Once in a Lifetime (box set)
Encyclopedia
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.
unless otherwise indicated.
Disc one
Disc two
Disc three
Storytelling Giant DVD
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
rock band Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
, being a one-disc set released in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
by Sire
Sire Records
Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a...
/Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
in 1992, and a three-disc set released in the United States of America by Sire
Sire Records
Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a...
/Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
/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
Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites
Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites is a two-disc compilation album released by Talking Heads in 1992. It contains two previously unreleased demos , two tracks new to compact disc and three newly finished songs...
was released in the United States of America. It covers most well-known Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
songs as well as including two lesser-known tracks, "Sax and Violins
Sax and Violins
"Sax and Violins" is a song by the rock band Talking Heads. It appears on the soundtrack for the film Until the End of the World. It was also released as a successful promo single and charted at number one on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart....
" and "Lifetime Piling Up".
The comprehensive three-CD box set Once in a Lifetime also includes a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, an expanded version of the music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
compilation Storytelling Giant
Storytelling Giant
Storytelling Giant was a 1988 compilation of ten music videos produced by Talking Heads during the 1980s. The videos are linked by apparently real people telling stories from their lives. The stories have no logical connection to the videos....
. The discs are packaged in a wide horizontal book that recalls a CD longbox
Longbox
A longbox is a form of exterior paperboard packaging for musical compact discs in widespread use in the 1980s and early 1990s in North America.- Background :...
, featuring paintings by Russian artists Vladimir Dubossarsky
Vladimir Dubossarsky
Vladimir Dubossarsky is a Russian painter working in pop art genre.Since 1994 he performs in an art duet with Alexander Vinogradov. Both live and work in Moscow, Russia. In the early part of their career together they adopted the style of socialist realism, an officially sanctioned art practice...
and Alexander Vinogradov
Alexander Vinogradov
Alexander Pavlovich Vinogradov was a Soviet geochemist, academician , and Hero of Socialist Labor ....
and with art direction by Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister is a New York-based graphic designer and typographer. He has his own design firm—Sagmeister Inc.—in New York City. He has designed album covers for Lou Reed, OK Go, The Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny.-Biography:Sagmeister studied graphic design at the...
(for which he received a 2005 Grammy award for "Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package"). Sagmeister would work with David Byrne
David Byrne
David Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer*David Byrne , English footballer...
and Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
on their 2008 album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is the second album made in collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, released on August 18, 2008, by Todo Mundo. The album explores themes of humanity versus technology and optimism in spite of bleak circumstance through the blending of electronic...
.
Only one previously-unreleased song appears in this release, the Naked outtake "In Asking Land." This song was later completed by David Byrne
David Byrne (musician)
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...
and released as "Carnival Eyes" on his solo album Rei Momo
Rei Momo
Rei Momo is an album by David Byrne, released on October 3, 1989 that features many Afro-Cuban, Afro-Hispanic, and Brazilian song styles including merengue, Cuban Son, samba, mambo, cumbia, cha-cha-chá, bomba, and charanga....
. 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
Sax and Violins
"Sax and Violins" is a song by the rock band Talking Heads. It appears on the soundtrack for the film Until the End of the World. It was also released as a successful promo single and charted at number one on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart....
" (finished in 1991 for the soundtrack to the movie Until the End of the World
Until the End of the World
Until the End of the World is a 1991 film by the German film director Wim Wenders; the screenplay was written by Wenders and Peter Carey, from a story by Wenders and Solveig Dommartin. An initial draft of the screenplay was written by American filmmaker Michael Almereyda...
) and "Lifetime Piling Up" (finished in 1992 for the Sand in the Vaseline
Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites
Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites is a two-disc compilation album released by Talking Heads in 1992. It contains two previously unreleased demos , two tracks new to compact disc and three newly finished songs...
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
The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads is a double live album by Talking Heads, originally released in 1982. The first album featured the original quartet in recordings from 1977 and 1979, and the second album the expanded ten-piece lineup that toured in 1980 and 1981...
, 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
Tony Bongiovi
Tony Bongiovi is a record producer and recording engineer with expertise in Electrical & Acoustical Engineering. He helped to remodel an old building in Manhattan—once a power plant for Edison, and later a television studio—into the Power Station recording studio in 1977.Bongiovi was born in the...
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
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
on guitar and very different production and instrumentation than the final version.
Track listing
All songs written by David ByrneDavid Byrne
David Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer*David Byrne , English footballer...
unless otherwise indicated.
Disc one
- "Sugar on My Tongue" – 2:35
- "Love → Building on Fire" – 2:59
- "I Wish You Wouldn't Say That" – 2:37
- "Don't Worry About the Government" – 3:00
- "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" [Alternate take] – 2:55
- "New Feeling" [Alternate take] – 3:03
- "Pulled Up" – 4:30
- "Psycho Killer" (Byrne, Chris FrantzChris FrantzChris Frantz is an American musician and record producer. He was the drummer for both Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club.-Career:...
