A librarian was consulted for this post. A librarian! Such effort. The reason is that in a live (solo David Byrne) performance at London’s Union Chapel of The Talking Heads’ “And She Was,” Byrne prefaces with a little tale about the song’s writing. Namely that it was the (Byrnian) tale of a girl Byrne knew in high school who “used to take LSD and lie out in a field by the Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink factory.” Not easy to find, that factory. Until Don Bonsteel, a reference librarian at Enoch Pratt Free Library stepped in with his fancy 1967 Baltimore Metro Telephone Directory and put it at 3500 Marmenco Court - less than a mile east of Byrne’s high school (Lansdowne).

So play the song and notice how easy it is to imagine yourself out in the dewy park grass, dreaming big into the light pollution of Baltimore industry. Or doing acid. Both! Or whatever else kids in Baltimore used to do. Yoo-hoo bombs, maybe.

MAPPING IT

There are a few “fields” between Lansdowne High and the Yoo-Hoo spot – Northeast Highlands Park; Baltimore Highlands Annex; Southwest Area Park; Hillcrest Park, among others, even. So this goes down right at Yoo-Hoo - she could see a nearby factory.

HEARING IT

The Union Chapel show isn’t on Spotify, but here’s a 2005 remaster: