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" Psycho Killer" is a song by American rock band Talking Heads, released on their debut studio album (1977).
The band's "signature debut hit" features lyrics that seem to represent the thoughts of a serial killer. Originally written and performed as a ballad, "Psycho Killer" became what AllMusic calls a "deceptively new wave/no wave song" with "an insistent rhythm, and one of the most memorable, driving in rock & roll."
"Psycho Killer" was the only song from the album to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 92. It reached number 32 on the Triple J Hottest 100 in 1989, and peaked at number 11 on the Dutch singles chart in 1977. The song is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Prototype versions of "Psycho Killer" were performed onstage by Talking Heads as early as December 1975.
According to the preliminary lyric sheets copied onto the 2006 remaster of Talking Heads: 77, the song started off as a semi-narrative of the killer actually committing murders. In the liner notes of , David Byrne says:
The bridge lyrics are in French language, as is the prominent chorus line "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" ("What is this/it?"). The bridge lyrics are:
The French lyrics were supplied by Tina Weymouth. According to Chris Frantz, "I told David that Tina's mother is French people and that they always spoke French in the home. Tina agreed to do it and just sat down and did it in a little over an hour. I wrote a couple of more verses, and within a few hours, 'Psycho Killer' was more or less done."
A live version recorded in 1977 for radio broadcast was released on The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads in 1982, featuring an additional verse not heard in the studio version, and the later CD release included a second, later live version from the Remain in Light tour. In 1984, another live version was included on the soundtrack for the band's concert movie Stop Making Sense. The film opens with Byrne alone onstage, announcing "'Hi. I've got a tape I want to play'...and strumming maniacally like Richie Havens", playing an acoustic version of "Psycho Killer", backed only by a Roland TR-808 drum machine whose sound appears to be issuing from a boombox.
The band also recorded an Acoustic music version of the song featuring Arthur Russell on cello. In the liner notes for (1992), Jerry Harrison wrote of the B-side of the single, "I'm glad we persuaded The song also appears on their 1992 compilation album and on another compilation album, The Best of Talking Heads, in 2004.
The video stars Irish actress Saoirse Ronan and was directed by American filmmaker Mike Mills, who are both longtime fans of the band. Mills pitched his idea to the four former members of Talking Heads over Zoom, and his was eventually selected over several other filmmakers. Ronan was cast by Mills after the two had coincidentally befriended each other around the time of the music video's development. Of the video, Talking Heads commented the following:
"This video makes the song better we love what this video is not it's not literal, creepy, bloody, physically violent or obvious."
Massachusetts-based band the Fools parodied the song and entitled it "Psycho Chicken"; it was included as a bonus record with their major-label debut album Sold Out in 1980. Ice-T says that "Psycho Killer" was a starting influence for his band Body Count's controversial song "Cop Killer".
Singer Selena Gomez samples the bassline on her 2017 single "Bad Liar." A Talking Heads tribute band based in Baltimore, active since 2011, call themselves the Psycho Killers.
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