& Tina WeymouthTina WeymouthMartina Michèle "Tina" Weymouth is an American musician, best known as a founding member and bassist of the New Wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club .-Profile:Weymouth is of French heritage on her mother's side. Weymouth was a cheerleader in high school...
) – 4:20 - "Warning Sign" (Byrne & Frantz) – 3:55
- "Artists Only" (Byrne & Wayne Zieve) – 3:35
- "Tentative Decisions" – 3:07
- "No Compassion" – 4:49
- "Stay Hungry" (Byrne & Frantz) – 2:41
- "I'm Not in Love" – 4:34
- "The Book I Read" – 4:09
- "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel" – 2:13
- "Found a Job" – 5:01
- "A Clean Break" (Live) – 4:57
- "Take Me to the RiverTake Me to the River"Take Me to the River" is a 1974 song written by singer Al Green and guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges. Hit versions were recorded by both Syl Johnson and Talking Heads...
" (Al GreenAl GreenAlbert Greene , better known as Al Green, is an American gospel and soul music singer. He reached the peak of his popularity in the 1970s, with hit singles such as "You Oughta Be With Me", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Love and Happiness", and "Let's Stay Together"...
& Mabon Hodges) – 5:04 - "The Big Country" – 5:31
- "Heaven" (Byrne & Jerry HarrisonJerry HarrisonJerry Harrison is an American songwriter, musician and producer...
) – 4:01
Disc two
- "I Zimbra" (Byrne, Brian EnoBrian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
& Hugo BallHugo BallHugo Ball was a German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists.Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens, Germany and was raised in a middle-class Catholic family. He studied sociology and philosophy at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg...
) – 3:07 - "Cities" [Alternate take] – 5:27
- "Life During Wartime" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 3:41
- "Air" – 3:32
- "Memories Can't Wait" (Byrne & Harrison) – 3:30
- "Drugs" [Alternate take] (Byrne & Eno) – 3:33
- "Once in a Lifetime" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:20
- "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:47
- "Listening Wind" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:41
- "Houses in Motion" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:31
- "Crosseyed and Painless" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:45
- "Burning Down the House" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:01
- "Making Flippy Floppy" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:54
- "Girlfriend Is Better" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:43
- "Slippery People" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:05
- "Swamp" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:10
- "This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:56
Disc three
- "And She Was" – 3:39
- "Stay Up Late" – 3:44
- "Creatures of Love" – 4:15
- "The Lady Don't Mind" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:04
- "Road to Nowhere" – 4:20
- "Wild Wild Life" – 3:41
- "Love for Sale" – 4:31
- "People Like Us" – 4:29
- "Puzzlin' Evidence" – 5:23
- "City of Dreams" – 5:09
- "Blind" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:00
- "Mr. Jones" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 4:21
- "The Democratic Circus" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:04
- "(Nothing But) Flowers" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison, Weymouth & Yves N'Djock) – 5:33
- "In Asking Land" [Outtake] (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 3:58
- "Sax and Violins" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 5:18
- "Lifetime Piling Up" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison & Weymouth) – 3:53
Storytelling Giant DVD
- "Once in a LifetimeOnce in a Lifetime (Talking Heads song)"Once in a Lifetime" is a song by New Wave band Talking Heads, released as the first single from their fourth studio album Remain in Light. The song was written by David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth, and produced by Eno...
" - "Wild Wild LifeWild Wild Life"Wild Wild Life" is a song by the American new wave band Talking Heads. Released in 1986, it was the lead single from their album True Stories....
" - "Stay Up Late"
- "Blind" [Previously unreleased]
- "Crosseyed and Painless"
- "Burning Down the HouseBurning Down the House"Burning Down the House" is a song by New Wave band Talking Heads, released as the first single from their fifth studio album Speaking in Tongues.-Background:...
" - "And She WasAnd She Was"And She Was" is the name of a rock song written by David Byrne for the 1985 Talking Heads album Little Creatures. According to Byrne, the song was written about a girl he knew who used to take LSD in a field next to a Yoo-hoo beverage factory in Baltimore, Maryland. It reached number 54 on the...
" - "Sax And Violins" [Previously unreleased]
- "This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)"This Must Be the Place " is a song by New Wave band Talking Heads, released as the second single from their fifth album Speaking in Tongues...
" - "The Lady Don't Mind"
- "Love For Sale"
- "(Nothing But) Flowers(Nothing But) Flowers" Flowers" is a song by the rock band Talking Heads. It appears on the band's final album Naked, released in 1988. It was also released as a single accompanied by a successful music video, which featured innovative uses of typography by graphic designer Tibor Kalman...
" - "Road to NowhereRoad to Nowhere"Road to Nowhere" is a song by Talking Heads, from the 1985 album Little Creatures. It also appeared on Best of Talking Heads, Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites, the Once in a Lifetime box set and the Brick box set...
"