Talking Heads’s song Once in a Lifetime is cool and edgy, but you still hear it in supermarket aisles. It’s at once rock and art and has been covered by both Kermit the Frog and Australian cricketer David Boon. Much like Robert Palmer’s Johnny and Mary, Once in a Lifetime is one of those rare cool tracks that charted – a song that can be played on both Triple M and community radio.
It’s the first single from the band’s 1980 album Remain in Light – a desert island disk of mine – and contains phrases often repeated at barbecues, which is surely the perfect location for David Byrne’s existential lyrics about consumer culture.
