My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (album)

Eno and Byrne first worked together on More Songs About Buildings and Food, the 1978 album by Byrne's band Talking Heads. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was primarily recorded during a break between the Talking Heads albums Fear of Music (1979) and Remain in Light (1980), both produced by Eno.

Eno described My Life as a "vision of a psychedelic Africa".[11] Rather than conventional pop or rock singing, most of the vocals are sampled from other sources, such as commercial recordings of Arabic singers, radio disc jockeys, and an exorcist. Musicians had previously used similar sampling techniques, but, according to Guardian writer Dave Simpson, sampling had never before been used "to such cataclysmic effect".[12] In 2001, Eno cited Holger Czukay's experiments with dictaphones and shortwave radios as earlier examples of sampling. He felt that the "difference was, I suppose, that I decided to make [sampling] the lead vocal".[13] The release was delayed while legal rights were sought for the large number of samples used on the album.[14]

The album title is derived from Amos Tutuola's 1954 novel My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. According to Byrne's 2006 sleeve notes, neither he nor Eno had read the novel, but they felt the title "seemed to encapsulate what this record was about".[14]

Soon after the album was released, the Islamic Council of Great Britain objected to the use of samples of Qur'anic recital in the track "Qu'ran", considering it blasphemy. Byrne and Eno removed the track from later pressings.[15][16] In 2006, Byrne said:

We thought, "Okay, in deference to somebody's religion, we'll take it off." You could probably argue for and against monkeying with something like that. But I think we were certainly feeling very cautious about this whole thing. We made a big effort to try and clear all the voices, and make sure everybody was okay with everything ... So I think in that sense we reacted maybe with more caution than we had to.[15]

The original package design was created by Peter Saville. The cover image was created by pasting small cutout humanoid shapes onto a monitor and pointing a camera at it to create video feedback, infinitely multiplying the shapes. Byrne said of the process: "Somehow, despite it being very techie, these techniques also seemed analogous to what we were doing on the record. It was funky as well as being techie. Extremely lo-tech, actually, and not what you were supposed to do with a TV set."[21]

Retrospective professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[22]
The Guardian	[12]
The Independent	[23]
Mojo	[24]
The Observer	[25]
Pitchfork	8.5/10[26]
Q	[27]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[28]
Uncut	[29]

According to music journalist Simon Reynolds, many initial reviews of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts dismissed the album as "an eggheads-in-the-soundlab experimental exercise."[29] In Rolling Stone, Jon Pareles rated the album four out of five stars and applauded it as "an undeniably awesome feat of tape editing and rhythmic ingenuity" that generally avoids "exoticism or cuteness" by "complementing the [speech] sources without absorbing them".[30] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was less impressed, giving it a "C+" and finding the recordings "as cluttered and undistinguished as the MOR fusion and prog-rock it brings to the mind's ear," while lacking "the songful sweep of Remain in Light or the austere weirdness of Jon Hassell".[31]

In later years, My Life has come to be regarded as a highly influential album, particularly in its use and treatment of sampled source material.[32] AllMusic critic John Bush describes it as a "pioneering work for countless styles connected to electronics, ambience and Third World music".[3] The Independent's Andy Gill found the album groundbreaking in its recontextualisation of sampling in a less overtly avant-garde context, with its sampled sounds instead being "marshalled by funk rhythms into repetitive hooks."[23] Writing in The Observer, Jason Cowley said that its immediate influence was felt "in the work of young artists of ambition, from David Sylvian to Kate Bush", and subsequently on later acts, among them electronic artists such as Massive Attack, Moby, and Thievery Corporation.[25] Chris Dahlen of Pitchfork felt that while its sampled vocals had lost some of their revolutionary impact, the album "mostly" lives up to its critical reputation "as a near-masterpiece, a milestone of sampled music, and a peace summit in the continual West-meets-rest struggle."[26]

In a 1985 interview, Kate Bush said that My Life had "left a very big mark on popular music".[33] Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright said it "knocked me sideways when I first heard it – full of drum loops, samples and soundscapes. Stuff that we really take for granted now, but which was unheard of in all but the most progressive musical circles at the time... The way the sounds were mixed in was so fresh, it was amazing."[34] Hank Shocklee of hip hop production collective the Bomb Squad cited the album as an influence on the Bomb Squad's sample-driven production work for the group Public Enemy.[35]

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was reissued on 27 March 2006 in the United Kingdom and on 11 April 2006 in the United States, remastered and with seven extra tracks. To mark the reissue, the entire multitracks for two songs – "Help Me Somebody" and "A Secret Life" – were made available to download. Under the Creative Commons license, members of the public are able to download the multitracks and use them for their own remixes.[36]

All music is composed by Brian Eno and David Byrne, except "Regiment" by Eno, Byrne, and Michael "Busta Cherry" Jones.

For the 1982 second edition, the track "Qu'ran" was removed at the request of the Islamic Council of Great Britain. In its place "Very, Very Hungry" (length: 3:21), previously released as the B-side of the "The Jezebel Spirit" 12" single, was substituted.[16] The first edition of the CD (1986) included both tracks, with "Very, Very Hungry" as a bonus track. Later editions (1990 and later) followed the revised LP track order without "Qu'ran".

Credits are adapted from the liner notes for the album's 2006 reissue.[37]

• David Byrne and Brian Eno – guitars, bass guitars, synthesizers, drums, percussion, found objects (Eno plays the synthesizer solo on "Regiment")[38]
• John Cooksey – drums on "Help Me Somebody" and "Qu'ran"
• Chris Frantz – drums on "Regiment"
• Robert Fripp – Frippertronics on "Regiment"[39]
• Michael "Busta Cherry" Jones – bass guitar on "Regiment"
• Dennis Keeley – bodhrán on "Mea Culpa"
• Bill Laswell – bass guitar on "America Is Waiting"
• Mingo Lewis – batá, sticks on "The Jezebel Spirit" and "The Carrier"
• Prairie Prince – can, bass drum on "The Jezebel Spirit" and "The Carrier"
• José Rossy – congas, agong-gong on "Moonlight in Glory"
• Steve Scales – congas, metals on "Help Me Somebody"
• David Van Tieghem – drums, percussion (scrap metal, found objects) on "America Is Waiting" and "Regiment"
• Tim Wright – click bass on "America Is Waiting"
• Rooks on "Help Me Somebody" courtesy of April Potts, recorded at Eglingham Hall

• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts at Discogs (list of releases)
• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts at MusicBrainz (list of releases)
• Website for the 2006 reissue
• Transcriptions, and possible alternatives, of the "lyrics"