Single Stanza Song

"All the DJs keep complaining
The tunes run much too long
So I went and wrote myself
a 26-second song."

— Shel Silverstein, 26 Second Song

A Single Stanza Song sounds like a case of Second Verse Curse or a Chorus-Only Song, but there is one big difference: There really is only one stanza.

If there were ever other lyrics, they are lost to history. If these lyrics are repeated, it becomes Looped Lyrics (and if it repeats too much, Broken Record).

Contrast Second Verse Curse, Chorus-Only Song and Something Something Leonard Bernstein.

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Examples:

Alternative Rock

• Aside from the rap break in the middle, Dirty Harry by Gorillaz has only a single, six-line verse.
  I need a gun to keep myself from harm
  The poor people are burning in the sun
  They ain't got a chance
  They ain't got a chance
  I need a gun 'cause all I do is dance
  'Cause all I do is dance
• The title track of Coldplay's Parachutes, which only runs 46 seconds.
  • The full song: "In a haze, a stormy haze, / I'll be 'round, I'll be loving you always. / Always. / Here I am and I'll take my time, / here I am and I'll wait in line always. / Always."
• They Might Be Giants:
  • John Flansburgh did a few of these with his side project band Mono Puff: "Nixon's The One" has just 2 lines, "Dr. Kildare" has 4 lines of lyrics in the middle of an otherwise instrumental song, "Distant Antenna" has a single prose paragraph of text spoken over the music.
  • "Minimum Wage" from Flood consists of the title, followed by a "HYAH!" and a whip-crack, then a little over half a minute of instrumental music.
  • Most of the songs in "Fingertips" from Apollo 18 are only long enough for one verse. Some are only long enough for a single line, like "Who's That Standing By My Window?" and "The Day That Love Came to Play".
  • There are several of these on TMBG's album Nanobots, such as "Destroy The Past".
  • "Michigan" and "Nevada" from John Linnell's solo project State Songs are both a single verse, although the latter is followed by six minutes of a diminuendo-ing marching band.
  • "The Famous Polka" is about 75 seconds of instrumental music, followed by a single stanza:
    A famous person wears the same size water skis as me
    She's got three cars, as many years I've lived in this city
    Her hair is blonde and mine is brown, they both start with a "b"
    But when the phone inside her rib cage rings, it's not for me
    But when the phone inside her rib cage rings, it's not for me
    HEY!
• "Elizabeth My Dear" by The Stone Roses. 30 words, less than a minute long, and extremely creepy.
• Phish's "The Divided Sky" has multiple composed sections and goes on for over ten minutes but the sole lyrics are, "Ah, divided sky, the wind blows high."
  • This seems to be a trend with them, as several of their most famous songs - "You Enjoy Myself", "Run Like An Antelope" and "Weekapaug Groove" especially - are around 10 minutes long but have only one or two lines.
• Nine Inch Nails has two on The Downward Spiral: "Big Man With A Gun" and the Title Track.
• Harry and the Potters' "This Book Is So Awesome" is something like 28 seconds long.
• This is one of the reasons why San Pedro band the Minutemen had that name.
• "Tautou", the first track on Brand New's album Deja Entendu. The lyrics are "I'm sinking like a stone in the sea/I'm burning like a bridge for your body"
• The Pixies' "Stormy Weather" from Bossanova. "It is time, oh oh, it is time for stormy weather." Over and over. Not even a stanza, just a line.
  • From the same album there's "Ana", which does have a whole stanza - it's one six line verse repeated a few times:
    She's my fave
    Undressing in the sun
    Return to sea - bye
    Forgetting everyone
    Eleven high
    Ride a wave
  • The reason for this is that it's an acrostic - If you put the first letter of every line together, it spells "surfer".
• "Little Tiny Song" by Barenaked Ladies/The Brothers Creeggan:
  Hey, I'm a cow, I'm curious
  Hey watch me now, I'm furious
  Hey, I'm a cow, I'm full of hate
  Hey watch me now, I'm on your plate
• "New Day Rising" by Hüsker Dü repeats its title all throughout the song, in various styles, shouting being the most prominent. "If I Told You" is also an example.
• "Cigarette" by Ben Folds Five.
• "Skeleton's Lullaby", a bonus track on Ludo's album Prepare The Preparations.
• "Nature Anthem" by Grandaddy.
• "There She Goes" by The La's.
• "Tender Lumplings" on Oingo Boingo's final studio album:
  O listen, tender lumplings, let me take your little hand
  I'll take you from this hell-hole to the promised land
  But don't blame me, O children, if those promises don't keep
  'Cuz promises, like lives, can be bought so very cheap
• Feeder have two: "20th Century Trip" from Polythene (1997) and the inter-track "Space" from Silent Cry (2008):
  Fading like someone who's given up on life
  You've gotta know, know how that feels
  People will always change, never stay the same
  We've got to believe, we've got to believe
• "Woods" by Bon Iver is the same four lines repeated with increasing levels of orchestration.
  I'm lost in the woods
  I'm down on my mind
  I'm building a still
  To slow down time
• "A Lady" by Tally Hall. Most of the song is an arrangement of gentle, harp-like piano notes and "aahs" aside from these lyrics:
  I know a lady
  Good and evil
  Showed me that I was a gentleman
  Wait for the girl to blossom into
  Colors that grow where you can
• "#1 Hit Jam" by Brian Jonestown Massacre is a five minute song where the only lyrical content is "Hey, you".

