Results for “repetition and variation”

Songs

Da Funk

Daft Punk

"Da Funk" is an instrumental house track built around a single squelching synth-bass riff that Daft Punk let mutate and rub…

mechanized funk repetition and variation urban grit

My Angel Rocks Back and Forth

Four Tet

An instrumental piece built from a warm, looping folktronica pulse, this track uses its title as its only verbal cue, suggesting…

domesticity and intimacy repetition as comfort organic rhythm

Bodyrock

Moby

A vocal sample looped into near-total repetition, "Bodyrock" barely qualifies as lyric writing at all — it's a chant built for a…

physicality over language collective release repetition as ecstasy

Recurring

Bonobo

"Recurring" is an instrumental mood piece from Bonobo's Days to Come, built on looping samples, muted percussion, and layered…

repetition memory cyclical time

Harder Better Faster Stronger

Daft Punk

A single fragmented phrase is chopped, looped, and reassembled through vocoder into a mantra about relentless productivity and…

labor and productivity machine identity repetition and ritual

Do You Wanna Dance

Ramones

A three-minute cover of a 1958 rock and roll standard, stripped down and sped up until the invitation to dance becomes an…

teenage romance dance as ritual nostalgia for 1950s rock and roll

Down

Harry Nilsson

A brief block of aphoristic advice about soul and love gives way to a chant that spirals downward, both literally in pitch and…

moral instruction versus surrender descent/collapse repetition as trance

Do It Clean

Echo & the Bunnymen

A post-punk chant built on almost no semantic content, this song works by repetition and rhythmic insistence rather than…

repetition and ritual evasive bravado identity through motion rather than meaning

DARE

Gorillaz

A dance-pop track built almost entirely on repetition and command, DARE trades narrative content for pure physical suggestion.…

collective euphoria surrender to impulse repetition as hypnosis

Gimme Shelter

Patti Smith

This is a cover of the Rolling Stones' 1969 apocalyptic ballad, and Patti Smith treats it less as a rock anthem than as an…

apocalypse and dread the fragility of shelter violence versus tenderness

Let the Good Times Roll

Harry Nilsson

A stripped-down invitation to abandon restraint set to a rolling backbeat, the song works less as narrative than as incantation,…

seduction release/abandon repetition as persuasion

Sun

Caribou

This is a track built on a single word repeated to the point of dissolution, functioning less as lyric than as vocal texture…

repetition as meaning ecstatic minimalism natural imagery reduced to a single symbol

Computer Love

Kraftwerk

A minimal, deliberately flat lyric sets domestic isolation against the promise of a technological fix for loneliness. The song…

isolation technology mediating intimacy modern alienation

Here Before

Vashti Bunyan

A short, hymn-like meditation on children as old souls, built from three near-identical stanzas that shift only in pronoun and…

motherhood reincarnation or old-soul intuition time and memory

Here She Comes Again

Röyksopp

A minimal, incantatory portrait of a woman weighed down by unnamed distress, sung by an observer who circles her without ever…

mental distress observation vs intimacy compulsive repetition

Unite

Burial

This is a track built almost entirely from a single vocal fragment looped and pitched into a kind of emotional smear, more mood…

betrayal emotional numbness isolation

All Under One Roof Raving

Jamie xx

A dance-floor chant built from a handful of vocal samples looped and rearranged rather than a lyric in any conventional sense.…

collective identity cultural pride/nationalism (subcultural) defiance

Real Cool Time

The Stooges

A two-part come-on built from almost nothing: a repeated request to come over, then a chant insisting the night ahead will be…

adolescent desire minimalism as provocation repetition and ritual

Fast Cars

Buzzcocks

A short, sneering punk song that uses fast cars as an emblem of empty status-seeking, environmental menace, and mechanized…

consumerism and status environmentalism/safety alienation from modern life

Tour de France 2003

Kraftwerk

This is Kraftwerk's minimalist tribute to the world's most famous bicycle race, built almost entirely from a litany of French…

