Brian Eno and David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Written by guest editor, John Edge.

Sire Records ■ SRK 6093

Released in February, 1981

Produced by Brian Eno and David Byrne
Engineered by Neal Teeman, Eddie Kervin, Dave Jerden, Stacy Baird, and John Potoker
Mastered by Greg Calbi

Side One:	Side Two:
American is Waiting Mea Culpa Regiment Help Me Somebody The Jezebel Spirit	Qu'ran Moonlight in Glory The Carrier A Secret Life Come With Us Mountain of Needles

Voices:

Side One:

1. Unidentified indignant radio host, San Francisco, April 1980.
2. Inflamed caller and smooth politician replying, both unidentified. Radio call-in show, New York City, July 1979.
3. Dunya Yusin, Lebanese mountain singer. (From 'The Human Voice in the World of Islam', Tangent Records TGS 131).
4. Reverend Paul Morton, broadcast sermon, New Orleans, June 1980.
5. Unidentified exorcist, New York City, September, 1980.

Side Two:

1. Algerian Muslims chanting the Qu'ran. (Same source as 3).
2. The Moving Star Hall Singers, Sea Islands, Georgia (from 'The Moving Star Hall Singers' Folkways FS 3841).
3. Dunya Yusin (See 3).
4. Samira Tewfik, Egyptian popular singer (from 'Les Plus Grandes Artistes du Monde Arabe' EMI Records.)
5. Unidentified radio evangelist, San Francisco, April 1980.

Hey, everybody!  I made it back.  Didn't drink too much scotch (mixed it up with a little gin, a Fitzgerald cocktail, to be exact).

Anyway, you may have noticed a bit more information up there than is the usual.  That's because this album is a bit different from most (rock, at least) records.  All of the vocal sounds (I dare not say vocals) are sampled from various sources.  At the time of its release, this was a radical move and, in retrospect, was a pioneering one.  This makes for an interesting contrast to my Flipper review, where the lyrics were on the spot.  My Life has no real lyrics to speak of.  In fact, nearly half of the songs (Regiment, Qu'ran, The Carrier, and A Secret Life) are in Arabic¹.  Some that are in English (Mea Culpa in particular) are so heavily edited and modified, that they may as well be in a foreign language.  But, this is a record where the voices are part of the music, rather than cutting through it or floating above it.  The spoken parts add to the mix of instruments (and quite a mix it was, Help Me Somebody featured 14 different instruments allotted their own tracks in the mix) and sustain or even lead the rhythm of the tracks.