Though a popular live attraction who achieved a certain amount of fame in Europe and especially their native Scotland, the band Big Country is often referred to in the United States as a one-hit wonder as this song represents their sole foray into the U.S. Top 40. The band’s frontman Stuart Adamson (1958-2001) was apparently at peace with such a characterization, once remarking in an interview that “If we’re known for nothing more than just that one song, I’d be pretty happy with that.”

From their debut album “The Crossing”, released in 1983, “In A Big Country” went to #17 on the Billboard Hot 100.

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Welcome to “New Wave Wednesday”, the latest ride in this musical amusement park I call a blog. Arising in the late 1970s, New Wave quickly separated itself from the contemporary punk rock movement and entered the 1980s as a distinct musical genre which came to define the sound of the first half of that decade. The 1981 launch of the MTV network provided a platform for the music to reach out to a wide audience, as did the release of numerous popular films incorporating New Wave songs in their soundtrack. Throw in an abundance of catchy one-hit wonder tunes and the age of New Wave, though relatively brief in retrospect, stands out as a rich and memorable era in popular music history.

“Once in a Lifetime” has to be one of the most famous songs to never crack the Billboard Hot 100. The first single from the Talking Heads’ 1981 album “Remain in Light”, it reached number 14 in the U.K., but failed to chart in the United States despite heavy rotation of the music video on the fledgling MTV music network. The song has since become one of the Talking Heads’ most popular songs as well as a favorite of pop culture historians. National Public Radio included this song on their list of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century, and the video above is shown in the New York Museum of Modern Art.

buy the mp3 for .99 from Amazon: Once In A Lifetime (Remastered LP Version )