Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz and bass player Tina Weymouth, married since 1977, are big fans of funk. When they went to a P-Funk show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the crowd started chanting, "Burn down the house, burn down the house" (this was before "The Roof Is on Fire"), which gave Frantz the idea for the title. As he explained in a 1984 interview with National Public Radio (NPR), he and Weymouth created the original track in a jam, then took it to the band where they refined the groove. To form the lyrics, they picked words that fit the rhythms, which is why the lyrics don't make a lot of sense ("Cool babies, strange but not a stranger"). This is common practice in the world of funk, where you don't want the lyric to get in the way of the groove on a feel-good song.
The French keyboard player Wally Badarou, known for his work with Grace Jones and Level 42, overdubbed the synthesizer parts on this track, a key addition. Percussionist Steve Scales contributed concert toms to the song.
This was an exhilarating live song for Talking Heads, who played it when they toured for the album Speaking In Tongues in 1983 and 1984. Like many of their songs, they needed additional musicians to pull it off, so their touring band included Steve Scales, who played percussion on the track; guitarist Alex Weir; and Bernie Worrell, who was part of P-Funk when Frantz and Weymouth saw the show that inspired this song.
A few of the shows were recorded for the concert film (and soundtrack album) Stop Making Sense, which shows the band in peak form, especially on this track, which works the crowd into a frenzy. The music video was directed by David Byrne and was the first Talking Heads video to show the full band - their famous "Once In A Lifetime" video is just Byrne. The house seen in the video was located in Union, New Jersey, but it was shot at a New York City club called The World. From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/talking-heads/burning-down-the-house
