-Thank you so much for being here.
-It's good to be back here. -I love you.
You're allowed -- Whenever you want, please,
just every night of the week, please come in.
I don't think I've seen you since I saw the play.
It was just so fun and so positive
and just amazing what you do on that stage.
Congrats on all of that. -Thank you, thank you.
-I want to ask you something, because they just had --
Robert Pattinson was at the premiere of "The Batman"
in London, and everyone can't stop saying that his suit
looks very familiar to what you wore in "Stop Making Sense."
That's real. And that's you there.
And did you see this photo or no?
-I hadn't seen this photo.
He's going to need a couple of seats for that, right?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He sat in three seats for that suit.
Exactly right.
When you wore that suit in "Stop Making Sense,"
what were you going for?
Was it fashion or was it a --
-Well, one idea I had was, I thought it would
make my head look smaller.
which I thought that was a good thing.
-You're actually right. It did. You did a great job.
It does look smaller. Yeah.
-I was talking with a friend who said,
"Well, you know, in the theater,
everything has to be bigger than real life."
And, of course, they're referring to, like, gestures,
and you talk a little bit louder
and, you know, you're a little bit larger.
And I thought, "Oh, that applies to the costumes, too."
-They go, "No, no."
They weren't talking about that at all.
But, yeah, you did that, and that made it iconic.
And does it come natural to you when you're performing onstage
and talking to the audience?
Because not only can you perform and sing,
but when you're just talking and telling stories,
you're really good at it.
-Well, thank you so much. Thank you.
No, it did not come natural.
-Good. That's good to hear.
-Whew! -Really?
The previews were rough?
-Yeah. [ Both laugh ]
-Were they really?
'Cause when I saw it, it was polished,
and I was like, "Oh, you're a master at this."
-Thank you so much.
But, no, it was -- There was a learning curve.
-It was, yeah. -Yeah.
I mean, I had to both remember kind of the talking points,
the lines, whatever,
but then react to the audience if they do something,
because in this show, they'll do something --
they'll react to something you say or do --
-Yeah, if something gets a laugh one night,
it might not get a laugh the next night.
-Yeah, and so you got to react to that.
And sometimes, I realized, if you get a laugh,
you can sometimes take that further
and get another laugh -- sometimes.
-Sometimes.
But when the first one doesn't get a laugh, you're screwed.
-You better just move on.
-You're like, "We're doing a 20-minute show
tonight, everybody.
Alright, goodbye. Good night."
It's so good.
I remember reading somewhere that you said
you've written some of your best songs in your car.
Why is that?
-It was a rental car. Just to be clear.
-Okay, yeah.
Of course, it wasn't your car, yeah.
-It wasn't my car. -No.
-Anyway, I couldn't figure out how to do the lyrics
for this song, so I got in a rent-a-car
and drove around Minnesota.
And -- [ Cheers and applause ]
I brought them here. -You brought them here tonight?
-Yeah, I brought them here tonight.
Hot dish. Shout-out to hot dish. -Oh, they all showed up.
-Absolutely. I'm so psyched. Love that.
-So, I needed something to, like, distract my mind,
the driving.
Had to pay some attention to driving.
But, obviously, we all know you can talk
when you're driving and whatever else.
So, I had one of those little tape recorders.
And it was just kind of whatever came into my mind,
I would just do it
and think about the song and do that.
And I started imagining -- In this particular case,
I imagined, what if all this beautiful countryside
that I'm driving through was -- It was all overgrown.
All the strip malls and all the stuff
that we kind of think might be ugly,
we kind of miss it when it's gone.
So I thought, "I'm going to write a song about that."
-And there you go. And the rest is history.
And speaking of history -- How about that segue?
-Yeah, it was good. Well done.
-"A History of the World (in Dingbats)."
Can you explain what -- can you explain --
I know, I hate -- It's, like, a loaded question.
Can you explain what a dingbat is?
And please don't look at me. Please don't look at me.
-Yes. -Please just look out there.
-Well, if you need an explanation, yeah.
-Exactly right. But what is a dingbat?
-A dingbat is, as I understand it,
is not just, you know, a person of low intelligence,
but, also -- It's also a little drawing
that they put in newspapers and magazines
to kind of sprinkle around the text to make --
Like, they'll have a drawing of a flower pot
or, like, a little dog or something cute like that.
And I was asked for a news magazine
that I work on that's -- They asked me,
"Will you do some drawings for us that we can use
to sprinkle around?"
So, I said, "Okay.
I'll do a whole bunch of things, and you can just do it."
And I got carried away.
And this was kind of in the middle of the depths of COVID
and then when we were all at home a lot.
-Yeah.
-And I realized, "Hey, I can draw stuff."
And a lot of the drawings, I realized, were
my anxieties and humor and everything all about
the COVID coming out in these little drawings,
some of them funny, some of them --
you know, like, drawings of, like,
weird body shapes and body stuff,
when we realize our bodies are kind of trapping us
in our homes and we can't go out because our bodies
will make us ill or we'll catch something,
all these kinds of things.
-Yeah, it gets -- But I love this one here,
because you say, "We're all in this together."
And then, Can you see the -- -Oh, there it is. That's good.
-Like, I get it. I love it.
-Yeah, that's kind of what it felt like,
that we're all kind of in it together,
but trapped in a thing.
-I love that you're always doing something different.
You've never done the exact same thing.
You've been on our show for another book you wrote.
It was amazing. About actual sound.
And now you're doing dingbats.
-Now I'm doing dingbats. -That's what I'm talking about.
I want to thank you so much.
You're performing for us later tonight.
What song are you playing for us?
-We're doing a song called "Like Humans Do."
During when the Omicron came, like, during the holidays,
as it did here in this show, we were decimated.
Half the band was in quarantine, the crew, everybody.
So, at one point, some of the band said to me,
"David, we can throw a show together.
It won't be our show.
It won't be this show.
But we can learn to do other songs,
songs that we can do, even with missing members."
So, that's what we did.
So, for like a week or 10 days, we did,
what we called our "Unchained" show.
So, this is a song from that.
-I appreciate you. I'm so happy that you're here.
Thank you so much. David Byrne, everybody.
"David Byrne's American Utopia"
runs through April 3rd at the St. James Theatre.
And then performing for us after the break.
And "A History of the World (in Dingbats)."
Come on. This is so fun.
We'll be back, everybody, with more "Tonight Show."
Come on back.