In movies, on stage, and in albums, you’ll occasionally have complete songs that are reprises of earlier-played songs. A reprise is when a song is done again with different lyrics, sometimes by a different character or singer, and is often shorter than the original piece. Usually, they’ll have the word (Reprise) at the end of their titles.
Some of them can be particularly memorable.
Here are some of my favorites, to start us off:
“Piragua (Reprise)” from In the Heights shows Lin-Manuel Miranda’s character enjoying the glorious karma that his competitor, Mr. Softee, suffers. (It’s an after-credits sequence. If you’re watching this movie, don’t miss the after-credits sequence!)
“Prince Ali (Reprise)” from Aladdin has the evil Jafar singing, exposing Aladdin’s ruse to Princess Jasmine, and exiling him from Agrabah. (He gets back pretty quickly, because the Magic Carpet realizes what’s happening, thinks quickly, and goes with him.)
And “Mother Knows Best (Reprise)” from Tangled is so delightfully evil and dramatic that every time we played that movie at Blockbuster, I just had to sing along.
The song “Wild Weekend” which originated as an early ‘60s instrumental by the Rockin’ Rebels, has gone through several incarnations with different lyrics. My favorite is the one by NRBQ:
Genesis’ Los Endos, the final track of the Trick of the Tail album reprises a number of the themes and melodies from previous songs in the album.
Also, and I don’t know if this quite counts as it’s all part of the same song, but the last 30 seconds of Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick reprises the opening theme and lyrics almost 40 minutes after it had been first played. When I first heard this track/album, this final moment brought me to tears (and still often does), as just an amazing and unexpected return and release after such a long journey.
When I worked at Blockbuster, we were allowed to play music to push the sound system we were trying to get people to buy. So one time, I started the Sgt. Pepper album about an hour before we closed the store. (I can’t be arsed to look up the exact time.)
The “Sgt. Pepper Reprise” began playing at closing time almost on the dot.
“We’re Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,
We hope you have enjoyed the show.
We’re Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,
We’re sorry, but it’s time to go.”
How much did it bother you that the “stereo” mix bounced all the vocals to one side for some songs and the other side for the others and the instruments were just spread willy-nilly all over the audio spectrum?
Similarly, I joined a Mom-&-Pop video chain as they were setting up their newest store and they only had a boom box at first and “Left” was blown out, so Paul’s vocals were completely gone from, “When I’m 64.” However, John and George both jumped right in for, “We shall scrimp and save.” Drove me batshit.
I looooove those wonky, disorienting one-channel blow-outs. During the bridge in “Girl”, all I could hear was John going “tit-tit-tit-tit-tit” while the dentist was tightening my braces in 1977.
And of course “Duke” and “Duke’s End” off said lp. Both compositions I like equally.
ETA -
TIL - All these friggin, friggin years… the first song’s called “Behind the Lines”. (actually - it is possible that registered with me, at one time.)
BIP: At the end of, “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five,” on Wings Band on the Run album, there’s a very short reprise of the chorus to, “Band on the Run,” (the song).
Not really a reprise, but the end of Queen’s, “More of That Jazz,” (Jazz album) has short clips from several songs on the album. Why? You tell me then we’ll both know.
In some of Rush’s longer tracks, they return to themes after extended jams. Might not be considered rerprises, though. A better example might be the first side of the album Hemispheres, which is titled “Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres” and reprises the track “Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage” from their preceding album A Farewell to Kings:
“Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)”, by Neil Young, the finale of Rust Never Sleeps, reprises the solo acoustic “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” from the beginning of the album, and surpasses it in every way to the extent that it pretty much created grunge as a genre.
while the dentist was tightening my braces in 1977.
