‘Better late than never’: how Brian Eno and David Byrne finally laid a musical ghost to rest

In early 1970s Lebanon, a young singer from a hill town north of Beirut was on the up. Before the civil war in 1975, the capital was the Arab world’s thriving artistic centre, where folk-dance traditions were reaching new heights. There, Dunya Younes was a rising star, appearing in musicals and collaborating with pillars of Lebanese music such as Zaki Nassif and Wadih el Safi. You can still hear her signature song Waynak Ya Jar – about having a morning coffee with your neighbour – on Lebanese radio today.

Younes later became known far beyond the Middle East – or at least her voice did after it was used on one of the most influential experimental albums of the 80s. But to its fans she was known as “the Lebanese mountain singer”. And she had no idea about it.

In the late 70s, the British producer Brian Eno walked, the first compilation in a 1976 series by the musicologists Jean Jenkins and Poul Rovsing Olsen. It included the track Abu Zeluf by one “Dunya Yunis”. Eno, transfixed, took the LP back to New York, and it became a touchstone for , which he and Talking Heads’ David Byrne released in 1981 on Eno’s label, EG Records.