Avant-garde

• Buckethead's three/four-line, 26-second song, "Taxidermy Tots". The lyrics go "Mom says I'm the best at playin' with taxidermy / That's why I'm gonna taxidermy you / Shouldn't have said those mean things to me last night / (cough cough) WHHHHAAAUUGGGHHHH"
• The Residents did a whole album of songs (about three dozen of them) that were one verse and one chorus long, all of which came in at one minute or less. They promoted it by buying time on a local Top 40 station and having the entire album played as advertisements.
• Yoko Ono's "Don't Worry, Yoko (Mummy's Only Looking For A Hand In The Snow)" is just "Don't worry" repeated over and over.

Blues-Rock

• Both of Blind Faith's hits, "Can't Find My Way Home" and "In The Presence of the Lord", consist of a single verse repeated three times with a solo between the second and third iteration.
• "People Are Strange" by The Doors is the same verse and chorus repeated three times.

Christian Rock

• Relient K's "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care". The full lyrics are: "I just wasted ten seconds of your life."

Classical

• Every movement of J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor is a Single Stanza Song because each movement is taken from a section of the Lutheran Mass. Such sections are made up of short phrases, such as "Kyrie eleison" (Lord have mercy).

Comedy / Parody

• "Harvey The Wonder Hamster" by "Weird Al" Yankovic.
  • Subverted in Weird Al's "This Song's Just Six Words Long," a parody of George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set On You." Harrison's song nearly fits this trope itself; Weird Al's version is not only longer than six words, but none of the stanzas repeat.
• Sandra Boynton, children's writer, created "The Shortest Song in the Universe".
  The shortest song in the universe
  Really isn't much fun
  
  It only has one puny verse
  ... and then it's done!
• "This Song Is Boring" by Darryl Rhoades and the Hahavishnu Orchestra.
• Brazilian singer Falcão had "Ai Minha Mãe", a maternal homage whose entire lyrics are, translated:
  Ah my mother, my mother
  Ah my mother, my mother
  Ah my mother, my mother
  It's my father's wife
• "The Day the Bass Players Took Over the World" by Trout Fishing in America

Country

• The title and lyrics of Kenny Price's "This Is the Shortest Song in the World" by Kenny Price are identical, nor are the lyrics repeated.
• Roger Miller's "Husbands and Wives" is almost an example, as it consists of the same verse twice, but the first time around, he adds "A woman and a man, a man and a woman / Some can, some can't, and some can." Brooks & Dunn's cover plays it straight, since it does that line both times.
• George Strait's "Heartland" and "I Know She Still Loves Me" are both only one stanza, although the former does repeat a couple lines.
• Many songs by Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers are this, as codified by their Signature Song "All the Gold in California".

Dance

• "Don't Let the Man" by Fatboy Slim:
  ...and the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"...
  • The line is said twenty times in roughly four minutes.
  • And pretty much any other lyrical song by him. "Right about now, the funk soul brother / Check it out now, the funk soul brother"
• Ondina's "Summer of Love" has four repeating lines of Euro-reggae toasting during its intro, a single eight-line verse stanza, the second half of which is repeated, and a Title-Only Chorus.

Dance-Punk

• "HEY! HO! USE YOUR FLIPPERS TO GET DOWN!" - the entirety of the lyrics from Art vs. Science's "Flippers".

Dark Cabaret

• "672" by the Dresden Dolls: "Six-hundred-seventy-two (repeat 3 times) OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH / Some day they'll find about you too..." And no, Amanda Palmer never explains what the hell that's supposed to mean.

