{"id":9965,"date":"2026-04-04T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/we-nearly-abandoned-the-song-the-making-of-once-in-a-lifetime-by-talking-heads-153962\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T13:00:00","slug":"we-nearly-abandoned-the-song-the-making-of-once-in-a-lifetime-by-talking-heads-153962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/we-nearly-abandoned-the-song-the-making-of-once-in-a-lifetime-by-talking-heads-153962\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe nearly abandoned the song\u201d \u2013 The Making of \u201cOnce In A Lifetime\u201d by Talking Heads"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An exuberant collision of downtown New York, Nigerian Afrobeat and Brian Eno’s space-age production, “Once in A Lifetime” is the most successful example of how Talking Heads explored the possibilities of the studio on the 1980 LP, Remain In Light. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Originally published in Uncut Take 126 (November 2007<\/em> issue)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

An exuberant collision of downtown New York, Nigerian Afrobeat and Brian Eno\u2019s space-age production, \u201cOnce in A Lifetime\u201d is the most successful example of how Talking Heads explored the possibilities of the studio on the 1980 LP, Remain In Light. <\/p>\n

It started as a Fela Kuti-style jam, one that you\u2019ll find as a bonus track on the 2006 release entitled \u201cRight Start\u201d. Eno and the band-inspired by the methodology of Krautrockers Can and Miles Davis\u2019 producer, Teo Macero \u2013 then set about ripping that jam session apart, recreating the groove, stripping out certain instruments and superimposing numerous other melodic and rhythmic ideas upon that basic template. <\/p>\n

It remains a massively enduring and influential track. It\u2019s been covered by the Smashing Pumpkins, Phish, PM Dawn, cabaret duo Kiki And Herb, Senegalese griot Wasis Diop and country rock singer Jimmy Buffett. It has been sampled by Jay-Z and numerous hip hop producers. It\u2019s featured in Down And Out In Beverly Hills, The Family Man, The Truman Show, Lost, Numb3rs and The Simpsons. It\u2019s even been parodied by Weird Al Yankovic and Kermit The Frog (check out the Muppets\u2019 version on YouTube). And Toni Basil\u2019s promo is one of the truly ground-breaking videos of the 1980s, even getting exhibited in the New York Museum Of Modern Art. <\/p>\n

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DAVID BYRNE (VOCALIST, CO-WRITER):<\/strong> Most of the tracks on Remain In Light were based around jams. We\u2019d listen to the tapes, isolate the best bits, then learn how to play them over and over again. It was exactly what producers do these days with loops and samplers and sequencers. We were human samplers! <\/p>\n

At first, it wasn\u2019t one of Eno\u2019s favourite tracks. We very nearly abandoned the song. I insisted that I could write words to it and pull it together. Then Eno had an idea for a melody for the chorus, and it fell into place. It worked as a call-and-response pattern, like a preacher\u2019s conversation with his congregation. I improvised lines as if I was giving a sermon. <\/p>\n

Some people interpreted the lyrics as a parody of yuppie greed \u2013 \u201cwhere is my beautiful house?\u201d \u2013 but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s like that at all. It\u2019s about the unconscious. It\u2019s about how we operate half awake, on autopilot. At that time, I loved how bands \u2013 ourselves included \u2013 were trying to play funk, but got it brilliantly wrong, inadvertently creating some really interesting music. Then people started to get a bit too good at playing funk and it was all downhill from there!<\/p>\n

BRIAN ENO (PRODUCER, CO-WRITER):<\/strong> The first time I heard that jam session, I misheard the riff \u2013 in fact I still mishear it to this day. I always think that the \u201cone\u201d of the bar is in a different place to where the rest of the band thought the \u201cone\u201d was. So I counted \u201cone-two-three-four\u201d differently to them. <\/p>\n

Now I know that this might seem like a ridiculously technical detail, but it\u2019s crucial. It means the song has a funny balance, with two centres of gravity \u2013 their funk groove, and my dubby, reggae-ish understanding of it; a bit like the way Fela Kuti songs will have multiple rhythms going on at the same time, warping in and out of each other. <\/p>\n

The idea for the chorus melody was mine \u2013 I started singing a wordless riff over the top of the bassline. \u201cDoo-de-doo-doo-dah\u201d. But the lyrics were all David\u2019s. It was an extension of the stuff we\u2019d been researching for My Life in The Bush Of Ghosts. For that, we were listening to recordings of TV evangelists, preachers, the Islamic call to prayer, religious people getting into a trance. We were also fascinated by the way in which politicians and shock jocks spoke. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the words they were saying, it was the feverish intensity with which they were delivered. It suggests that people only really enter that intense spirit when they\u2019re talking about religion or politics! <\/p>\n

