Speaking in Tongues (Arcade Fire song)
Speaking in Tongues is a 2011 indie rock single by Arcade Fire, featuring David Byrne. It is the fifth single from their third album, The Suburbs. The song wasn’t on the original album tracklist, but was added as a bonus track on the deluxe edition.
The lyrics reference literature and language: a line from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (with a nod to Baudelaire) and the idea of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, from the Bible (Acts 2:4; 1 Corinthians 14:18). The title also nods to the 1983 Talking Heads album Speaking in Tongues, linking to Byrne’s involvement.
Details: released June 27, 2011, under Mercury. Songwriters are Arcade Fire (William Butler, Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Jeremy Gara, Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry). Produced by Arcade Fire. It sits in Arcade Fire’s single chronology after City With No Children (2010) and before Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (2012).
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:07 (CET).