006 Rhino reissue of True Stories; and John Goodman's version of "People Like Us" was initially released as the B-side to the single for "Wild Wild Life" and later was released on the 2006 Bonus Rarities and Outtakes collection, but the rest of the songs whose versions differ between the movie and album (John Ingle's "Puzzling Evidence," Annie McEnroe's "Dream Operator," and St. Thomas Aquinas School Choir's "Hey Now" (Iko Iko)) are absent. "Cocktail Desperado", recorded by Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band and featured in the film, is included on the Sounds from True Stories LP.

The music video version of "Wild Wild Life" that debuted on MTV is largely a scene taken from the film, in which many of the film's characters (including John Goodman) lip-synch to the music in a night club; the video version is more risque and features more pop music references/parodies than seen in the film; the Prince and Billy Idol parodies remain in the film version. Similarly, the video for "Love for Sale" is the same as that seen in the film (in which Kurtz's character is shown watching it on TV), except the video version has additional footage of Talking Heads, more references to recognizable TV commercials of the day, and no intercuts to any of the film characters.

Coincidentally, the final hit of Pops Staples' group, The Staple Singers, was a cover of Talking Heads' "Slippery People," which was released two years prior to this film.