Talk:Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads song)

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I just came across a poem by Edward Hirsch- "Commuters". It's about a guy coming home from work, asking himself 'Is this me?' and the streets seem to fill up with water. "This isn't me sitting in this car Feeling as if I were about to drown". Hirsch was born in 1950. I wonder if anyone else sees similarities and thinks this peom might have been part of the inspiration for the song. -lonepeakgeek —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lonepeakgeek (talk • contribs) 21:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Didnt the Smashing Pumpkins do a cover of this song at one point?

Yep. Its in the article, at least as of when i checked. Oh, has anyone else run across references to this being about suicide? "Into the silent waters, after the money's gone." seems pretty indicative to me, but I don't know if its worth mentioning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.71.82.82 (talk) 23:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to remember a song by Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention from the dim and distant past (1967?) that sounded very similar to Once in a Lifetime. Has anyone else picked up on this or have I just lost the plot? Drumheadbum (talk) 09:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was a short-running TV show in the late 90s that used the song for their opening credits. I don't remember the name of the show, but the hook was that it followed its characters through three time-periods - a contemporary present, 20? years in the past, and 20 years in the future - cutting between the periods within episodes, playing off of the "How did I get here" and "Same as it ever was lyrics". It might have been set in Boston. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.33.207.94 (talk) 21:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unique rhythm

Something that I thought would be notable about this song is how the rhythm changes between verse and chorus: the bar is counted from a different place in each, resulting in a "missing" half-bar in each verse->chorus or chorus->verse transition. This is very unusual indeed for a pop hit. I'm not familiar with the published sources about the song, but it would be surprising if this distinctive feature of it were not mentioned somewhere. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bassheads and Sampling Legacy

Should something about the legacy of the track being sampled in other songs and tracks be mentioned? For example British house duo Bassheads sampled "Once in a Lifetime" in particular along with a diverse range of artists including Afrika Bambaataa, The Osmonds and Pink Floyd for their 1991 single "Is There Anybody Out There?" which reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart.

The use of this sample by Bassheads was quite prominent as is worthy of mention and I'm fairly sure a number of other tracks have been made over the years sampling "Once in a Lifetime" which may be worthy of mention as much as the cover versions have been.