On writing “Burning Down the House”
The phrase “burning down the house” I’d heard being used as a chant at a Parliament-Funkadelic concert that I’d seen. They didn’t have it in a song. It was just a kind of chant that they started chanting and the audience joined in and it meant, like, “We’re going to blow the roof off the sucker. We’re going to set this place on fire. We’re going to have a really amazing time here.” It didn’t mean literally, let’s set fire to our houses or anything else. And the rest of it, I thought, let me see if I can make a song that is basically a lot of non-sequiturs that have a kind of emotional impact. That they have some sort of emotional resonance, but literally they don’t make any sense. … Like the film title, it doesn’t make literal sense, but it makes emotional sense.

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/01/1209679558/david-byrne-talking-heads-stop-making-sense

JERRY HARRISON: We thought MTV was a little silly. A lot of the videos, like Duran Duran’s, felt more like fashion shoots than films. David directed “Burning Down the House” with Julia Heyward, a conceptual artist, and the idea was that we had alter egos, including a little kid who climbs all over David. He had a tendency to cram a lot of ideas into those early videos, but the one for “Burning Down the House” was actually a hit.

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution

Watch out, you might get what you’re after
Cool, babies – strange but not a stranger
I’m an ordinary guy
Burning down the house

Hold tight, wait till the party’s over
Hold tight, we’re in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house

Here’s your ticket, pack your bag, it’s time for jumping overboard
The transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are
Fighting fire with fire, ah!

All wet, here, you might need a raincoat
Shake-down, dreams walking in broad daylight
Three hundred sixty-five degrees
Burning down the house

It was once upon a place, sometimes I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work say, “Baby, what did you expect?”
Gonna burst into flame, ah
Burning down the house

My house is out of the ordinary
That’s right, don’t wanna hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house

No visible means of support and you have not seen nothing, yet
Everything’s stuck together
I don’t know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fighting fire with fire, ah