Don’t know if that’s the right word. What I mean is songs that have some part that just doesn’t seem to fit. For instance, yesterday I heard the old Don and Juan song “What’s Your Name”. A nice soulful ballad all the way through and then at the end they come out with - shoo dee oo bop a daaa. How the hell did that get in there? And that reminded me of the Doors’ Touch Me where they end with the line stronger than dirt. Which in turn reminded me of Blue Swede’s version of Hooked on a Feeling with the Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka.
Can you come up with some more songs with quirky parts?
I always thought the “don’t know whyyyyyyyyyyy . . .” part of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a ludicrous insertion into an otherwise great song.
Live and Let Die is like three different songs jammed together - I’m not sure what counts as the song and what counts as the anomalies.
There’s “Tainted Love,” which for some reason ends with a few lines from “Baby Where Did Our Love Go.”
The “Doesn’t it make you feel better?” line of “March of the Pigs” by Nine Inch Nails.
Just yesterday my wife and I were listening to the Marcels’ cover of “Blue Moon.” A pretty ballad, but the intentionally silly-funny 50’ style “bomp-baba-bomp” business added by the Marcels is a bit of a disconnect.
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Even Paul Simon has said that the “Sail on silver girl” verse doesn’t go with the rest of Bridge Over Troubled Water.
I was going to point out the same thing regarding Band on the Run.
A really interesting idea for a topic.
Let’s Go Surfing, by The Drums, has a part where they break into Down Down Baby. It’s not particularly jarring or anything, but it’s what I thought of first. And I actually learned a lot about DDB from that link, including some other pop songs that use it.
O.N.E., by Yeasayer, has a part wherein it sounds like another song is breaking through - so much so to me that one time while listening to it in my car, I changed radio stations on my transmitter because I thought someone else’s ipod was jackin’ my frequency. It occurs late - about 4:18 into the song.
I suspect many of these awkward/anomalous/off-kilter moments come from attempts to write a bridge. The artist has two “lines” of music he particularly likes and wants to use. Unfortunately, the roads run parallel. So in order to not being playing or saying the same thing for a whole song, he’s got to throw together something that will help ease the cross-over. Some do it well, others do it poorly, others don’t do it all. Either way, it makes for an interesting, dynamic moment in the music.
That was meant a joke. The group thought the closing notes sounded like the slogan for Ajax Cleanser (i.e., “stronger than dirt”) so they threw it in with the expectation it wouldn’t make the final cut. However, it was kept in for the final recording.
Was that on all released cuts of the song? I noticed the resemblance to the Ajax Laundry Detergent jingle at the time, but not that the line was actually sung over the notes.
How about the four inserted drum bars in Sting’s Englishman in New York? Those surely seem pretty arbitrary.
Lionel Richie had the market cornered for the sappy, maudlin sweepy, weepy romance songs in the 80’s.
Of his typical offerings, he gave us Say You, Say Me in 1985 for a film called White Nights that no one bothered to see.
Anyway, two thirds into the song, you get a hard left turn into bouncy, electro, disco beat which is a 180° departure from the first part of the song. This lasts about 8 seconds and then it’s back to: “Say you…, say me…”
A genuine WTF? moment in pop music.
Also the Partridge Family’s I Think I Love You (Note: I do actually listen to good music) has a bridge that is completely at odds with the rest of the song.
The original “Layla” recorded by Derek and The Dominos has the long piano coda that has no relation to the first part of the song.
This is what I was going to mention. It’s always sounded completely jarring (and, frankly, boring) to me.
The Beatles “A Day in the Life”
There’s a break in a Yes song (from Topographic Oceans or Relayer?) where the music stops and there’s a multi-track *a capella * chorus that goes something like “Cha cha cha CHA CHA!” It was really jarring the first time I heard it.
I always thought the end of Kodachrome didn’t really fit with the rest of the song. And the chorus of Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover has a certain jauntiness that’s not present in the verses.
Yes, it is in every version of the song.
Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, One Vision, and The Miracle all have parts completely uncharacteristic of the rest of the song. The Miracle is really jarring because the transition out is somewhat awkward.
In the past we’ve had threads about Songs that are two songs put together and Two (or more) songs in one! And, related to that but not quite the same thing, Songs that change gears drastically.
If I understand correctly what the OP is looking for, it may include at least some of these kinds of songs but is not limited to them.
Aside from that, one “anomalous part” I can think of that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the song is the slow introduction to the Beach Boys’ “California Girls.”