Crosseyed and Painless

The second track on Remain in Light is built from cowbell loops, congas, bells, staccato guitars and electronic blips, with Adrian Belew among the players. The lyric follows a paranoid man worn down by city life, and its rapid spoken section came from Kurtis Blow's The Breaks, a record Frantz had given Byrne. Sent out as a US promotional single in August 1980 and released in Germany in November 1981 with The Great Curve on the B-side, it missed the Hot 100 but reached 20 on the US dance chart, the band's best placing there.

Toni Basil directed the 1981 video, their second. At the band's request none of them appear: instead street dancers chosen by Byrne, among them Skeeter Rabbit, lock and pop, and the video carries an extra verse not on the album mix.

Live

It was a fixture from the first big-band show at Mosport Park on 23 August 1980 to the last Stop Making Sense filming night at the Pantages Theatre on 16 December 1983, 154 performances in all, usually as an encore on the final tour. It closes the film. A 7:05 version from Emerald City in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, recorded in November 1980, is on The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads. Byrne has played it more than 140 times solo.

Phish played it second in their 1996 Remain in Light set, Angelique Kidjo recorded it with Tony Allen on drums in 2018, Chicano Batman covered it for the 2024 Stop Making Sense tribute, and Umphrey's McGee have played it. The upload in the hypersongs web is the album mix in its 2005 remaster, not the longer video version.