Here’s an idea for a thread shamelessly stolen from Pete Paphides’ Twitter. Which songs are excellent at delayed gratification? eg the first chorus only contains a couple of lines, or is instrumental, so the listener is made to wait for the song to resolve itself.
Eg on Crowded House’s Weather With You, the chorus could easily come in earlier, but it doesn’t and so is all the better for it.
Over to you…
>>>>>
Tiny Dancer is an obvious one here. Takes about four minutes to get to the chorus!
The Boy With The Arab Strap. Wonderful song, very long time before we get to the lovely whistley bit, which is one of the best things in all music.
And Station To Station:
Oh there’s loads. How about “Everyone’s a VIP to Someone” – you think you have the measure of the song with a nice harmonica refrain, a middle eight, return to refrain followed eventually by a long fade out – until about 3 mins in suddenly a whole new uplifting chorus comes out of nowhere. Its all samples – but it’s lovely.
I had a Grand Drive/Danny George Wilson/Danny & The Champions binge last week, and what a wonderful trip, I hadn’t played Grand Drive for a whiled had forgotten how good they were.
This track is all build…
…or is it
Grand Drive – Love & The Truth
I Am The Resurrection
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Both take ages to get to the full chorus, but are none the worse for that.
Perhaps instrumentals lend themselves more to the slowburn. Here, you get a teaser of the melody after about a minute and a half, but have to wait half the track for the build to the final explosion at 6:15. Wins me every time.
Got to be this again. Almost four minutes before it starts properly, and what a ride.
“Sylvia’s mother” springs to mind, where the last line of the verse sits on the 5 chord for much longer than normal, and the slow down in the melody and lyric re-enforces the effect so the tension is intolerable when the mighty chorus kicks in. Phew, relief. Masterpiece.
Just Like Heaven, the last 3 words sung, ahead of an abrupt end.
Masterful.
Layla
A combination of both instant and delayed gratification.
The opening riff leaves you in no doubt what you are listening to, but the piano coda at the end is worth the entry price on its own
Ooh that’s a great one. It wouldn’t be half the song it is without that coda.
Blue Monday:
Here’s Mr. Boa – he can’t wait to get to the chorus, so after the first line of the second verse, it’s “I’ll tell you later” , and straight to the chorus!
Six months in a Leaky Boat by Split Enz has a long, sweeping orchestral piece at the beginning – at least a minute – before the insanely catchy song starts properly. With an intro like that it was probably hard enough to get Smashie and Nicey to play it at all – and then the BBC didn’t play it because it was interpreted as a reference to the Falklands conflict.
Whenever it’s played on the radio here, they leave off that part completely, and just start at “When I was a young boy…”
Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Echoes both make you wait an extraordinary length of time for their last verses. The former even has three different songs in between.
For my money, the build and release of Echoes is just sublime
In the true spirit of this post, I waited five days to contribute…
The correct answer of course is Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey where you don’t get the chorus until the very end of the song.