#161: Once In A Lifetime by the Talking Heads

City: Toronto, ON
Radio Station: CHUM
Peak Month: February 1981
Peak Position in Toronto ~ #7
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ airplay – no chart position
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #103
YouTube: “Once In A Lifetime”
Lyrics: “Once In A Lifetime”

The Talking Heads are a band formed in 1975 in New York City. David Byrne was the lead vocalist and guitarist. He was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1952. When he was eight years old his family moved to Maryland where his father worked for Westinghouse. He was in a band in high school. By 1973, in Providence, Rhode Island, he was in a band called the Artistics with drummer Chris Frantz. They both subsequently moved to New York City in 1974. Franz was born in 1951 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. In 1973, he was dating Tina Weymouth and after they moved to New York City she was invited in 1975 to join the Talking Heads. Weymouth was born in 1950 in Coronado, California. At age 14 she taught herself to play bass guitar. She met David Byrne and Chris Frantz at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1977, Jerry Harrison joined the Talking Heads. He was born in 1949 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1971 he formed the Modern Lovers with Jonathan Richman. When Richman went solo in 1974, Jerry Harrison returned to his alma mater, Harvard, to get his Master’s degree in architecture.

In 1977 the band released a debut album titled Talking Heads: 77. A single titled “Psycho Killer” was also released. In 1978, the Talking Heads released More Songs About Buildings and Food which reached #4 on the pop album chart in New Zealand. A cover of the Al Green song “Take Me To the River” reached the Top 30 in New Zealand and the USA.  The following year Fear of Music was released. The album’s debut single, “I Zimbra”, reached #28 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1980, the Talking Heads released the album Remain in Light. It reached the Top Ten on the pop album charts in both Canada and New Zealand. Additional personal in the studio included Robert Palmer, former backing bandmate for Frank Zappa and future frontman for King Crimson – Adrian Belew, multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Roxy Music – Brian Eno, and trumpet player Jon Hassel.

The debut single from Remain in Light was “Once In A Lifetime”.

“Once In A Lifetime” was cowritten by David Byrne and Brian Eno. In an interview with NPR, Byrne said: “We’re largely unconscious. You know, we operate half awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else, and we haven’t really stopped to ask ourselves, ‘How did I get here?'” This song deals with the futility of not being happy with the things you have. Like trying to remove the water at the bottom of the ocean, there’s no way to stop life from moving on. The forces of nature (like the ocean) keep you moving almost without your conscious effort – like a ventriloquist moving a puppet.

David Byrne shed some light on his lyrical inspiration when he told Time Out: “Most of the words in ‘Once in a Lifetime’ come from evangelists I recorded off the radio while taking notes and picking up phrases I thought were interesting directions. Maybe I’m fascinated with the middle class because it seems so different from my life, so distant from what I do. I can’t imagine living like that.”

Brian Eno was born in Melton, in Suffolk, England, in 1948. In 1964 he was in a band called the Black Aces. In 1966, Eno studied for a diploma in Fine Arts at the Winchester School of Art, from which he graduated in 1969. At Winchester, Eno once attended a lecture by The Who guitarist Pete Townshend, also a former student of Ascott’s. Eno cites this as the moment when he realized he could make music without formal training. He worked variously as a paste-up assistant, electronics dealer, and making new cabinets. Eno co-founded Roxy Music in 1971. Two years later he launched a solo career. Eno released seven studio albums in the 70s. In 1981, Eno and David Byrne released an African-influences album together titled My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. In 2025, Brian Eno released his 21st studio album Aurum. Over the years, Brian Eno has been a backing vocalist on several David Bowie albums. He co-wrote with Bowie the Top Ten UK hit singles “Heroes” and “Boys Keep Swinging”.

As a producer, Brian Eno has been in the recording studio with U2 for Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby. As Consequently, he co-produced U2 hits that include “Pride (In the Name of Love)”, “The Unforgettable Fire”, “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, “With Or Without You”, “Even Better Than the Real Thing”, “One”, “Whose Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”, “The Fly”, and “Mysterious Ways”. He has also produced Coldplay’s international chart-topping hit from 1007 “Viva La Vida”. As well, Eno has collaborated with Laurie Anderson, Devo, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Grace Jones and others. Brian Eno has been a political activist for many causes. In 2019, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“Once In A Lifetime” reached #7 in Toronto, and #19 in St. Cloud (MN). Internationally, “Once In A Lifetime” climbed to #14 in the UK, #16 in Ireland, #23 in Australia, #24 in the Netherlands, and #28 in Canada. It stalled at #103 below the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1983, the Talking Heads released “Burning Down the House”. It was a single from their album Speaking in Tongues. The album reached #3 in New Zealand, #6 in Iceland, #7 in Canada, #10 in West Germany, #11 in Norway, #12 in Sweden, #14 in the Netherlands, and #15 in Australia and the USA. While “Burning Down the House” peaked at #5 in New Zealand, #8 in Canada, #9 in the USA. The single earned Talking Heads a Grammy Award nomination for Best Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. They lost out to The Police for their album Synchronicity. 

The Talking Heads also released a live album, Stop Making Sense, in 1984. The album reached #2 in the Netherlands and also New Zealand, #9 in Australia, #12 in Austria, and #13 in Switzerland. Later in 1984, the live single “Slippery People” reached #4 in the Netherlands. A second single, “Girlfriend is Better”, reached #21 in New Zealand.

