Sounds From True Stories

Originally released in 1986 as a companion piece to the Talking Heads album True Stories, Sounds from True Stories is the third soundtrack album by Scottish-American alternative rock musician and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne.

Collecting instrumental pieces from Byrne’s film True Stories, the album spawned out of an executive dispute over how to handle the film’s soundtrack. Byrne envisioned the film as a musical, but the folks at at Warner Bros. (who distributed the film and owned Talking Heads' record label, Sire) struggled to understand the idea and had Talking Heads re-record the vocal songs themselves as a studio album to cash-in on the movie (which ultimately and ironically flopped at the box office). The instrumental score, meanwhile, was separated and released as its own soundtrack collection on this album.

In 2018, Sounds from True Stories saw an expanded re-release as True Stories: The Complete Soundtrack to tie in with the Criterion Collection’s DVD and Blu-ray reissue of the film. This version of the album finally includes the film versions of the vocal songs (of which Talking Heads only perform on three) alongside the instrumental pieces, resulting in what David Byrne considers the definitive edition of the soundtrack album. True Stories: The Complete Soundtrack is available both as a bonus CD in the film’s Blu-ray release and as a standalone album on CD, LP, and streaming services.