"Psycho Killer" is a song by American rock band Talking Heads, released on their debut studio album Talking Heads: 77 (1977). The group first performed it as the Artistics in 1974.[6][7]
The band's "signature debut hit"[9] features lyrics which seem to represent the thoughts of a serial killer. Originally written and performed as a ballad,[10] "Psycho Killer" became what AllMusic calls a "deceptively funkynew wave/no wave song" with "an insistent rhythm, and one of the most memorable, driving basslines in rock & roll."[1]
The song was composed near the beginning of the band's career and prototype versions were performed onstage as early as December 1975.[12] When it was finally completed and released as a single in December 1977, "Psycho Killer" became instantly associated in popular culture with the contemporaneous Son of Sam serial killings (July 1976 – July 1977).[13][14] Although the band always insisted that the song had no inspiration from the notorious events, the single's release date was "eerily timely"[12] and marked by a "macabre synchronicity".[14]
When I started writing this (I got help later), I imagined Alice Cooper doing a Randy Newman–type ballad. Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies.
The bridge lyrics are in French, as is the prominent chorus line "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" ("What is this/it?"). The bridge lyrics are:
Lyrics in French
Translation
Ce que j'ai fait, ce soir-là
Ce qu'elle a dit, ce soir-là
Réalisant mon espoir
Je me lance vers la gloire... OK !
What I did, that night
What she said, that night
Fulfilling my hope
I launch myself towards glory... OK!
The French lyrics were supplied by Tina Weymouth. According to Chris Frantz, "I told David that Tina's mother is French and that they always spoke French in the home. Tina agreed to do it and just sat down and did it in a little over an hour. I wrote a couple of more verses, and within a few hours, 'Psycho Killer' was more or less done."[15]
Later releases
Talking Heads performed the song on the BBC2 television show The Old Grey Whistle Test on January 31, 1978. The performance was later released on a DVD compilation of performances from the show.[16]
A live version recorded in 1977 for radio broadcast was released on The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads in 1982, featuring an additional verse not heard in the studio version, and the later CD release included a second, later live version from the Remain in Light tour. In 1984, another live version was included on the soundtrack for the band's concert movie Stop Making Sense. The film opens with Byrne alone onstage, announcing "'Hi. I've got a tape I want to play'...[and] strumming maniacally like Richie Havens",[1] playing an acoustic version of "Psycho Killer", backed only by a Roland TR-808drum machine whose sound appears to be issuing from a boombox.
Massachusetts-based band the Fools parodied the song and entitled it "Psycho Chicken"; it was included as a bonus record with their major-label debut album Sold Out in 1980.[34]Ice-T says that "Psycho Killer" was a starting influence for his band Body Count's controversial song "Cop Killer".[35] Singer Selena Gomez samples the bassline on her 2017 single "Bad Liar."[36] A Talking Heads tribute band based in Baltimore, active since 2011, call themselves the Psycho Killers.[37]
^Flynn, Clare (December 13, 2011). "Talking Heads, 'Chronology'". NPR. Retrieved September 13, 2012. CBGB in 1975, and see footage of an acoustic version of "Psycho Killer" from that performance
^Smith, Andy (2003). Buckley, Peter (ed.). The Rough Guide to Rock (3rd ed.). Rough Guides. p. 1052. ISBN978-1-85828-457-6. Byrne and Franz formed a quintet called The Artistic (they sometimes appeared as The Autistic), playing mainly 60s covers but throwing in the occasional Byrne original, most notably "Psycho Killer"
