“And you may find yourself, living in a shotgun shack/And you may find yourself in another part of the world…”
These are the first lyrics to “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads, the fourth song on their top album “Remain in Light,” and when I heard them for the first time they intrigued me.
Why, you ask? They weren’t sung. Instead, lead singer David Byrne preaches them to you like some maniacal cult leader, rambling away as the keyboard scatters throughout the back of the song. It becomes more apparent in the song’s music video, with Byrne waving his arms drenched in sweat as images of religious practices appear behind him.
The lyrics themselves are incredible, the existentialist words contained within having no clear rhyme or reason. This is best shown in the first verse of “Born Under Punches,” a song which I was unfamiliar with until re-listening to this album, but it quickly became a favorite.
“The hand speaks, the hand of a government man/Well I’m a tumbler, born under punches, I’m so thin…”
What does it mean? What’s the message? There is none! Hundreds of critics have tried to put their own meaning behind many a Talking Heads song, but without any official band explanation, they are simply words of a madman, nothing to them, and yet there’s enough there where it appears to have meaning. It’s a wonderfully constructed rambling, and what really makes you know it’s a Talking Heads song.
And that concludes my own ramblings about this eight-track wonder named “Remain in Light.” It’s a journey of an album that goes from manic to psychedelic to haunting, and it holds a special place in my large library of music. It’s been an honor to share another amazing album with you, although this next review particularly seems “So Far Away.”
