David Byrne Wields Elon Musk’s Words For Doc Song

David Byrne is adding an unlikely new character to his already colorful 2026: Elon Musk. The Talking Heads frontman has written and performs “Let Me Sell You a Dream,” an original song for Alex Gibney’s forthcoming documentary Musk, according to Variety. The track, co-written with the controversial film’s Oscar-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton, plays during the 232-minute documentary and will be submitted for Best Original Song consideration at the 2027 Oscars.

The song’s lyrics are drawn entirely from Musk’s own words, with Byrne saying that he asked for “good quotes from the Martian” and found additional statements online. Gibney, meanwhile, calls the resulting track “kick-ass” and said Byrne dug into Musk’s sayings to create what he described as sardonic poetry. A nomination would mark Byrne’s return to the Oscar race nearly four decades after he shared the 1988 Best Original Score prize for The Last Emperor.

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The cinematic detour arrives at a particularly screen-friendly moment for Byrne. As reported last week, his current Who Is the Sky? tour has itself been turned into a concert film, shot over multiple sold-out nights at Baltimore’s Hippodrome by Brady Corbet, the director of The Brutalist. The film was captured on both 8-perf and 15-perf 70mm and is currently in post-production.

That project documents a show that has become one of Byrne’s most ambitious live productions, with 13 musicians, singers and dancers moving through a constantly shifting blend of choreography, visual art, storytelling and music. The set draws from 2025’s Who Is the Sky? as well as the Talking Heads catalog, including “Psycho Killer,” “Burning Down the House” and the long-dormant “Houses in Motion.”

Byrne is now nearing the finish line of the North American leg of the tour. He just completed two sold-out Hollywood Bowl shows on Aug. 28-29 and will wrap the U.S. leg Sept. 19 at Forest Hills Stadium in New York.

The multi-hyphenate is also preparing to add another chapter to his multidisciplinary output with Sleeping Beauties, his forthcoming book about ideas and discoveries that were overlooked, forgotten and eventually rediscovered. Out Oct. 6, the book ranges from dark matter, lichen and continental drift to technologies including solar panels and the steam engine, as well as artists from Bach and Bruegel to Vermeer and Melville.

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