What\u2019s fantastic about David\u2019s lyrics is that he\u2019s using that blood-and-thunder intonation of the preacher, but his words are terribly optimistic. It\u2019s saying what a fantastic place we live in, let\u2019s celebrate it. That was a radical thing to do when everyone was so miserable and grey!<\/p>\n

TINA WEYMOUTH (BASSIST, CO-WRITER):<\/strong> It was a really good atmosphere for those sessions. We were aware that Brian and David had had some falling out during\u2026 Bush Of Ghosts, so we really needed to keep it light and playful and inclusive. <\/p>\n

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\u201cI MISHEARD THE RIFF \u2013 IN FACT, I STILL MISHEAR IT TO THIS DAY.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For that jam session, I remember that Brian and Jerry both played Prophet keyboards. Brian also played little percussion instruments, and Jerry moved between keyboards and guitar. David played a little R\u2019n\u2019B guitar part which was stripped out afterwards. Even the lovely Robert Palmer, who was in the studio with us that day, jammed with us on guitar and percussion. <\/p>\n

Encouraged by Chris, I came up with the bassline \u2013 it was a really dumb bass part, but I had to leave lots of space for the cacophony that surrounded me. I felt like I was pounding away like a carpenter, just nailing away to get it in the groove! <\/p>\n

Brian and I had a dispute over the bassline \u2013 he wanted me to drop out on the crucial \u201cone\u201d beat. He thought it was too \u201cobvious\u201d. He even re-recorded my bass. It was only when we were back in New York, when Brian had gone home, that the engineer asked me to get it locked in and get it to groove again. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a big fight between me and Brian, as it has sometimes been portrayed, it was just a musical dispute. It only got heavy again when it was all finished, when we found out that [Brian and David] wanted to co-opt the songwriting credits for the album and that was a real surprise \u2013 it really was a jointly written enterprise. But the music was just wonderful. <\/p>\n

\u2018WE NEARLY ABANDONED THE SONG\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

CHRIS FRANTZ (DRUMMER, CO-WRITER):<\/strong> Eno was great fun in the studio \u2013 he was still using those \u201coblique strategy\u201d cards. It was always a fun way to work. Just when you were getting daunted by something, he\u2019d hold up a card that read: \u201cDon\u2019t care about what other people think\u201d, which was helpful! <\/p>\n

There were other ones, too: <\/p>\n

\u201cStart at the end and not the beginning\u201d, <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of easy things\u201d; <\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a part, not the whole\u201d. <\/p>\n

Things like that. What we were going for was a \u201crhythm bed\u201d, something to be expanded upon later on. We tried to do something that had a transcendent feeling, something that people could dance to, that would transport people. It was quite spiritual. <\/p>\n

David disappeared for about two months to write the lyrics; they were recorded later, in New York. Jerry came up with that burbling synth sound, which really changed the mood, and then he used that fantastic, doomy organ sound towards the end. He said he always wanted to use the riff from The Velvet Underground\u2019s \u201cWhat Goes On\u201d. It\u2019s a \u201csample\u201d, I guess. <\/p>\n

TONI BASIL (CHOREOGRAPHER AND CO-DIRECTOR):<\/strong> I met David through Brian, while they were working in LA on\u2026Bush Of Ghosts. Brian had seen films I\u2019d made with an underground filmmaker and artist called Bruce Connor. I hung out with them a lot \u2013 I felt like Mary Shelley, hanging out with these two amazing minds! David wanted a video for the song to be themed around the arcane rituals of religious behaviour. <\/p>\n

We booked an appointment at the film and video archive at UCLA and ordered a ton of footage: they had a huge library of preachers, evangelists, people in trances, African tribes, Japanese religious sects. Some of this footage ended up in the final video, bluescreened into the background. We watched the footage together, examined the movements and discussed how to incorporate it into his performance. <\/p>\n

Technically, I was the choreographer, but David kind of choreographed himself. I set up the camera, put him in front of it and asked him to absorb those ideas. Then I left the room so he could be alone with himself. I came back, looked at the videotape, and we chose physical moves that worked with the music. I just helped to stylise his moves a little. None of my videos had much of a budget \u2013 not even \u201cMickey\u201d! \u2013 but this cost next to nothing. It was shot on video, at the Soundstage in LA, with a couple of lights. <\/p>\n

I used a real old-fashioned zoom lens to make his jerky movements even more pronounced. It\u2019s about as lo-tech as you could get and still be broadcastable! In the end it was shown on MTV for years and won several awards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post \u201cWe nearly abandoned the song\u201d \u2013 The Making of \u201cOnce In A Lifetime\u201d by Talking Heads<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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