When Talking Heads started working on their fifth album Speaking in Tongues, they began jamming at bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz’s loft. David Byrne typically had a tape recorder in tow, recording anything that would surface during their sessions, including one song that would become “Burning Down the House.”
Assembling the lyrics with random phrasing, Byrne also pulled the title from a chant he heard at a Parliament-Funkadelic show.
“I was just a kind of chant that they started chanting, and the audience joined in,” said Byrne of the title in 2023. “And it was like ‘We’re going to blow the roof off the sucker. We’re going to set this place on fire. We’re going to have a really amazing time here. Yeah.’ It didn’t mean, literally, ‘Let’s set fire to our houses’ or anything else.”
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Byrne added “And the rest of it, I thought, let me see if I can make a song that is basically a lot of non sequiturs that have a kind of, some kind of emotional impact, that they have some kind of emotional resonance, but literally, they don’t make any sense.”
[RELATED: Talking Heads Reunite for First Time in 21 Years for ‘Stop Making Sense’]
Upon its release in July 1983, “Burning Down the House” went to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. A year later, the song was featured in Talking Heads’ 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, which was originally directed by Jonathan Demme and restored and rereleased in 2023 for its 40th anniversary.
Throughout the decades, dozens of artists have also put their own spin on the iconic Talking Heads song. In 1984, “Weird Al” Yankovic plugged “Burning Down the House” into his first polka medley “Polkas on 45.”
By the early ’90s, Paul Shaffer even took a swing at it with a former Beatle, while John Legend added more frenetic funk and soul to his rendition on the 2002 album Live at SOB’s. There’s even a synthesized cover of the song by the Vienna Boys Choir floating around. In 2024, Paramore revealed the band’s cover of “Burning Down the House” for the Stop Making Sense tribute album.
Here’s a deeper look and listen at five surprising covers of the Talking Heads classic.
1. Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt remained faithful to Talking Heads’ original but instead of its funkier pop arrangement, she added her own touch of blues on her 1995 cover. Appearing on Raitt’s 1995 live album Road Tested, the song was still making its way onto her live setlists in 2023.
Read our 2022 interview with Bonnie Raitt HERE.
2. Paul Shaffer, featuring Ringo Starr and LL Cool J
In 1993, Paul Shaffer covered “Burning Down the House” for his album The World’s Most Dangerous Party. Released under the moniker Paul Shaffer & the Party Boys of Rock ‘n’ Roll, his rendition also featured spoken word cameos by LL Cool J and Ringo Starr.
3. Tom Jones and The Cardigans
Perhaps one of the most obscure pairings to cover the Talking Heads hit was the Swedish pop band The Cardigans and none other than Tom Jones in the late ’90s. Released on Jones’ 1999 album Reload, The Cardigans’ Nina Persson keeps her composure throughout her verses, while the Welsh icon delivers something more deranged to “Burning Down the House.”
4. The Used
Rockers The Used delivered a harder “Burning Down the House” for the 2009 album Revenge of the Fallen: The Album. The album featured a collection of songs from the Michael Bay-helmed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, along with others inspired by the film. Green Day, Linkin Park, Cheap Trick, and Nickelback are also featured on the album.
The Used’s cover of “Burning Down the House” plays during a frat party at the college of character Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LaBeouf.
5. Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band were playing “Burning Down the House” live before featuring it on their 2008 album DMB Live Trax Vol. 15: Alpine Valley Music Theatre. Recorded on August 9, 2008 at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin, the album also features the band’s cover of Pink Floyd‘s “Money.” The band continues to keep their rousing cover of “Burning Down the House” on their setlists.
Photo: Echoes / Redferns
