1980 · Behind the Songs
The TV preacher behind the hit.
The strangest hit of 1980 began with a television evangelist. David Byrne had been watching preachers on TV, fascinated by the musical rhythm of their sermons — the call and response, the repetition, the way a phrase could hypnotize a room. He built “Once in a Lifetime” the same way: a chant, a groove, and a question repeated until it becomes profound.
The track was constructed like everything on Remain in Light: from loops and polyrhythms, with writing credited to Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth. Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat was the rhythmic compass; the lyric was pure Byrne — a man waking up to find himself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, asking how he got there. “Water flowing underground” remains one of the great images in rock.
The song might have stayed an album track if not for the video. Directed by Byrne with choreography by Toni Basil, it featured Byrne in an oversized suit, moving in jerky, spastic bursts — part preacher, part marionette. On the young MTV, it was unforgettable, and “Once in a Lifetime” became the band’s signature song.
It asks the biggest question pop music ever asked — “How did I get here?” — and answers it with a shrug and a dance beat. That’s the Talking Heads trick in one song.