Songfacts®:

• This song is a commentary on television commercials, which in the time before DVRs and streaming, we had to sit through. Written by lead singer David Byrne, the lyric is written in the style of a TV sales pitch, but in this case, it's love for sale. If we're willing to buy a blender after seeing one on TV, why not find love there as well?
• Byrne used some real product slogans in the lyrics: "Leave the driving to us" was Greyhound busses; "It's the real thing" was Coke.
• David Byrne directed the video with Melvin Sokolsky, a well known director of commercials. It presents the band as a product available for purchase, marketed the same way deodorant and hamburger joints are. Shots from real commercials are interspersed throughout: you'll spot Oreos, Old Spice, Close-up toothpaste, Remington razors, Raisinets, Mrs. Butterworth's syrup and the Isuzu Impulse among them. At the end, each band member is dipped in chocolate and wrapped up, ready to hit the shelves.
• Byrne wrote this for the 1986 movie True Stories, which he directed. Set in a fictional Texas town, the movie follows the adventures of various oddballs, inspired by stories Byrne read in tabloids. The "Love For Sale" music video was incorporated into the film: It plays in a scene where a woman who lives in her bed is surfing channels on her TV before landing on the video and deciding it's worthy of her fleeting attention. The songs from the film became the Talking Heads' seventh album, True Stories.
• The Talking Heads shot one other video for the True Stories album: "Wild Wild Life," which was also incorporated into the film. In that one, the band members join in a lip-sync contest to the song.