The title of David Byrne's book is academic, but the way it begins is not. The first word of it is "I." The letter is massive on the page, and the reader realizes that this book is about how music works — as far as David Byrne is concerned. Luckily, he concerns himself with many, many things, from Balinese performance techniques to the acoustics of CBGB, the artistic development of

—Frannie Kelley