"Once in a Lifetime" is a song by new wave band Talking Heads, released in 1981 as the first single from their fourth studio album, 1980's Remain in Light. The song was written by David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth, and produced by Brian Eno. It was named one of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century by National Public Radio and is also included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Brian Eno introduced Fela Kuti's multiple rhythm music style to the band, and during production Eno used a different rhythm count for some members of the group than others, starting on the "3" instead of the "1." It gave the song what Eno called "a funny balance within it. It has really two centers of gravity: their '1' and my '1.'" This rhythm imbalance was exaggerated in the studio, and is present throughout the song.Jerry Harrison developed the synthesizer line and added the Hammond organ climax, taken from the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On".

As the song essentially consisted of a repetitive two-bar groove (with the pattern reversed between the verse and chorus), Eno decided to approach the production by allowing each of the band members to record overdubs of different rhythmic and musical ideas independently of each other, with each member being kept blind to what the others had recorded on tape. In the final mix, Eno faded between these independent ideas at different parts of the song. This is very much in keeping with his production technique of Oblique Strategies.

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