The Isolated Vocal Tracks of the Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime” Turn David Byrne into a Wild-Eyed Holy Preacher

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

…until you iso­late the vocal tracks, above.

Talk­ing Heads’ Afrobeat-inflect­ed “Once In A Life­time ” has become one of the band’s most icon­ic num­bers. Even casu­al fans are prone to aping lead singer David Byrne’s shouty, freaked out preach­er man deliv­ery, a style born of exper­i­ments in human sam­pling, and cowriter Bri­an Eno’s inter­est in ear­ly hip hop, Niger­ian musi­cian Fela Kuti, and com­bin­ing mul­ti­ple rhyth­mic ele­ments in a sin­gle song.

Byrne insists that the infec­tious lyrics are not a cri­tique of con­sumerism, as is pop­u­lar­ly believed. Instead, he explains, they’re about mind­ful­ness and the uncon­scious:

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?”

Cut loose from the bass, gui­tar, key­boards and drums, the lyrics seem less like semi-impro­vi­sa­tion­al art-geek con­struc­tions than the semi-sin­is­ter ram­blings of a self-styled holy man, maybe the wild-eyed preach­er char­ac­ter Byrne chan­nels in the orig­i­nal video below.

Peo­ple who’ve lis­tened to the stripped down ver­sion online gath­er in the com­ments sec­tion like friends com­par­ing notes near the exit of a haunt­ed house:

I feel like David Byrne is hold­ing me at gun­point and yelling at me in an aban­doned ware­house.

This sounds like David Byrne is lost alone in a cave and shout­ing non­sense into the dark­ness.

It’s like hear­ing a cult some­where in a cav­ern.

This sounds like some­thing you’d hear before being mur­dered??

Read­ers, what asso­ci­a­tions do you have with this song, and where do you find your­self after lis­ten­ing to it sans orches­tra­tion?

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?

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

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!

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

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

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!

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again in the silent water

Under the rocks, and stones there is water under­ground

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

And you may ask your­self

What is that beau­ti­ful house?

And 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?”

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again in to the silent water

Under the rocks and stones, there is water under­ground

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

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

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

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)

Let­ting the days go by (same as it ever was)

Once in a life­time 

Let­ting the days go by

Let­ting the days go by

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Talk­ing Heads Per­form The Ramones’ “I Wan­na Be Your Boyfriend” Live in 1977 (and How the Bands Got Their Start Togeth­er)

Talk­ing Heads Fea­tured on The South Bank Show in 1979: How the Ground­break­ing New Wave Band Made Nor­mal­i­ty Strange Again

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Thurs­day June 28 for anoth­er month­ly install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.