Help Me Somebody
A New Orleans preacher's broadcast sermon cut into Eno and Byrne's funk: the heart of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
Brian Eno, from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981)
- Written by
- Brian Eno, David Byrne
- Released
- 1981
- Length
- 4:18
- Album
- My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
The voice on Help Me Somebody belongs, according to the liner notes, to the Reverend Paul Morton, taped from a broadcast sermon in New Orleans in June 1980; Morton later became the bishop who founded the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship. Eno and Byrne built the track around his exhortations, with John Cooksey on drums, Steve Scales on congas and a field recording of rooks, so that the sermon works almost as an R&B lead vocal over Afrobeat-influenced funk. Treble called it one of the album's greatest moments.
In 2006 its multitrack stems were posted online under a Creative Commons licence, inviting anyone to remix it; hundreds did, and the blog Disquiet gathered twelve versions into a compilation. Eno and Byrne have never performed it live.
More songs by Brian Eno
By This River, Deep Blue Day, The Pearl
Sources
- My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (UK LP), Discogs
- Bush of Ghosts remix site launches, Creative Commons (2006-05-09)
- Our Lives in the Bush of Disquiet, Disquiet (2006-09-04)