Talking Heads — And She Was

JUL 01 1985 · 12:00

Talking Heads — And She Was (1985) Director: Jim Blashfield Era: MTV Golden Age / Mid-80s New Wave Crossover (1985) - Peak MTV era where art-school post-punk bands like Talking Heads bridged underground experimentalism and mainstream pop accessibility via conceptually ambitious music videos on Sire Records. Tier-1 canonical artifact of the MTV Golden Age. Represents a unique convergence of avant-garde animation craft, post-punk intellectual pop, and mid-80s music video culture. Blashfield's debut video is a primary document in the history of handcrafted music video animation and a key reference for the DIY surrealist aesthetic that countered the era's prevailing glossy production values. Indispensable for any archive covering 1980s visual culture, New Wave, or the history of music video as an art form. Context: Released in 1985 at the apex of MTV's cultural dominance, 'And She Was' arrived during Talking Heads' transitional period from art-punk provocateurs to mainstream pop-crossover artists. The video's handmade surrealism — rooted in David Byrne's recounted inspiration of a Baltimore woman's psychedelic experience near a Yoo-hoo factory — channeled the era's fascination with accessible yet intellectually playful imagery. Blashfield's debut video established a new visual grammar for concept videos: DIY, anti-gloss, and grounded in everyday suburban objects rather than glamour or spectacle. It represented an aesthetic counterpoint to the high-production synth-pop and hair-metal videos dominating MTV at the time, aligning instead with the emerging college-radio alternative sensibility. Director notes: This was Blashfield's debut music video commission, launched after his short film Suspicious Circumstances reached Talking Heads' management. David Byrne gave Blashfield broad creative latitude despite an approximately 28-day production schedule, during which Byrne was simultaneously directing his film True Stories. Per Blashfield in VideoStatic (2013), live-action lip-sync segments featuring the band were shot on 16mm film, while the animated sequences were composed entirely from still photographs. The production involved placing objects and photos between glass plates and shooting frame-by-frame. Blashfield collaborated with Don Merkt on storyboards that reinforced Byrne's initial sketch-based concepts. The video earned MTV VMA nominations for Best Group Video and Best Concept Video, and launched Blashfield's career as a top-tier music video director.