The official music video for Psycho Killer finally exists — and it stars one of Ireland’s most celebrated acting exports dancing in a bathroom and slapping herself in the face.
Because of course it does.
To mark 50 years since Talking Heads played their first gig at CBGBs — a milestone almost unthinkably distant from the present-day cultural landscape — the band’s landmark track Psycho Killer has been given a new lease of life. Or, more accurately, it’s been given its first official music video. Yes, you read that right. The most iconic art-rock debut single of all time didn’t have a music video until now.
Directed by Mike Mills — whose previous work with The Divine Comedy and Moby made him an ideal fit for the project — the video features Lady Bird and Brooklyn star Saoirse Ronan navigating a series of banal, recognisable settings with escalating intensity. There’s teeth brushing. There’s dancing to mirrors. There’s bumper-to-bumper traffic. All of it punctuated by the song’s spiralling, existential refrain: “Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya…”
It is deliberately odd. Unapologetically performative. And, crucially, it works.
Originally written in collaboration by David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison, Psycho Killer became the quintessential Talking Heads track — jagged, paranoid, and theatrical. That sensibility is alive and well here, reframed through Ronan’s expressive physicality and Mills’ lens.
The teaser campaign was low-key but deliberate. The band’s social media accounts posted a behind-the-scenes slate photo earlier in the week, confirming: “To mark the 50th Anniversary of the band’s first show at CBGB’s, the first official music video for Psycho Killer, directed by Mike Mills & starring Saoirse Ronan, will be released. Out June 5th, 2025.”
If this feels like a signal that Talking Heads are beginning to resurface — it isn’t. The band famously haven’t played live since 1984, disbanded in 1991, and reportedly turned down an $80 million reunion tour offer. The 2023 Stop Making Sense anniversary brought the four members into the same room for the first time in over two decades, but that’s as close to a reunion as fans will ever get.
Still, if this video proves anything, it’s that Talking Heads’ legacy doesn’t need a comeback. It just needs the right people — like Ronan, like Mills — to keep interpreting the madness.
