The Best Songs Make You Wait
“Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” by Stevie Wonder is my favorite song I’m not a big lyrics person, but I love the positive message; the heavy, Latin groove that the piano establishes long before the percussion jumps on it; and, most of all, I love the way the band (which is pretty much Stevie playing everything) naturally pulls back and digs in after the fourth chorus. You read that right: the fourth chorus.
Sometimes as a musical overthinker who’s had plenty of time to get too deep into why I love a song, I can’t help but wonder if the repetition is part of what I love. I checked, and by my count, Stevie sings “Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing” 30 times in the 4:44 song. That’s a lot. But it doesn’t feel like a lot. It just feels right. We all love repetition in music. We love a hook—whether it’s lyrical, melodic, or rhythmic. Hearing it over and over in a short timespan makes our brains happy. We love to know what’s coming, and we love to share those moments with others who also know. There’s a great 2016 piece in The Guardian about why we love repetition in music.
Recently I’ve noticed a specific, more unorthodox version of musical repetition that strikes me, and it’s only in a handful of rock songs that I can think of. It’s when the real chorus—the payoff, if you will—doesn’t come ‘til the end of the song, and it repeats. So unlike a traditional song that returns to a chorus multiple times, these wait until the end, and they just keep going.
“Turn It On Again” by Genesis is one of these songs. It’s from their 1980 album Duke, right around the time they were shedding their prog skin and prepping to be an MTV band. The chorus doesn’t kick in until 2:56, then it just repeats for nearly a minute as the song fades out. I was never a big Genesis fan, but this song always got me when the live video came on MTV, and clearly it stuck with me.
Journey did it in 1979 with their slinky power ballad, “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin,” half of which is dedicated to a layered sing-along of “na na na na na na…” They did it again in 1981 with “The Party’s Over (Hopelessly In Love)” which ends with a minute-long chorus. Maybe that’s what allowed Journey to nail the form later that year with “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Who would have guessed that one of the biggest songs of all time would make you wait through 3:32 (and a guitar solo that teases the melody!) to get to the chorus?
I loved the movie Hair when I was a kid, largely because of its soundtrack. Then I forgot about it for decades, until I saw Summer of Soul in 2021, which featured The 5th Dimension performing “Aquarius / Let The Sunshine In,” which were both important songs in Hair. Their version is a medley of two different songs, and when “Sunshine” comes in, it’s only the chorus. Over and over and over for well over two minutes.
And the full version of the song from Hair does the same thing, extending for two minutes after a nearly-four-minute build up. These harmonies get me choked up the same way today as they did when I was seven, and I’m not sure if it’s nostalgia, or that they’re just great harmonies, or if it’s the compounding effect of hearing them over and over and over again.
I can think of several examples from my alt/rock world: Jane’s Addiction’s “Summertime Rolls” (except the return to a verse). Rocket From The Crypt—for over 6 minutes—in “Glazed.” Rage Against The Machine’s Zach de la Rocha insisting, “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” 16 times at the end of “Killing In The Name” feels like it counts. Shudder To Think’s “X-French Tee Shirt” hits the chorus at 1:36 and it doesn’t stop until the song ends nearly 3 minutes later. It’s one of my favorite songs, and the one I was most surprised to hear on the radio and see on MTV when it was released in 1994. Foo Fighters came close on 1997’s “New Way Home” (but they snuck in an early chorus). And in 2003, Death Cab For Cutie’s “Transatlanticism” built for a glorious 5 minutes before ending.
What is it about this formula that gets me? Is it the elongated musical tension? Did these songs grab me the first time? Or did it only happen once I subconsciously recognized the pattern—when my brain knew that a gigantic payoff was coming? I’m shocked that I can only think of a handful of songs like this. There must be more. Please comment or reply.
Fellow music dorks: don’t @ me with some bullshit about other morsels of the song being the chorus and these are delayed bridges or outtros. You know what I’m getting at here.
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All These Things That I’ve Done by the Killers almost does this, but goes back to the chorus. Ending w the chorus is a cool songwriting concept