Talking Heads’ second album tends to get unfairly overlooked. Probably partly because it came so soon after their debut, and partly due to being sandwiched between their landmark debut 77 and the masterpiece that followed with Fear Of Music.

More Songs About Buildings And Food was the first of their albums as a four-piece, after the arrival of Jerry Harrison on guitar and keyboards, and the first of three to be produced by Brian Eno – something that tends to get forgotten too.

It bridges two distinct phases of the band, the semi-acoustic trio that gave us Psycho Killer and the eclectic quartet that began to play with ethnic influences on I Zimbra, before it would change again with the big breakthrough album Remain In Light.

Their version of Al Green’s Take Me To The River (see below) Tina Weymouth’s slippery bassline embellished with Harrison’s retro organ fills, reminds us that the idea of never trying to improve on perfection ought to be taken as guidance rather than a hard and fast rule; it’s not “better” – how could it be? – but it stands on its own merit.

The best track on the album, unusually, comes at the very end. The Big Country is a country-tinged lament for the big city, inspired by flying over Middle America.

David Byrne – a Scotsman transplanted to New York via art school in Rhode Island – articulates his sense of mounting horror at the wide open spaces and suburban hells he sees out of the window on his way to (or from) the urban jungle of NYC.

Disdainfully describing the factories and buildings and malls, the restaurants and bars and the farmlands, he concludes: “I wouldn’t live there if you paid me… It’s not even worth talking about those people down there.”

All that and a great tune too. It’s a neglected masterpiece.