Once in A Lifetime (Talking Heads Album)

Once In A Lifetime (Talking Heads Album)

Once in a Lifetime refers to two compilation albums by the American rock band Talking Heads, being a one-disc set released in Europe, Australia and New Zealand by Sire/Warner Bros. in 1992, and a three-disc set released in the United States of America by Sire/Warner Bros./Rhino in 2003.

The single-CD The Best Of (Once in a Lifetime) (1992) is a fourteen-track collection released at the same time as the double disc anthology Sand in the Vaseline was released in the United States of America. It covers most well-known Talking Heads songs as well as including two lesser-known tracks, "Sax and Violins" and "Lifetime Piling Up".

The comprehensive three-CD box set Once in a Lifetime also includes a DVD, an expanded version of the music video compilation Storytelling Giant. The discs are packaged in a wide horizontal book that recalls a CD longbox, featuring paintings by Russian artists Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov and with art direction by Stefan Sagmeister (for which he received a 2005 Grammy award for "Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package"). Sagmeister would work with David Byrne and Brian Eno on their 2008 album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

Only one previously-unreleased song appears in this release, the Naked outtake "In Asking Land." This song was later completed by David Byrne and released as "Carnival Eyes" on his solo album Rei Momo. Other non-album tracks are "Sugar on My Tongue", a 1977 live-in-studio recording; the 1976 single "Love → Building on Fire" and its B-side, "I Wish You Wouldn't Say That"; and two Naked-era songs - "Sax and Violins" (finished in 1991 for the soundtrack to the movie Until the End of the World) and "Lifetime Piling Up" (finished in 1992 for the Sand in the Vaseline compilation). These non-album tracks were all included on Sand in the Vaseline, though three non-album tracks (1977 B-side "I Want to Live" and 1992's "Gangster of Love" and "Popsicle") remain exclusive to that compilation.

"A Clean Break", a 1977 live recording from 1982's The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, was a CD exclusive to this collection when it was released, but that recording has since been released in a double album with new material.

Four alternate takes are exclusive to this set. "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" and "New Feeling" are the original Tony Bongiovi mixes, with brass parts and other more "commercial" production techniques that the band ultimately rejected. "Cities" is an alternate take that includes a verse not found in any previous official release (it would later appear as a bonus track on the 2005 rerelease of "Fear of Music"). "Drugs" is an early version of the song which features Robert Fripp on guitar and very different production and instrumentation than the final version.