For David Byrne, Talking Heads was about making emotional sense — not literal sense

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/01/ [login to see] /david-byrne-talking-heads-stop-making-sense
Talking Heads founding member David Byrne says the first song he heard that really hooked him on music was The Byrds' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man."

"This jangly guitar and these really kind of lush harmonies mixed with that — I'd never heard any sound like that," Byrne says. He remembers thinking to himself: "There's a whole 'nother world out there."

Byrne bought himself a few songbooks — Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Smokey Robinson — and set about teaching himself to play the guitar and to sing along. His voice wasn't great; "it sounded better to me in my head than what I heard on recordings," he acknowledges. He was even asked to leave the school choir for singing off-key, but he wasn't discouraged.