In Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime,” the line “You may find yourself behind the...” ends with “wheel.” The phrase places the narrator inside an ordinary, apparently successful life while he suddenly questions how he got there.
The song was released in January 1981 as the first single from the album Remain in Light. Talking Heads and producer Brian Eno built it from repeated jam sections, drawing inspiration from Afrobeat and early hip-hop techniques. David Byrne’s vocal delivery resembles a preacher’s sermon, using call-and-response patterns and half-spoken lines.
The song’s “beautiful house,” “beautiful wife,” and “large automobile” suggest conventional success, but the narrator experiences an existential crisis rather than satisfaction. Byrne later explained that the lyrics were about operating on autopilot and failing to ask how one arrived at a particular life. The iconic music video, directed by Byrne and Toni Basil, shows Byrne imitating religious rituals and trance-like movements.