In 1985, the Talking Heads released Little Creatures. The album reached #1 in New Zealand, #2 in Australia, #4 in Austria and the Netherlands, #9 in West Germany, #10 in Sweden and the UK, #12 in Switzerland, and #16 in Norway. An album single, “Road to Nowhere”, climbed to #5 in New Zealand, #6 in Ireland, South Africa, the UK and West Germany, #8 in the Netherlands, #9 in Austria and Belgium, and #15 in Switzerland. A subsequent single, “And She Was”, peaked at #9 in Ireland, #10 in Australia, #16 in New Zealand, and #17 in the UK.

In 1986, from the album True Stories came “Wild Wild Life”. It reached #2 in New Zealand, #9 in Ireland, #13 in Australia, and #20 in Belgium and Switzerland. While True Stories topped the pop album chart in Iceland and New Zealand, peaked at #2 in Australia, #5 in Sweden, #7 in the UK, #10 in Austria, #11 in Switzerland, #13 in Norway and West Germany, #16 in Canada and the Netherlands, and #17 in Italy and the USA.

In 1987, Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs. In 1988, “(Nothing But) Flowers” was a Top 5 hit on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. It was a single from the final Talking Heads studio album Naked. The album climbed to #2 in Finland, #3 in the UK, #4 in Italy, #6 in Switzerland, #7 in New Zealand and Norway, #8 in Australia and Austria, #9 in Sweden and Switzerland, #12 in West Germany, and #13 in Canada and the Netherlands.

The Talking Heads dissolved in 1991. The split had been coming for some time as David Byrne was remote and sporadically answered phone calls which resulted in the band going back to the studio to record some of their best albums: Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures, and True Stories.

Since 1989, David Byrne has released eleven more studio albums. He most recent is Who is the Sky? in 2025. As well, he has composed music for soundtracks and live theatre. This includes films The Last Emperor, Married to the Mob, and This Must Be the Place. In 1987 Byrne won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for The Last Emperor. Additionally, Byrne won a Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album – Background Score from a Motion Picture or Television for The Last Emperor. Over the years David Byrne has received seven Grammy Award nominations. In 2021, David Byrne won a Special Tony Award for David Byrne’s American Utopia. While in 2023, Byrne was nominated for a Tony Award – in the Best Original Score category – for the life of Imelda Marcos Broadway musical Here Lies Love. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, along with Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison.

In 1981, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth launched the Tom Tom Club. The new wave band enjoyed dance club chart success through the decade into the early 90s with “Wordy Rappinghood” – which topped the pop chart in Belgium, and reached #2 in the Netherlands, as well as Top Ten in France and the UK; A cover of “Under the Boardwalk” which made the Top Ten in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and New Zealand; And the U.S. dance hits “The Man With the Four Way Hips”, “Suboceana”, and “Sunshine and Ecstasy”. Frantz’s memoir, Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina, was published in 2020.

Tina Weymouth has worked as a backing vocalist and bass player on a number of projects for other recording acts. She has also worked as a producer. In 2018, she was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her as the 29th greatest bass player of all time.

In 1984, sampling from a pre-radio broadcast of President Ronald Reagan, Jerry Harrison released the single “Five Minutes”. It was credited to Bonzo Goes to Washington, and concerned Reagan’s quote: “My fellow Americans. I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” Reagan didn’t go ahead and bomb Russia, but the “joke” was concerning to Harrison, and ripe for an artistic reframing. The dance tune reached #36 on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Disco chart. It sampled phrases by Reagan and looped them repeatedly while crediting the lyrics to “The Gipper.” Harrison has released three solo albums. He has also produced albums by the Violent Femmes, General Public, the Crash Test Dummies – including on “God Shuffled His Feet”, “Afternoons and Coffeespoons”, “Swimming In Your Ocean”, and “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”.

October 2, 2026
Ray McGinnis

References:
Alan Paul, “The Rise and Fall of the Talking Heads,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2020.
“Inducted: Tina Weymouth,” Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, 2018.
Carrie Courogen, “40 Years Later, Talking Heads’ Most Valuable Member Is Still Its Most Under-Recognized,” Paper, September 15, 2017.
Scott Rowley, “Without Tina Weymouth, Talking Heads would have been just another band”: a celebration of Remain in Light,” Guitar World, October 8, 2022.
Adam Jacques, “How We Met: Chris Frantz & Tina Weymouth: ‘I had thought Chris was gay because of the company he kept’,” Independent, March 14, 2013.
Mike Boehm, “Ex-Heads Say They Got Byrned: Split Still Miffs Frantz, Weymouth, Even Though Tom Tom Club Keeps Them Busy,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1992.
Olivia Laing, “Remain in Love by Chris Frantz review – the Talking Heads drummer speaks out,” Guardian, July 15, 2020.
Bonzo Goes to Washington, “Five Minutes“, 1984.
“The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time: #100 Bonzo Goes to Washington: ‘Five Minutes – B-B -B-Bombing mix,” Rolling Stone, January 28, 2025.
Larry Crane, “Jerry Harrison: A Life in Music,” Tape Op, February 5, 2025.
Cassie Gill, “David Byrne: 5 Things About The Former Talking Heads Frontman Performing On ‘SNL’: David Byrne is returning to the ‘Saturday Night Live’ stage a whopping 31 years after his first performance!,” Hollywood Life, February 29, 2020.
Leo Nardo Tam, “Dumbarton Road to Nowhere,” Dear Scotland, April 2, 2010.
Richard Grant, “David Byrne: Stay Hungry,” Telegraph, March 16, 2009.
David Shariatmadari, “‘I don’t like being revered’: Brian Eno on art, AI, and why he hates talking about David Bowie,” Guardian, January 11, 2025.

Toronto’s Top Singles | CHUM 1050-AM Toronto (ON) | March 7, 1981