David Byrne on Kafka, Melville and Ideas That Took Decades to Catch On

David Byrne sat down with Jordan Klepper on THE DAILY SHOW to discuss his new book, "Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up," which examines how works by writers including Franz Kafka and Herman Melville went largely unnoticed in their own time before being rediscovered later on.

The conversation centered on Byrne's research into these overlooked figures and how what he described as modern hubris tends to repeat the mistake of ignoring wisdom from the past. Byrne and Klepper also discussed Byrne's process for tracking down the forgotten stories featured in the book.

Byrne additionally talked about writing "Let Me Sell You A Dream," a song he wrote and performed for the documentary "Musk," walking through how that writing process came together.

The appearance covered both Byrne's historical research for the book and his more recent work on the documentary song, giving a look at two different strands of his current output.

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