Jerry Harrison – organ and backing vocals.David Byrne – lead vocals and backing vocals, electric guitar.It was nominated for Best Video of the Year at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, losing out to " Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. Director Johnson re-used some of the effects techniques in award-winning videos for Peter Gabriel the following year: " Sledgehammer" and " Big Time". Some parts were shot in the back yard and pool of actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who was co-writing Byrne's film True Stories at the time. Johnson and features the band and various objects revolving, including boxes revolving around David Byrne's head, as well as a couple growing older, masked businessmen pummeling each other with briefcases and a runaway shopping cart, as if in their own "road to nowhere". The video for the song was directed by Byrne and Stephen R. So, out of embarrassment, or shame, I wrote an intro section that had a couple more in it."Ĭash Box said that "this marching single which features David Byrne's soothing lead vocal is a curious and circus-ride look at life." Billboard said that within the song " a cappella gospel leads into Louisiana hootenanny." Music video The front bit, the white gospel choir, is kind of tacked on, 'cause I didn't think the rest of the song was enough. Horns up metal lovers for this time we are delving into the lyrics of Ozzy Osbourne in trying to understand ourselves, our lives, our regrets, what we have been through and where we think we are headed, for what is metal without Ozzy? Road to nowhere by Ozzy Osbourne is a song that opens my eyes and mind to understand the pain, the struggles and the troubles that have been part of life."I wanted to write a song that presented a resigned, even joyful look at doom," recalls David Byrne in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads.
The lyrics to this song are a mirror to what goes through our minds when contemplating the purpose of our lives, the reasons of our being and if whatever we do with our lives is worth anything. These words cut deep through my heart like a sword. Some parts of our lives seem like a cycle that is repeated over and over.
Are we able to break the wheel of misfortune? Are we able to milk out all the good parts of our lives and stretch them out as far as possible? In the opening line of the lyrics to this song, “I was looking back on my life and all the things I have done to me,” I can’t help but think that all I have had to go through have been a fault of my own. Am I proud of it? Well, some yes and some, not really. But now that I am aware of what I didn’t like about my past, can I do my present differently? Perhaps, but still I have learned a lot from my mistakes and also at the time that was what felt like the best thing to do, so the road to nowhere leads to me. I will still make decisions today that I won’t be proud of in future. However, the good thing is that there’s a lesson to be learned from it. The ugliness of ourselves that we love to hide. The past that we are not proud of and the choices that we made which now feel like a mistake. “The wreckage of our past that keeps haunting us, just won’t leave us alone.” It is easy for us to tell ourselves that we should let the past go and live for the moment, but can you tell that to a person that is struggling with addiction? Gambling, drugs, sex, a bad relationship? Can you tell someone who has always been at the losing end of life that tomorrow is going to be a good day? It is easy to have hope and spread it to others, yet we don’t know what tomorrow holds for us. Religion says, do good, be good and when your physical body gives in there’s a better place for your soul. The strongest will survive, but my mind tells me, what is the point of it all? Why should I care about things that I don’t know, yet all I have been through is a cycle. A life predicted, decisions I make based on probability and desires, because, the road to nowhere leads to me. Could it be a dream? And if so, whose dream? It is what I know and what I experience and not a theory. The road to nowhere leads to me simply tells you that your life depends on you. You are in control of the things within reach. If we leave it solely to the universe then we are lost.