endurance and the body technology and human effort geography as narrative

Never Stops

Deerhunter

A short, motorik-driven track that circles a single image of internal winter, using repetition rather than narrative development…

emotional paralysis escape and its failure depression/inner winter

Silent Spring

Massive Attack

This is a fragmentary, almost liturgical piece built around a single stammered command—obedience—repeated until it dissolves…

power and submission ritual/liturgy loss of individual voice

California Sun

Ramones

A cover of a 1960s surf-pop tune, blasted through the Ramones' buzzsaw guitars and deadpan delivery, turning a sunny travelogue…

escapism nostalgia and pastiche repetition as ritual

Baddy On the Floor

Jamie xx

This is a dance-floor incantation more than a lyric in the traditional sense: a single instruction repeated and mutated until it…

physical release collective ritual club as sanctuary

4 Minutes

Madonna

What's presented here is a single looping stanza built entirely on conditional logic — want, got, feel, say — that circles back…

desire and consent urgency circular logic

Flower

Moby

This track isn't really a Moby lyric at all but a looped field-recording-style sample of an African American work/children's…

labor and repetition folk memory loss

Start Me Up

The Rolling Stones

A relentless riff-driven come-on built almost entirely from a single mechanical metaphor: sex as an engine or vehicle that needs…

sexual desire machinery/car imagery as metaphor loss of control

Say You Will

Fleetwood Mac

A plea for reconciliation built almost entirely out of repetition, where the speaker asks a former lover for one more chance and…

romantic pleading nostalgia for lost intimacy persuasion through repetition

After the Dance (Vocal)

Marvin Gaye

A slow-burning seduction built almost entirely on repetition, this track turns a dancefloor encounter into a mantra of desire.…

seduction and pursuit dance as courtship ritual instant attraction

Touch Me I'm Going to Scream, Pt. 2

My Morning Jacket

A repetitive, ecstatic track built almost entirely around a single sensation of being overstimulated by connection or desire. It…

sensory overload desire and vulnerability spiritual/erotic conflation

Please Don't Take Your Love

Smokey Robinson

A late-career Smokey Robinson love song that turns a simple plea into a multilingual serenade, cycling through French, Spanish,…

romantic devotion universality of love gratitude

Pockets

Four Tet

"Pockets" is an instrumental Four Tet track from a 2006 single, working in the electronic-organic hybrid style Hebden developed…

texture and accumulation organic vs. electronic sound repetition as structure

For the Widows In Paradise, for the Fatherless In Ypsilanti

Sufjan Stevens

A quiet, hymn-like meditation that speaks in the voice of a paternal or divine figure addressing a child, community, or…

fatherlessness and inherited grief divine or paternal devotion obligation and sacrifice

#3

Aphex Twin

An untitled, numbered ambient piece from Aphex Twin's largely wordless second Selected Ambient Works volume, this track works…

dissociation interior space repetition and stasis

Bull In the Heather

Sonic Youth

A slippery, almost mantra-like track built from a numeric countdown and a cycling list of demands, where desire and commerce…

desire vs. commodification repetition and ritual unpredictability/chance

That Place

Smokey Robinson

This is a late-career Smokey Robinson track built on a single conceit: a lover's body, or more precisely an intimate…

sexual exclusivity possessiveness as devotion intimacy as sanctuary

Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)

Talking Heads

A polyrhythmic groove built on Afrobeat-inspired repetition, this track dramatizes a speaker who is simultaneously a…

power and bureaucracy bodily panic and breathlessness dehumanization

Acércate Más

Nat King Cole

A bolero of pure romantic pleading, built almost entirely on two commands: come closer, kiss me. Nat King Cole recorded this in…

romantic longing impatience and desire vulnerability in love

Batman Theme

The Jam

The Jam's take on the Batman Theme is a straight, punked-up cover of the 1966 TV instrumental's vocal hook, stripped of any…

pop culture appropriation repetition as spectacle punk irreverence

Sola Sistim

Underworld

Sola Sistim is less a narrative song than a mantra built from fragments of self-description, cycling through images of fragility…

fragmentation of self fragility and beauty coexisting repetition as ritual