Talking Heads were one of the most influential rock bands of the late 1970s and early ‘80s, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that a spinoff project would have achieved some commercial success. At the time, it would have been hard to predict it would be the band’s rhythm section—and not its highly visible frontman, David Byrne—that would be the first to land a few songs on the charts. Tom Tom Club would become best-known for “Genius of Love,” but the first song they ever recorded and released as a single had some chart success as well.
Once bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz arrived in Nassau, The Bahamas, in late 1980 to begin their work as Tom Tom Club, there were no definitive plans to make a full album. What started out as an experiment would ultimately result in their first-ever song, “Wordy Rappinghood.” But before Weymouth and Frantz could even make their initial single, they had to sort out a couple of pesky details: Who would write lyrics and provide vocals? It wasn’t easy, but once they cleared those hurdles, Tom Tom Club had both a potential hit and a song strong enough to kick-start a string of albums.
How Tom Tom Club Came to Be
Weymouth and Frantz formed Tom Tom Club in 1981, when the other two members of Talking Heads embarked on their own side projects. That same year, Byrne collaborated with Brian Eno on their album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and scored Twyla Tharp’s dance performance piece The Catherine Wheel. Also in 1981, guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Byrne and Harrison encouraged their bandmates to start their own project, so Weymouth and Frantz took the initiative and headed to The Bahamas.
The duo recorded what would become Tom Tom Club’s self-titled debut album at Compass Point Studios, where Talking Heads had recently recorded Remain in Light. They weren’t alone, as Chris Blackwell, the studio’s founder and head of Island Records, was present. So was the in-house crew of musicians Blackwell formed known as the Compass Point All-Stars. One of the “All-Stars” was Steven Stanley, who would co-produce and engineer Tom Tom Club, as well as co-write “Wordy Rappinghood.” In an interview for the video series Top 2000 a go go, Frantz said Blackwell invited him and Weymouth to record a single at Compass Point, and if he liked the results they could proceed with an entire album’s worth of songs.
A Rapper Is Born
Weymouth and Frantz began by writing the music for their first single, and they had a vision of the type of sound they wanted. Said Frantz in an interview for Classic Pop, “We wanted to make a record that was good for dancing, something that would appeal to our friends in New York, who liked to hang out at Mud Club and Danceteria.” Soon enough, they would bump up against the need for some lyrics and vocals. One option was to recruit Adrian Belew, who had played guitar on Remain in Light, but he was already committed to serve as lead vocalist and Robert Fripp’s guitar foil in a reformed version of King Crimson. (Belew did contribute guitar parts for Tom Tom Club.) Weymouth was reluctant to take on the roles, partly because of a lung condition she’d had since birth.
Despite her reticence, Weymouth agreed to write lyrics and provide vocals. Frantz encouraged her, pointing out she didn’t have to sing—she could rap the lyrics. Weymouth still struggled to come up with words, telling Top 2000 a go go she was “exceedingly challenged” given she hadn’t written lyrics before. In her frustration over trying to come up with words, Weymouth came up with the line, What are words worth? From there, she realized could write—and rap—a song about words.
Enlisting Family for the Hook
Weymouth got a lot of mileage out of lyrics detailing the many types and qualities of words, but she got the song’s hook from a childhood memory. While in Nassau, she went for a walk on the beach with her sisters Lani and Laura. Lani reminded her of a song their classmates would sing walking home from school when they lived in France. Weymouth realized the song needed to be incorporated into “Wordy Rappinghood,” and she recruited her sisters to record it with her. This became the memorable A ram sam sam section of the song.
Blackwell was thrilled with “Wordy Rappinghood,” so Weymouth, Frantz, and their Compass Point compatriots forged ahead with an album’s worth of material. This would include their signature hit “Genius of Love”—popularized further by being sampled in Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy”—and a cover of The Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk,” which became a minor dance hit.
The Impact of “Wordy Rappinghood”
Unlike “Genius of Love,” “Wordy Rappinghood” would miss the Billboard Hot 100, peaking two notches below it on the Bubbling Under chart. However, it (along with “Genius of Love”) would top Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart for a week in January 1982. “Wordy Rappinghood” would find mainstream success in Europe. It went to No. 1 on the pop chart in Belgium and placed in the Top 10 of the pop singles charts in the UK, France, and the Netherlands.
Tom Tom Club would peak at No. 23 on the Billboard 200 and would receive Gold certification in May 1982. Incredibly, Tom Tom Club would have a Gold-certified album before Talking Heads did. It would take another 40 years for their debut album to go Platinum.
At the very beginning of Tom Tom Club’s existence, Weymouth was literally at a loss for words. Luckily for her and the group’s fans, Weymouth’s frustrations with language wound up leading her to exactly the right words. That, in turn, helped her and Frantz to create songs that resonated with at least some listeners as much as their more celebrated work with one of the most important bands in rock history.
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Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images
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