This Must Be the Place

“This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” is one of American new wave band Talking Heads’ most well-known track. Released in November 1983, it was the second single from their fifth studio album, “Speaking in Tongues”. All members of Talking Heads wrote and produced the track: David Byrne, Chris Fantz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth.

“This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” is a song about taking it easy and enjoying life, and the “Naïve Melody” portion of the title refers to the repetitive guitar and keyboard bassline, which provides a unique sound to the track. In a book titled “Talking Heads The Band & Their Music”, written by David Gans, Byrne had this to say about the infamous song: “That’s a love song made up almost completely of non sequiturs, phrases that may have a strong emotional resonance but don’t have any narrative qualities. It’s a real honest kind of love song. I don’t think I’ve ever done a real love song before. Mine always had a sort of reservation, or a twist. I tried to write one that wasn’t corny, that didn’t sound stupid or lame the way many do. I think I succeeded; I was pretty happy with that.”

The music video for “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” was released in 1983 and directed by David Byrne, according to IMDB.com. There is no official version of the track on YouTube, however a user by the name of “WCarnation” uploaded the official video on the 14th February 2011. The music video consists of the band watching home-style movies, and then heading to the basement and playing their instruments. As of April 2020, the views on this particular video are only over 748 thousand. On Spotify, the song has well over 103 million streams worldwide.

Release Date: November 1983

Songwriter/s: David Bryne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison & Tina Weymouth

Producer: Talking Heads

Label: Sire

Music Video Release Date: 1983

Music Video Director: David Byrne

Chart Rankings: “This Must Be the Place” reached #51 in the UK and #62 in the US in the year it was released.

The lyrics to “This Must Be the Place” can be viewed here: LINK