"Heaven" is a song by the American new wave band Talking Heads, released on their 1979 album Fear of Music. The song was performed live in their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, and a live recording from 1979 was included on the 2004 CD reissue of the band's live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads. The lyrics refer to heaven as a "place where nothing ever happens", where a party and a kiss repeat the exact same way endlessly (though David Byrne has claimed the song was inspired by a UK bar of the same name).[citation needed] The song has been called "the calm after [the band's] unusual ominous storm" by Bill Janovitz of AllMusic,[2] as well as something "psychologists would certainly have a field day with" by author and The Guardian journalist Ian Gittins.[3]
Dave Bell, writing for quarterly UK magazine Ceasefire, argued that the song "epitomises pop as Samuel Beckett might write it: tedious, beautiful and desperate".[4]
In 1986, Thomas Di Leva made a Swedish-language adaptation of the song, named "Himlen". It was recorded for his album Pussel,[12] and was also the B-Side of his single "Snurra bakåt!"[13]
Singer Q Lazzarus covered "Heaven" for the 1993 film Philadelphia (directed by Jonathan Demme, who had filmed Stop Making Sense). Her version has never been made available in its complete form.[citation needed]
The National contributed a cover of "Heaven" to the 2024 Talking Heads tribute album Everybody's Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense.[14]
