Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime

• 0
  General Comment:This song has sections demonstrating different types of ego's from circumstance, to narcisistic desire, to questioning the world and ones self presenting three alternative lifes, juxtoposed in a condinium. It also has religious elements (how did I get here, my God what have I done) etc... and quasireligious, after the money's gone. The rest of the song, mostly talking about the flow of water, possibly with an 'underground', subversive reference again could contrast a forth kind of underlieing ego, possibly a more natural one. I believe the religious and philisophical elements are tied up with the songs ending, "same as it ever was", indeed, if you read histoical texts it is the same as it ever was.
  
  So I would say that this song is about various types of ego and their different perspectives in the world. The title, Once in a life time seems like semi humour to that regard.

  Flag olivertheredon June 13, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• 0
  Song Meaning:This song is about how most people spend the vast majority of their lives unconscious to what happens. Most people let things happen to them, instead of being a causing and driving force in their life. The "you may find yourself" bits are brief moments of lucidity in an otherwise numb life, where you look around at your life and question how you ended up here.
  "You may tell yourself 'this is not my beautiful house,' and you may tell yourself 'this is not my beautiful wife!'" That is literally the reaction to waking up and seeing things are the way they are, and wondering what happened, where you let all that time go. You find yourself somewhere and you don't know how it happened, because you've been unconscious to the entirety of your life up until that brief moment of clarity.

  Flag Rionon May 24, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• 0
  General Comment:Many interpretations do fit well except that they are unable to explain the title.
  Once in a life time is introducing a blatant contrast with ubiquitous water and then universe but it is also linked with the state of consciousness Joseph Byrne is experiencing.
  I think there is also a need to consider the choreography. The author seems utterly lost so that he is dislocated. He is suffering the sharp contrast between his own condition and moment of consciousness and the flow of things. Yet this time of consciousness is too scarce to be able to change things. Instead of organizing themselves, people are just pursuing individual goals imposed by society. Money will go away as everything else and will be of no use. Yet w collaborated action to understand things and the world would have helped to fight inequalities and even more the hazard of life. Indeed, if people were equal, there would be no way to find any human being in a shotgun shack. But things are that people do not concert among themselves. And after their passage in the world, things are just the same as it ever was. Same inequalities, same lack of global consciousness, failure of the spirit against materialism and all what he witness is his own weakness, his own inability to face time, victory of organic force against the spirit.
  Water, nothingness is towering over humanity.

  Flag unfetteredon May 09, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• +1
  My Interpretation:This Song has always had me hooked – whenever it comes on the radio I stop and listen to it. I think it’s two songs, connected by a tenuous but interesting thread.
  Firstly, it’s about how we think about how things change. We live our lives in blissful unawareness of how our existence and circumstances are changing around us and then one day we look around and wonder how we got where we are. Sometimes we’re OK with it, and sometimes we are appalled at how we let things get away from us. “My God, what have I done!”
  That’s the easy bit of the song…but all this stuff about water – that has me wondering.
  Perhaps David Byrne is trying to illustrate that even it looks as though things change, nothing really changes. For example, water. It can be steam, ice, rainwater, seawater, the suds in your sink – and it’s all still water. Same as it ever was, and same as we always are. Our lives change, yet we are essentially the same. Water can move too – it can be steam or transpiration from a plant, clouds, then condense, rain and fall, flow from a puddle or a drain into a creek, then into a river, then into the sea, and it’s all still the same water and it’s all connected. Same as it ever was.

  Flag Orlando57on April 05, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• 0
  General Comment:I believe it is about time and existence. Time is always flowing or not flowing at all, we're not real sure. What we can be sure of is if we live in the present moment to the best of our abilities then we will do what we should do and be where we should be. We are blessed.

  Flag Snoqueenon April 02, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• +2
  My Interpretation:I actually don't believe this is about living your live like a zombie without any meaning. I think he is talking about how people imagine time and how it affects our lives.
  
  Most people think about time as a stream that leading us from one point to another, and thus live their lives always looking forward, trying to get to a point that they are not at.
  
  I think in reality, time doesn't really exist. All things are just sitting there, they have always been the same, and if they change it is because of a property that always existed in them.
  
  When people look at it this way they realize that everything around them truly exists, it is not changing into it's true form, or degrading away. He says "time isn't after us" most people always live in fear of running out of time, and they feel that they are waiting for things to get better, not realizing that everything they image will exist in the future is right in front of them.
  
  People are "letting the days go by", not pursuing their strong desires, thinking that something needs to be different before they can get to them. People's lives are awkwardly shaped around this, they are confused and try to move foreward, guessing at what to fill their lives with like a beautiful house and wife.
  
  The way we imagine time is what sets us apart from other animals so much. When they have a desire, they will not do anything else until that desire is met, or a more urgent desire comes.
  
  It's about existentialism, like that carl jung quote "the ultimate question is: is man connected to something infinite?". We feel haunting existential uncertainty. In part because of the way we imagine death as a stream that is rapidly moving us away from our existence. What I think is, all things are made of matter, your brain, your thoughts and feelings, are all just interpretations of different arrangements of matter. So if a thought or feeling existed at some point in your mind, it certainly exists, and there is no need to be afraid of losing it. If all things are simply material, then when you die you will exist simply as much, or as little, as you did before.

  Flagged willsmithon February 02, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• 0
  Song Meaning:I have always liked this song. I'm not sure if I will ever get it's meaning, which, for me, adds it's charm! Over the years I have interoperated this song in different ways. That is what, seems to stand it out from the ‘crowd’ of song lyrics. It has been used in a few films. Recently ‘360’. And I found myself wondering, how would it feel to walk in another person’s shoes? Another interpretation that credits this song’s uniqueness.

  Flag Nicyellowon January 18, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• 0
  General Comment:Clearly this song is about regret.
  I'm doing this, it's what I'm suppose to do. It's where you find you.
  Then you realize you completely fucked up.
  And you feel the regret of it all, profoundly.
  And so now, how to do cope? How do I get through this?
  All the while, thinking, once in a lifetime, you had a choice.
  Now you say, how to I live my life with this choice? My God, What Have I Done?
  All the while you live the days that go by.......... the days are all the same, except it might be sunny or it might rain. And how each day gets you closer to the water, the cancer, the heart attack, the old age.
  Regret.

  Flag larocaon January 07, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• -1
  General Comment:It's about suicide, dummies.

  Flag Apotheoseon January 05, 2013   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.
• 0
  General Comment:What happens once in every lifetime? Birth, and death. I believe the song is about everyone on their death bed. In the end, no matter how hard we try, time moves on and eventually we die.

  Flagged Ganondoxon September 26, 2012   Link

  • No Replies Log in to reply
    
      There was an error.

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!