Once In a Life Time by Talking Heads (another band with no "The" in its name)
Released in February of 1981, this is college rock at its weirdest. The song only reached #103 in the US but that was at a time when this type of music was very misunderstood.....for reasons you'll see shortly. Talking Heads were always a bit of a jam band and very experimental. For this song they jammed for hours and strung the best parts together into this song. Then lead singer David Byrne disappeared for two months and wrote these lyrics. I'm sure he didn't spend ALL of that time writing them because its not that complicated of a song. Indeed, "You may ask/find yourself...…" is not the Magna Carta but does it really take two months for that?
The video was co-directed by Toni Basil.....yes, the "Oh Mickey you're so fine" singer and is basically David...….dancing? around and recreating strange religious rituals. In fact, you may find yourself....doing the hand-chopping-the-arm motion as you watch this video and every time you hear this song because, lets face it, none of us knew what that was all about but its the iconic image from the video.
Sadly, this is the single edit of the song and doesn't include the breakdown portion of the song where David sings the immortal line, "there is water...at the bottom of the ocean". Seriously???? Now what would make you think that's true?
Please watch the video....and you may ask yourself...my God, what have I done???
