I would have thought “one” was the correct answer. Apparently not.
I can sort of grant an exception to Tequila. Maybe exclude the “hey” in* Rock and Roll part 2* as being a sound rather than a lyric. But is The Hustle really instrumental? Sure it has only four words (Do. The. Hustle. It. Maybe five if you count the “oooh”.), but they’re repeated a ton.
Opinions? How many other so-called instrumentals with words are there out there? Should there be a limit?
You were on the right track with your initial comments but lacked specificity: no more than one syllable or it’s a lyric, IMO.
Hmm…Pink Floyd’s One of These Days has twelve words, but I might still describe it as an instrumental.
That’s it, though! Thirteen words, now that would be crazy.
Limbo, by Rush is an instrumental. However, it has the sample, “Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist” in the a time or two. But it’s definitely listed on their catalog as an instrumental.
I might agree. So what’s the difference? Because these two are one-shots? One line added to an otherwise word-free song?
I think The Hustle is not, likewise, Picking Up the Pieces is not.
And I have no idea what to do with Jungle Fever!
Hahahahaha! Wipeout!
Definitely an instrumental.
My initial call is one word, just so “Tequila” makes the cut. But if I do that, then Dave Brubeck’s “Unsquare Dance” misses the mark because of Joe Morello’s words at the end. Or do we not count “incidental” verbiage?
I wouldn’t count incidental, obviously. But what does he say at the end? I never noticed any words, and listening to it now, I can barely hear anything but “(laugh) yeah.”
Ideally, an instrumental should have no vocalizations at all. However, the real world is rarely ideal.
For instance, the Renaissance songs “Prologue” and “Rajah Khan” heavily feature Annie Haslam singing “Doo, doo, doo” and other nonsense vocals. Should those count as instrumentals? If so, by that rubric of ignoring nonsense vocals, wouldn’t songs like “Tutti Frutti” and “Rubber Biscuit” also be instrumental?
Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days” gets a pass, sort of, because its single vocal line is spoken, not sung. That’s also the reason why I consider Rush’s “2112: Grand Finale” to be instrumental, since the only vocals are spoken, whereas “2112: Overture” is clearly NOT instrumental (no matter what Wikipedia says) because Geddy Lee very clearly SINGS the final line, “And the meek shall inherit the earth.” But then again, this rule treads very close to declaring that every rap song is also instrumental…
Ah, this takes me back! When Ottorino Respighi composed “The Pines of Rome,” one of the effects in the orchestra was a recording of the song of a nightingale, played on a gramophone.
There were great debates at the time, arguing that the work was no longer truly “symphonic.”
My question would be: are the “vocals” in the examples given here recorded/sampled, or does one of the band members actually say/sing the word or line? If it comes from a sampler machine, then that, itself, is kind of an “instrument.”
e.g., a piece with “singing” that comes from a synthesizer, not a real voice: I’d be comfortable with an argument that the piece is “instrumental” and not “vocal.”
Yes, I think it can argued that, even though it is on the recording, it is vocalized before the tune, proper, starts.
I think it is, in spirit: it’s fundamentally an instrumental, with a few words spoken on top of it. It certainly doesn’t consist of lyrics sung to a particular melody.
Ditto “One Step Beyond.”
Words is words. 
But it made you listen to it again, which is a good thing in its own right.
Right?
To address **buddha_david’s **point: Coloratura is a vocal style itself. “Prologue” and “Rajah Khan” would definitely fit into that categorization. It would be using the human voice as a musical instrument as opposed to delivering some semantic content with it through lyrics.
At 2:44 of Scorpions - Coast To Coast, there’s what sounds to me to be somebody exhaling. Instrumental or not?
Is that what Floyd’s Great Gig in the Sky is? Because it has a lot of singing, but no actual words.
Except, of course, “I never said I was afraid of dying…”
That was spoken. instrumental still?
I feel pretty forgiving on the number of words allowed in an instrumental - my personal playlist of instrumental rock includes several that violate just about any word-count rule but still fit it for me. For me, a vocal song carries most of the varation and meaning in the voices and the instruments are usually prominent only in the intro and the bridge. If you make the instruments carry the song and add voices as backup, I’ll be happy calling it instrumental.
Two examples:
Awayby Devin Townsend, features about forty words in a couple of points, but that’s in an 8-minute song and the voices are muted.
And then there’s Nightwish’s instrumental version of their album Dark Passion Play which takes out the main vocal tracks, but includes the backup chorus. (For example, from Master Passion Greed at about 1:25 and 2:15).
Coloratura actually means a florid style of opera singing with a lot of fancy moves. The term for a musical piece with wordless vocals is vocalise. (Not to be confused with vocalese, which means recreating an originally improvised jazz solo as a song *with *words.)
Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” is over 20 minutes, but has one spoken line “Silence in the Studio.” I think everyone would agree it’s an instrumental.
And what about Beethoven’s ninth? Symphonies are considered instrumentals and the first three movements (and much of the fourth) have no words.
Well what about “Flying”?
It is the only instrumental listing from the Beatles’ catalog and though there are no words, the lads are definitely singing the main riff.
Malignant Narcissism from 2007’s ‘Snakes & Arrows’ is similar. There’s a sample from Team America: World Police about halfway through which says “Usually a case of malignant narcissism is brought on during childhood.”