Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" performed on traditional Chinese instruments

Fairmariner from the band Matteo writes, "Our band has been invited to go to China for 6 weeks as musicians-in-residence at Sichuan University! We still can't quite believe this is happening to us. We're going to record an EP while we're there, and we have a Kickstarter for that project.

That's Matteo above, performing my all-time favorite Talking Heads song, "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" on traditional Chinese instruments, and doing a whiz-bang job of it, too.

MATTEO covers Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)

• [SedanChair]

  This music makes me want to buy something…or maybe start trusting a corporation

• [Incipient Madness]

  I’m diggin’ that traditional Chinese double bass.

  Seriously though, this cover is five kinds of awesome.

  • [jazzbo]

    The Chinese make boatloads of contrabasses, and it is a traditional instrument, so depending on how you parse the headline…
    and while we are picking on the pizzicato bassists - 
    Why aren’t there any Traditional Chinese Bass instruments?  
    The Gu-zheng player does it with his left hand! Ba-da-bing!

• [The Archaeologist]

  This is probably the first time a YouTube top rated comment has actually caused me laugh out loud.

• [jeligula]

  Nice, but I still have a hard time with it.  This song is very special to me.  I don’t know if I prefer the steel drums of Arcade Fire’s cover to this one.  I guess it’s just a case of me preferring the original no matter what.

• [jewelley]

  they even have the floor lamp!

  • [ChrisKomlos]

     What else is deserving of such a love song?

  • [taintofevil]

    And it has its own mic!

• [Stephan]

  They are coming to Chengdu?
  Good for them. Its such a chill city. 
  Im sure they will end up playing in one of the numerous Cafes/Bars where you can just pull out your instrument and start to jam.
  Looking forward.

• [nathan foote]

  It’s not often that a song, much less a cover, can cause me to get a little misty-eyed. The original version always has, and this one definitely delivered. There is a soft spot in my head for this tune, it has a special place for my wife and myself. Great selection, Boing.

• [cmholm]

  This cover is just haunting, sweet, beautiful. Unfortunate that I can’t easily hang out to hear more first hand, but I look forward to whatever else they throw over the transom during their residency.

• [Franklin]

  http://youtu.be/MTiFNQBRwwU

• [John Harrison]

  If you like talking heads covers you should check out this compilation of jambands covering david and co:

  http://www.thebarnpresents.com/talking-heads-tuesday-jambands-celebrate-talking-heads-1460.html

• [pamaro]

  Brilliant. They make it seem that song was written to be played on Chinese instruments. Brings back fond memories. Talking Heads was my favorite band for many years. I’d love to see them do Life During Wartime.

  • [James Rasmussen]

    For $100 on their kickstarter page, they’ll cover whatever song you want them to! It’s a bit steep for one song, but it’s so cool!

• [Benjamin Schlotz]

  I was just listening to this song (the live version from stop making sense) and thinking that the synth solo would sound best on a fiddle.

  but I was wrong.

  It sounds best on an erhu.

• [fairmariner]

  Hey, everyone! We are completely blown away by:

  1. this BoingBoing feature (equivalent to our impending China trip in unbelievable-ness),
  2. the incredibly positive tone of the comments, here and on youtube, and
  3. the fact that, because of this attention, we made our Kickstarter goal! With 6 days to spare! 
  Just 48 hours ago, we were all really worried about getting there. We’re so humbled by all of this, and so grateful to Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, and everyone who’s donated to the Kickstarter or just watched the video. Thank you, xie xie, 谢谢, from all of us in Matteo.

• [Max Hoagland]

  This song is awesome and a sickkk cover!!!!