New Zealand pop star Lorde has shared her contribution to A24’s Stop Making Sense tribute album, Everyone’s Getting Involved. The album pays homage to the iconic new wave band Talking Heads.

She accompanied her rendition of “Take Me to the River” – originally written by Al Green and then recorded by Talking Heads in 1978 – with a letter explaining the first time she ever heard a Talking Heads song. “It’s 2008, I’m 12 years old, eyes painted black, jaw busted with acne. My mother, an artist herself…brings her laptop to my room one night and puts on a YouTube video. It’s grainy, 240p at best. In the video, I see a band from another time performing on a TV show. The lead singer wears a suit, his cheekbones and slicked back dark hair… The dark-haired man is singing a song about wanting someone, not being sure why. He is a preacher, a controlled fire, a wild animal. He’s moving like I’ve never seen anyone move, and his eyes are rolling back in his head. He knows how it feels to kiss with tongue.” 

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.