I have a copy of the Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” on DVD. While watching it again not too long ago, I noticed that there were two “bonus tracks” on the DVD, “Cities” and “Big Business / I Zimbra”. They are not part of the movie but are separate tracks that you have to play from the main menu.
For many years I have also had a copy of the “Stop Making Sense” soundtrack CD, but it only has about half the songs that the movie had. So, several years ago, when I had rented a copy of the movie on VHS, I decided to make my own “soundtrack” tape by recording the movie soundtrack from the VHS tape onto a cassette.
On this tape of the VHS soundtrack, both of these DVD bonus tracks are actually songs found within the run of the film – “Cities” appears before “Burning Down the House” and “Big Business / I Zimbra” is before they do “Genius of Love” as the Tom Tom Club. So, why did they decide to make these songs “bonus tracks” on the CD and not include them as part of the film, as they apparently were on the VHS release?
No idea, but there was a recent reissue of the soundtrack that features the 16 other songs from the movie.
I’ve asked this before as well. The two bonus songs are filmed in a different aspect ratio than the rest of the songs. That is why they are full screen when the rest of the movie is widescreen. It wasn’t a concern with VHS which was only a full screen release for the whole movie. I’m also pissed off that the song (Big Business/I Zimbra)wasn’t on the re-release of the CD.
It needs to be pointed out, however, that the songs Cities and Big Businees/I Zimbra did not appear in the theatrical release of the movie.
If you are a Talking Heads fan, I would recommend that you check out the boxed set Once in a Lifetime. It comes in a cool book and has a bunch of CDs. The best part is that it has Storytelling Giant in DVD format included. The DVD adds the videos that came out after the original VHS version was released.
This was something that I had wondered about. I only saw the film in a theater once, and at the time I wasn’t a fan of the band – in fact, a friend had talked me into going to see it, and it was the film that got me interested in the band.
I strongly recommend that all Heads heads pick up the 2-CD reissue of The Name of This Band is the Talking Heads. They were a great live band.