Album: Remain in Light
Year: 1980
. . .
Alright, here we go. It says here that “Once in a Lifetime” isn’t just the greatest song Talking Heads ever recorded, it’s one of the greatest songs that anybody has ever recorded, an absolute classic masterpiece in any incarnation. If you wanna say that the Stop Making Sense version is better, I’m not going to argue — I just recently teared up watching it because it got me thinking about, well, everything — but I’m going with the version from Remain in Light for two reasons: 1) I remember the exact moment this song kicked in for me when it was played on KKDJ and 2) the original Stop Making Sense album cut a full minute from the actual performance, so I got fixated on the Enofied album version.
It probably also helped that the studio version was also accompanied by a clever, kinetic video that MTV showed a lot in the early 80s (though that video also cut out a verse — look, I don’t have to be consistent), thereby keeping it out in front of people longer than it would have been had MTV never existed.
Inspired by radio preachers, “Once in a Lifetime” is basically a sermon about, well, everything.
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
This, of course, is preached over an absolutely genius musical bed. Or musical river, really, as Jerry Harrison’s keyboards are the water and the rhythm section is the shore, both containing the water and — in the case of Tina Weymouth’s bassline — churning it up. Which is part of the kismet of “Once in a Lifetime:” the music sounds like the lyrics like the music like the lyrics, an absolutely perfect mesh of sounds and ideas, with the chorus answering all of the worries addressed in the verses.
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
That’s of course, old sourpuss himself, Brian Eno, singing the chorus with Byrne over some chunky rhythm guitar and harmonizing keyboards. And. It. Is. Gorgeous.
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
One of the many things that’s so great about “Once in a Lifetime” is the near-calmness of that chorus contrasting with the declaiming verses, David Byrne telling himself to “chillax, dude, you can’t stop the river yourself.” Or something. Which, at this point, isn’t helping, as preacher man is back with more worries.
And you may ask yourself, “How do I work this?”
And you may ask yourself, “Where is that large automobile?”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful house”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful wife”
Oh, fuck yeah. Even when things are going well for me, I’m always worried about the other shoe dropping, like, you know, getting laid off from a job I had for seven years, and then freaking right up about not finding another job and getting tossed from my beautiful house, giving up my large automobile and — worst of all — losing my beautiful wife. Because the days keep going by, and they always have, and everything changes, and then the changes change the changes that they changed and yet somehow, this is also true:
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
And you may ask yourself, “how can that be possible?” And you may tell yourself, “two seemingly opposite things could be true at the same time.” Either way, “Once in a Lifetime” isn’t even bothering to explain, because it’s now reached the bottom of the ocean.
Water dissolving and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Under the water, carry the water
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean
Water dissolving and water removing
This third verse — the one that isn’t in the video, and I’m guessing, wasn’t on the original album of Stop Making Sense — doesn’t really fit the form of the rest of the song, which might be why they removed it from the video, so that viewers could focus on the “You may ___ yourself” formulation. Also, it’s also peak Eno, as he fixates on the word “remove” so that all you here is “removeremoveremoveremoveremoveremoveremove” tumbling over its own self like the water being removed from the bottom of the ocean. And you may ask yourself, “where does the water at the bottom of the ocean go?” And you may tell yourself, “it doesn’t matter, it’s just a metaphor anyways.” Same as it ever was.
After that third verse, they double the chorus, just because there was so much churn, there now needs to be that much more calm, but here comes Pastor David with even more questions.
You may ask yourself, “What is that beautiful house?”
You may ask yourself, “Where does that highway go to?”
And you may ask yourself, “Am I right? Am I wrong?”
And you may say to yourself, “My God! What have I done?”
Well yeah. If you’re a living, breathing human being, you’re going to ask yourself those questions. Same as it ever was. Which, by the way, is the thing that I’ve stolen the most from this song: “same as it ever was.” And I’m not sure if that’s because of the philosophy behind it or because the “same as it ever was” outro is the exact moment I fell in love with “Once in a Lifetime” on KKDJ forty-two (speaking of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything) years ago.
But that’s because of Jerry Harrison’s Hammond organ part, the water from the bottom of the ocean surging back up the river to become of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard — or will ever hear — in my entire life. Harrison has said he got it from Future Certain Song “What Goes On” (a song that I might love as much as “Once in a Lifetime,”) but it also harkens back to his work on another song about the meaning of life, The Modern Lovers “Roadrunner.” Same as it ever was.
Which is how “Once in a Lifetime” ends, the chant of “same as it ever was” juxtaposed with the preacher’s interjections and the chillax guys trying to calm us down, all of which is now walking on the ocean of Harrison’s Hammond.
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was and look where my hand was
Time isn’t holding up, time isn’t after us
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Letting the days go by, same as it ever was
Here a twister comes, here comes the twister
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was (Letting the days go by)
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was (Letting the days go by)
Once in a lifetime (Let the water hold me down)
Letting the days go by (Water flowing underground)
Into the blue again
And, at this point, there is so much going on, that you might not even note one last great couplet: “Time isn’t holding up / Time isn’t after us.” Time is just time is just time, and at least once in a lifetime, you probably need to realize that.
The original single of “Once in a Lifetime” didn’t make the pop charts in the U.S. — though it was #20 on the Dance Charts — and like “Life During Wartime,” they released both the studio and live versions as singles, and the live Stop Making Sense version did make it to #91. In the U.K., though, “Once in a Lifetime” was Talking Heads first hit single, making it to #14.
“Once in a Lifetime”
“Once in a Lifetime” Official Music Video
“Once in a Lifetime” Live in Passaic, 1980
“Once in a Lifetime” Live in Dortmund, 1980
“Once in a Lifetime” Live in Montreux, 1982
“Once in a Lifetime” from Stop Making Sense
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