Best Pauses In Songs

[greenman]

Are we trying hard not to mention I Am The Resurrection?

[Crabwalk]

There are absolutely thousands to choose from.

'Marquee Moon' by Television has a celebrated one after the huge build and then the opening riff kicks back in.

'Showgirl' by The Auteurs has one right at the top of the song that sounds like it's finished before the verse has even featured.

'All of my Heart' by ABC has a show stopping one before the sedate coda.

'Hello Sunshine' by SFA has a big pause before the 'I'm a minger' line that Gruff seems to enjoy stretching out for ages live.

It's an especially potent weapon live, the big pause. And of course it's always a license to embarrass anyone in the crowd unfamiliar with the song.

[Goldentony]

On the first Electric Six abum there's a track called Improper Dancing with a mighty "STOP!" in the middle that gets finished with a "CONTINUE!" right after, but the second time I saw them live they got to "STOP!" and the rest of the band fucked off stage leaving the lead singer behind with a guitar. From what I remember he did about two songs solo with it, then the band came back and they went right into another song. As soon as that ended we got "CONTINUE!" and they went back to Improper Dancing til the finish. It was a good bit of twattery.

[grassbath]

Aphex Twin - Analogue Bubblebath. Foamy audio loveliness halts for a 'trick' ending and comes back in doubly foamy.

[thecuriousorange]

Def Leppard - Animal

Really cheesy deployment of the fake ending trick.

[Gregory Torso]

The Breeders "Don't Call Home" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVNcofCilk0.

Also L Dopa by Big Black which I rememeber John Peel playing and fucking up talking before the track came back in again.

[SteveDave]

'Marquee Moon' by Television has a celebrated one after the huge build and then the opening riff kicks back in.

It comes back backwards. I think. Whatever way around the opening chords are (D and Bm?) when it comes back they're reversed (so Bm and D). A while ago my friends and I were going to perform "Marquee Moon" the LP in it's entirety but gave up after realising it's like maths for guitars.

[Crabwalk]

It comes back backwards. I think. Whatever way around the opening chords are (D and Bm?) when it comes back they're reversed (so Bm and D).

Nah, it comes back in the same.

[SteveDave]

Nah, it comes back in the same.

Is it.

[alan nagsworth]

The pause in Millionaire by Queens of the Stone Age. Then it kicks in with a big HUHHHHHH.

I was on a train listening to that and when the pause happened the automated message over the train speaker system said 'Now approaching Finsbury's Park, the next station's stop will be Stevenage' and then the music immediately kicked in again. It was one of those perfectly choreographed moments that made me want to shout to everyone on the train to make sure they realised what had just happened. Couldn't have timed it better if I tried.

I'm calling bullshit on this. The pause is not long enough to allow for that much of the train announcement to get through.

BULLSHIT PAL

[dex]

OK then with QOTSA how about Song For The Dead's pause during the tumultous ending?

[Rocket Surgery]

'Out' by Unsane is full of 'em:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7u83GXQAO8


CAUTION: gory picture

[zomgmouse]

Been listening to "Treat Me Right" by Pat Benatar and coincidentally there is a good pause right here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dthHknNb_ug#t=0m44s and again here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dthHknNb_ug#t=2m21s

[Improv Mimeshow Gobshite]

Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait

This, but in particularly Paul Westenberg doing it on Saturday Night Live, with Josh Freese yeling "BURT REYNOLDS" at about 2:05 in. Cue Josh...

20 yrs ago tonight I played Saturday Night Live w/Paul Westerberg. As we were walking out to play the 2nd song (Can't Hardly Wait) he leans over and whispers to me "go ahead and yell something ridiculous or stupid during one of the breaks." There's 2 different, 2 bar rests in the song and that meant 2 big giant gaps of dead air on live, national television. So, the first one comes up....and...nothing. I totally chickened out.

2nd one comes up and out of nowhere I yelled "Burt Reynolds!" I don't know why I chose Burt but it just leapt out of me. If you were there it was loud as hell. If you saw it on TV only the overhead mics picked it up and you couldn't really hear what was said unless you went back, turned up TV and listened again. Paul goes up to the mic to to start singing again and for a minute can't. He cracks up and it took him a second to get back on track.

[NoSleep]

Welcome To The Terrordome - Public Enemy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWTE1Uj9Z8c

Unknown Soldier - The Doors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LSCoBk8hgU

Not To Touch The Earth - The Doors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AfMf70gxbY

Honky Tonk Popcorn - Bill Doggett (produced by James Brown and featuring him in the one of the strangest pauses of all time).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v1QDQXKWN8

[Repeater]

Glad Fugazi was mentioned so early.

[TKO]

I hope you won't mind me going on about an instrumental piece...

Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto has one of my favourite pauses in music: near the finale of the third movement, when the piano reaches the climax of a short but tense solo bravura passage, pauses for a moment or two, and then re-emerges with the orchestra in a triumphant, romantic, lyrical burst of sound.[nb]Providing the tune for Full Moon and Empty Arms, an early hit for Sinatra.[/nb]

Without the mounting tension and the pause coming just before it, I don't think the finale would have been quite as sumptuous or exciting. As it is, it feels like a release of air. You can hear this section from 31:28 onward, but, of course, it's better to hear the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9QLiefnoDE.

[TKO]

.

[TheMonk]

Read About It by Midnight Oil.

[Pepotamo1985]

The pause in Millionaire by Queens of the Stone Age. Then it kicks in with a big HUHHHHHH.

That's what immediately sprang to mind.

Maybe not so much a pause as a bluff cease, but Supa Scoop off Kyuss' Welcome to Sky Valley has a series of amazingly effective false stops/pauses at the end, to the point where even after millions of listenings I can never tell whether the last one has actually come or is coming.

[NoSleep]

"Guitar's gotta sound like a nuclear destruction......" (Final Solution - Pere Ubu)

[the science eel]

"Guitar's gotta sound like a nuclear destruction......" (Final Solution - Pere Ubu)

Good lad.

[NoSleep]

"B'dum, b'dum" (Boredom - The Buzzcocks)

[Dr Rock]

There's a good one in Final Solution by Pere Ubu. It also appears in the Peter Murphy cover. Cant do links righr now but they're probly on that youtube.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

System of a Down - Prison Song
https://youtu.be/yndfqN1VKhY

[Shaky]

Maybe not so much a pause as a bluff cease, but Supa Scoop off Kyuss' Welcome to Sky Valley has a series of amazingly effective false stops/pauses at the end, to the point where even after millions of listenings I can never tell whether the last one has actually come or is coming.

Heh, indeed. It took many years of listening before I noticed that the symbol crash only fades out on the final crescendo.

[Repeater]

Fuck me, Kyuss are amazing.

[Brundle-Fly]

Waiting For Your Taxi - Ian Dury & The Blockheads (1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UDmxw8aJRY

It has quite a few pauses throughout you could drive a London Hackney cab through but there is some slight Moog leakage and traffic atmos.

Cleaner pause At 2:43 mark. Also ALL songs should end like this track.

[Dr Magus]

Come up and see me by cockney rebel

[ASFTSN]

Unchallenged Hate by Napalm Death, but it's gotta be the version on From Enslavement to Obliteration.