How Music Works

Updated with new insights from the incomparable David Byrne, this is an illuminative look inside the formative elements of music from the Talking Heads musician, filmmaker, and author

Updated with new material, How Music Works is a Three Rivers Press reprint of the initial 2012 McSweeney's publication and David Byrne's buoyant celebration of a subject he's spent a lifetime thinking about. Drawing on his work over the years with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and myriad collaborators, Byrne reveals how music emerges from cultural circumstance as much as from individual creativity. Spanning the globe, Byrne's informative take is a rare blend of enlightening and edifying.

Told with a delightfully informed voice and a wise perspective, How Music Works is both a pop-culture touchstone and a highly entertaining look at a deeply human, universally uniting art form. It is Byrne's magnum opus and an impassioned argument about music's liberating, life-affirming power spanning cultures, countries, and the globe.