| I Zimbra | |
| Cover: | I zimbra talking heads uk single.jpg |
| Caption: | UK vinyl single |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Talking Heads |
| Album: | Fear of Music |
| B-Side: | "Air" (3:33) |
| Released: | 1980 |
| Recorded: | 1979 |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 3:06 |
| Label: | Sire |
| Producer: | Brian Eno |
| Prev Title: | Life During Wartime |
| Prev Year: | 1979 |
| Next Title: | Cities |
| Next Year: | 1980 |
"I Zimbra" is a song by American new wave band Talking Heads, released as the second single from their 1979 album Fear of Music.
According to Sytze Steenstra in Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present, the music draws heavily on the African popular music Byrne was listening to at the time.[2]
The lyrics of "I Zimbra" are an adaptation of Dadaist Hugo Ball's poem Gadji beri bimba.[3]
Gadji beri bimba clandridi
Lauli lonni cadori gadjam
A bim beri glassala glandride
E glassala tuffm I zimbra
In an interview, Jerry Harrison named "I Zimbra"" as his favorite Talking Heads song, and pointed out that the style of the group's next album, Remain in Light, was indebted to the song's production style.
"We also knew that our next album would be a further exploration of what we had begun with 'I Zimbra'."
– Jerry Harrison, Liquid Audio, 1997[4] The song is used in the opening scene of the movie .[5] It is also in Byrne's stage musical American Utopia, also filmed for theatrical release by Spike Lee.[6]
Talking Heads
Additional musicians
The song was one of three songs (along with "Cities" and "Big Business") that were cut from the theatrical release of the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense but were restored as a bonus feature for the 1999 DVD release.[8]