There are moments in songs you wait for. Sometimes it’s by accident, often it’s by design, but regardless of their origin, pop music is littered with unforgettable moments in songs, or ‘Godots’ (with apologies to Samuel Beckett).
Why ‘Godots’? Because no matter how many times you hear the song, no matter how many times you experience these moments, you never really stop waiting for them. Every time you hear the song.
There is no one universal feature that defines a Godot, other than it’s brevity and some element of surprise. It stands out, and calls emphatic attention to itself, maybe because of its incongruence from the rest of the song, or maybe because it’s delivering a much anticipated ‘payoff’, or maybe because it is so god damn irritating.
Here are but 10 examples:
10. Take the Money and Run – The Steve Miller Band
This insanely listenable song, just as fresh the 100th time you listen to it as the first, is a glorious soup of hooks, harmonies, jangly guitars and feel-good “hoo-hoo’s” (the latter of which I’ve always suspected were the sound a train pulling away, perhaps shuttling these bank-robber stowaways to freedom).
For a particular moment to stand out in this AM masterpiece – the song itself is more or less one long hook – is not easy. But nestled at the 0:35 and 1:14 mark of the song are two quick successions of 5 hand-claps that steal the show. You’re waiting for them as soon as the song begins, it’s difficult to resist clapping along when it happens, and you are more or less biding your time until it occurs again the second time, after which you can finally relax and enjoy the rest of the tune. A quintessential Godot.
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