Monday May 12, 2008 at 13:56
—David Byrne, “Desconocido Soy,” Look Into The Eyeball (2001); background vocals: Rubén Albarrán
This reminds me a bit of how the Axl Rose vocal on the Don Henley song works: the background vocal adds a gritty texture to a fairly smooth lead vocal. Although in this case, the voices blend together more completely at points to form something that sounds like a third voice. Pretty interesting for a song titled “I Am Unknown.”
Byrne tells an interesting story about that song: this was the first he’d written entirely in Spanish, and one of his Spanish friends told him that “although my Spanish was OK, it still sounded a little weird in parts, and that if I were joined by another singer, it might ring truer.” So he called his friends from Café Tacuba.
