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Once in a Lifetime: Difference between revisions
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== Production == | == Production == | ||
Like other songs on ''[[Remain in Light]]'', Talking Heads and the producer [[Brian Eno]] developed ''Once in a Lifetime'' by recording jams, isolating the best parts, and learning to play them repetitively. The English musician [[Robert Palmer (singer)|Robert Palmer]] joined the jam on guitar and percussion. | Like other songs on ''[[Remain in Light]]'', Talking Heads and the producer [[Brian Eno]] developed ''Once in a Lifetime'' by recording jams, isolating the best parts, and learning to play them repetitively. The English musician [[Robert Palmer (singer)|Robert Palmer]] joined the jam on guitar and percussion. The technique was influenced by early hip hop and the [[Afrobeat]] music of artists such as [[Fela Kuti]], which Eno had introduced to the band. The singer, [[David Byrne]], likened the process to modern looping and sampling, describing the band as "human samplers". He said the song was a result of the band trying and failing to play funk, inadvertently creating something new instead | ||
The track was initially not one of Eno's favorites, and the band almost abandoned it. According to the keyboardist, [[Jerry Harrison]], "Because there were so few chord changes, and everything was in a sort of trance... it became harder to write defined choruses." However, Byrne had faith in the song and felt he could write lyrics to it. Eno developed the chorus melody by singing wordlessly, and the song "fell into place". Harrison developed the "bubbly" synthesizer line and added the Hammond organ climax, taken from [[the Velvet Underground]]'s [[What Goes On (Velvet Underground song)|''What Goes On'']]. | The track was initially not one of Eno's favorites, and the band almost abandoned it. According to the keyboardist, [[Jerry Harrison]], "Because there were so few chord changes, and everything was in a sort of trance... it became harder to write defined choruses." However, Byrne had faith in the song and felt he could write lyrics to it. Eno developed the chorus melody by singing wordlessly, and the song "fell into place". Harrison developed the "bubbly" synthesizer line and added the Hammond organ climax, taken from [[the Velvet Underground]]'s [[What Goes On (Velvet Underground song)|''What Goes On'']]. | ||
Eno interpreted the rhythm differently from the band, with the third beat of the bar as the first. He encouraged the band members to interpret the beat in different ways, thereby exaggerating different rhythmic elements.<ref | Eno interpreted the rhythm differently from the band, with the third beat of the bar as the first. He encouraged the band members to interpret the beat in different ways, thereby exaggerating different rhythmic elements.<ref>https://www.npr.org/2000/03/27/1072131/once-in-a-lifetime</ref> According to Eno, "This means the song has a funny balance, with two centers of gravity – their funk groove, and my dubby, reggae-ish understanding of it; a bit like the way Fela Kuti songs will have multiple rhythms going on at the same time, warping in and out of each other." | ||
According to the bassist, [[Tina Weymouth]], the drummer, [[Chris Frantz]], created the bassline by yelling during a jam, which she mimicked on bass guitar. She wanted to "leave lots of space for the cacophony that surrounded me. I felt like I was pounding away like a carpenter, just nailing away to get it in the groove." Eno removed the bass note from the first beat of the bar, as he felt it was too "obvious", and rerecorded the part. When Talking Heads returned to New York and Eno had gone home, the engineer had Weymouth record the bassline again. She said: "It wasn't a big fight between me and Brian, as it has sometimes been portrayed, it was just a musical dispute." | According to the bassist, [[Tina Weymouth]], the drummer, [[Chris Frantz]], created the bassline by yelling during a jam, which she mimicked on bass guitar. She wanted to "leave lots of space for the cacophony that surrounded me. I felt like I was pounding away like a carpenter, just nailing away to get it in the groove." Eno removed the bass note from the first beat of the bar, as he felt it was too "obvious", and rerecorded the part. When Talking Heads returned to New York and Eno had gone home, the engineer had Weymouth record the bassline again. She said: "It wasn't a big fight between me and Brian, as it has sometimes been portrayed, it was just a musical dispute." | ||