‘Once in a Lifetime’ brings such thoughts to the surface turning the song into a reflective experience.Įxistentiality is also clear if you watch the music video, which shows Byrne dancing and copying religious rituals, sweating profusely in his classic suit. For me, it is reflective of the university experience, where we are making memories popular culture tells us we will cherish. The lyrics contemplate alternate futures of success and failure: “You may find yourself in a beautiful house”, or feeling pain at missed opportunities, “into the blue again after the money’s gone”. It is one of Talking Heads’ most definitive works.ĭo we want to drift through life, as David Byrne does in the video, floating along CGI water, or do we want to break from the flow?ĭesigned and based upon sermons and preachers, the mantra-like chorus, in true Talking Heads style, can put the listener into a perfect trance for reflections on the scale and sheer incomprehensibility of time. Its reception upon release was mixed: it did not make it into the US charts and only scored 14th place in the UK, but it still built up a cult following. Sounding at first like a casual and poppy listen, it quickly develops to combine sounds from multiple genres – ‘Once in a Lifetime’ is demonstrable of the band’s versatility and their influences from afrobeat and reggae as well as rock. Talking Heads worked more as a team in the construction of this track and, when compared with previous works, this really shows. ‘Once in a Lifetime’ is about when your mind seemingly wakes-up and finally you become aware and in-sync with time, thinking “How did I get here?” As such, it forces you to contemplate life. Time moves differently for everyone and this song tells a story about how we can subconsciously walk through our day-to-day life. ‘Once in a Lifetime’ tells a story about the harsh, unbending reality of time catching up with us. For me it is a song that reflects on how confusing and mind-bending life can be. Talking Heads’ 1981 ‘Once in a Lifetime’ track turns 40 in 2021 and is a perfect song for existential pondering in an era when time seems to move inexplicably fast.
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