Eno and Talking Heads developed "Once in a Lifetime" through extensive jams, inspired by Afrobeat musicians such as Fela Kuti.

Like other songs on Remain in Light, Talking Heads and the producer Brian Eno developed "Once in a Lifetime" by recording jams, isolating the best parts, and learning to play them repetitively.

[7] The technique was influenced by early hip hop and the Afrobeat music of artists such as Fela Kuti, which Eno had introduced to the band.

The keyboardist, Jerry Harrison, said the lack of chord changes and the "trance"-like feeling made it hard to delineate the song into verses and choruses.

[7] Harrison developed the "bubbly" synthesizer line and added the Hammond organ climax, inspired by the Velvet Underground song "What Goes On".

"[7] According to the bassist, Tina Weymouth, the drummer, Chris Frantz, created the bassline by yelling during a jam, which she mimicked on bass guitar.

[10][11] The Guardian writer Jack Malcolm suggested that the song can be read "as an art-pop rumination on the existential ticking time bomb of unchecked consumerism and advancing age".

[12] Byrne denied that the lyrics address yuppie greed and said the song was about the unconscious: "We operate half-awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else, and we haven't really stopped to ask ourselves, 'How did I get here?

'"[8] Eno observed that Byrne combined the "blood-and-thunder intonation of the preacher" with optimistic lyrics: "It's saying what a fantastic place we live in, let's celebrate it.

"[7] In the "Once in a Lifetime" music video, Byrne appears in a large, empty white room, dressed in a suit, bowtie and glasses.

At the end of the video, a "normal" version of Byrne appears in a black room, dressed in a white, open-collared shirt, without glasses.

They studied archive footage of religious rituals from around the world for Byrne to incorporate, including African tribes, Japanese sects, people in trances, and evangelists such as Ernest Angley.

[31] In 1996, Kermit the Frog performed "Once in a Lifetime" on Muppets Tonight while wearing Byrne's "big suit" and mimicking his dances from Stop Making Sense.