Talking Heads’ David Byrne Explains the Texting Mishap Behind His New Album Title originally appeared on Parade.
Talking Heads frontman David Byrne’s new album arrives early next month on September 5, and its title was inspired by a misheard phrase from a voice-to-text message.
How a Texting Mishap Led to the Title of David Byrne’s Album ‘Who Is the Sky?’
“Somebody was sending me a text using voice-to-text, and the algorithm got it a little bit wrong. And what came up on my phone was ‘Who is the sky?’” Byrne, 73, said during a new interview with Rolling Stone published on Wednesday, August 13. “And I thought, ‘That’s a beautiful phrase.’ I know what they were really saying — it’s pretty easy to tell, in English anyway. But I thought, ‘I’m going to put that on the list of album titles.’ And I realized that it fit in other ways.”
The “Road to Nowhere” singer continued, “There’s a lot of songs where I’m asking, ‘Who am I? Who is this? What is that about? Why do we do this?’ I also had this thought that the image on the record cover would be me partly hidden. So: ‘Who is this guy?’”
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While Byrne added that most people thought “at his age” he would have himself figured out by now, that wasn’t the case.
“We’re always still figuring it out,” Byrne continued. “Figuring out who we are and where we belong and how we feel about things. We’ll never really know all the answers.”
From CBGB to Breakup: Byrne’s Years With Talking Heads
Byrne first cofounded Talking Heads with drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth and guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison in 1975, and it wasn’t long before they found themselves as regulars at the legendary CBGB club in New York City. When they released their debut album, Talking Heads: 77, in 1977, their song “Psycho Killer” quickly became a hit.
In 1991, tension within the band led to their breakup. Byrne later admitted he “wasn’t the easiest person in the world to work with” during that period and said he was “very single-minded” about the band’s direction.
“Now I know how to collaborate a little bit better,” he told Rolling Stone, adding there’s a way to do it “where it doesn’t hurt feelings.”
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Talking Heads’ David Byrne Explains the Texting Mishap Behind His New Album Title first appeared on Parade on Aug 14, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 14, 2025, where it first appeared.
