Thursday, September 13, 2018

One-Part Songs

Earlier today, I was listening to "Anyway You Want It" by Journey, and I realized that the whole song is essentially the same part without any changes. Sure, the vocal melody and feel changes for the refrain, but the essential chord progression just repeats. The spine of the song is just that one phrase, over and over. I'm wondering what other songs make good use of this one-part structure. Off the top of my head, I can think of two:

"Born in the U.S.A."
"All Along the Watchtower"

What are some other ones?

(Again, I'm not talking about the vocal melody but the underlying musical structure.)

UPDATE:

Had a bunch more suggestions for this one over on Facebook.

"The Passenger" - Iggy Pop
"Natural's Not In It" - Gang of Four
"Gloria" - Them
"Everybody's Gotta Live" - Love
"Save it for Later" - The English Beat
"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" - The Police
"Demolition Man" - The Police
"Papa was a Rolling Stone" - The Temptations
"Failures" - Joy Division

And of course, the perfect marriage of form and content:


h/t to Mike Corwin for that one.