THE AMAZING CONNECTION BETWEEN STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKI, RADIOHEAD AND THE TALKING HEADS
I’m a fan of Talking Heads and Radiohead. But I didn’t realize I’m also a fan of the actor, Stephen Tobolowsky. If you don’t know the name, don’t worry, you probably know the actor. He’s in his 70s now, and has a lot of credits to his name. But you’re more than likely to know him from his role as the annoying insurance agent in Groundhog Day. But it’s probably moot, as you can see his picture above. Yet not only do I now know I’m a fan, I now know I’ve been a fan of Stephen Tobolowsky’s for quite a while now. And yes, he’s had a solid career as a character actor. But he was also an inspiration for Talking Head’s David Byrne, and so also the origin for the name of the band, Radiohead!
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TOBOLOWSKI INSPIRED DAVID BYRNE TO WRITE A MOVIE CHARACTER, AN THE SONG RADIO HEAD
Radiohead fans are almost certain to already know that the band chose the name from the Talking Heads song, “Radio Head,” from the 1986 album True Stories and the Byrne film with the same name. So where does Stephen Tobolowsky come into this? Well, at the beginning. Tobolowsky co-wroteTrue Stories the movie with Byrne and Beth Hanley. And while he says Byrne tossed most of his writing, he inspired Byrne to add a character to the movie, and the song, “Radio Head.” Of course. But if you haven’t seen the movie, and don’t know what the song means, you’ll still be clueless about what that inspiration could have been.
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TOBOLOWSKI, AKA THE RADIO HEAD, HAD A PSYCHIC ABILITY TO “HEAR” OR “READ” PEOPLE
And to be honest, it’s pretty weird and random. Tobolowsky, of course, is the radio head. But what does that mean? Well, it means Tobolowsky has what can only be described as a psychic ability, to “hear” or “read” people’s tones. Essentially, he could “hear” people just by being in the same room with them, and then know things about them that were impossible for him to know. But by the time Tobolowsky told Byrne about his ability, he had already stopped using it because it was too “creepy.” And to be fair, Tobolowsky only told Byrne after his wife twisted his arm for a while. Pretty random, and pretty cool. There’s lots of random factoids out there.
But a character actor with a psychic ability he stopped using inspiring a movie character, a song, and then a major band name is pretty darn cool.
