Here's a really cool performance of Once In A Lifetime by David Byrne from the other day on SNL. I dunno why they had him on to play this song, maybe he's doing a big show or something, but man.

So this is a song I've been in love with since I was maybe ~15, when my friend Jason was really into them and by proxy I started to explore them as well, through 128kbps downloads from Kazaa and LimeWire. 

I'm fairly confident that what initially attracted me to this song was how weird it was-- same as with the Pixies, there's just something about the nature of its songwriting and performance that felt like outsider art-- obviously I wouldn't have phrased it that way, at that age, I would have instead said something like "ITS COOL, MAN", which, of course, it is. I've used this song in work I've done over and over, for different reasons, as an ironic joyful accompaniment to terrible things and events sometimes or just because I think every character I write is like me, so, of course, they like the Talking Heads.  

But hearing that song at 15 and hearing it now at 31, it just hits that much harder, because now I understand what it was it meant, what Byrne was actually saying, or at least what my interpretation of the song means has changed. 

It's just about how sometimes you feel like you've created a reality for yourself that suddenly feels alien and confusing, horrifying even. What have I done? 

But, despite this. 

Time isn't holding up
Time isn't after us
Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was

There's no assault, no scheme by the machinations of time or age to make you feel worse, or bad, everything is going along just the same as it always has and will. Ride it or don't, there's no getting away from it. 

Every time something bad happens to me I always end up coming back to this song. Every break up, every five year long relationship that goes in the garbage can, every bad job, here we are. 

It's comforting both to know someone else looks at their life and can feel the need to fall to their knees and scream out in horror at what they have created for themselves, but also, at the end of the day, it's just another drop of water in the ocean. Gotta keep going.