Disco

• The Silver Convention had songs that had only six different words:
  • "Fly Robin Fly":
    Fly, robin, fly
    Fly, robin, fly
    Fly, robin, fly
    Up, up to the sky!
  • "Get Up And Boogie":
    That's right!
    Get up and boogie!
    Get up and boogie!
    (instrumental line)
    (more instrumental, then) That's right!
    
    (instrumental, then) Boogie!
    (instrumental, then) Boogie!
    (two more instrumental lines and then) That's right!
    (etc. etc. etc.)

Electronic / Techno

• The Prodigy:
  • "Smack My Bitch Up" consists of the eponymous lyrics over the same short techno loop about a zillion times.
  • "Breathe" just has the one verse as well.
• "Poor Leno" by Röyksopp contains only a few repeated lines sung by Erlend Øye, one of the members of Kings Of Convenience.
• The Daft Punk song "Around the World", as recited in this Diesel Sweeties strip.
  • "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" is pretty much just various permutations of:
    Work it harder, make it better
    Do it faster, makes us stronger
    more than ever, Hour after
    Our work is never over
• "Old Piano" by Frou Frou:
  What's that you're saying there? Oh well,
  Rain rushing windowpane, oh well,
  Not sure what space I'm in, oh well,
  But I'm safe inside me here, oh well... oh well... oh well...
• "Five Ways To Run" by The Crystalline Effect:
  You can watch in silence, the world go by
  You can feel the sadness that makes you cry
  You can take action for what is right
  You can inspire
• The lyrics of Eric Prydz's "Call on Me" consist entirely of a looped lyric sampled up from Steve Winwood's "Valerie".
• Covenant has many, such as "Shelter", "Flux", "One World, One Sky", "The Men", "Kairos", et al.
• "Going Nowhere" by Cut Copy:
  I can't think straight
  Help me now before it's too late
  Now what do I care?
  'Cause we're going nowhere...
  

Experimental Rock

• "European Son" by The Velvet Underground has two very short stanzas before launching into a ten minute jam.

Folk

• "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes is one verse repeated three times.
• A Hawk and a Hacksaw: "Laughter in the Dark"'s only lyrics are "Mean what you say, and say what you...". "For Slavoj"'s only lyrics are "I love you", repeated several times.
• "The Michael Jordan of Drunk Driving" by Andrew Jackson Jihad is just over 20 seconds and consists of four lines
• Al Stewarts "A Small Fruit Song" starts with one and a half minutes of fairly complex guitar playing before he starts singing, making one think that it gets to be a fairly long track if the intro is that long already. It abruply stops after only a single verse 20 seconds later.

Funk

• Parliament had some songs like this. For example, "Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication" only has two lines:
  Give the people what they want, when they want, and they wants it all the time
  Give the people what they need, when they need, and the need is yours and mine
  
  Throwdown
  Make me do the throwdown
  • Sometimes this would overlap with Spoken Word in Music; songs would only have a chorus, but someone would be speaking between each chorus.

Grindcore

• "YOUSUFFERBUTWHY?"

Grunge

• "Stain" by Nirvana:
  Well he never bleeds and he never fucks
  And he never leaves 'cause he's got bad luck.
  Well he never reads and he never draws.
  And he never sleeps 'cause he's got bad luck, yeah
  I'm a stain, I'm a stain, I'm a stain, I'm a stain
  • As well as "School."
    Verse: Won't you believe it, It's just my luck
    Chorus: No recess
    Bridge: You're in high school again
    Repeat as necessary

Hard Rock

• Bang Camaro pretty much is this trope

Hardcore Punk

• "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys. One verse and one chorus repeated.

Heavy Metal

• "Power Of The Power Of The Power (Of The Great Sword)" by NanowaR.

Hip Hop

• On Eric B. and Rakim's breakthrough hit "Paid in Full" Rak's rap is a single 24-line stanza with no chorus or break.
• Lindsey Stirling's "Stars Align" is mostly instrumental, but has some vocals in the form of da-ing followed by "when the stars align". This is repeated a couple times without changes.
• "You A Stupid Hoe" by Nicki Minaj. This is all she says, ad nauseam.

Hymns

• The Christian Doxology (Only four lines long).
• Several modern worship songs fit this bill.
  • "Shout to the Lord." One verse plus one chorus. Repeat as desired.
  • "Shout to the Lord" is practically a novel compared to some of the songs of the Taizé Community. Check out "Jesus Remember Me" on this page, for example. As meditation music, they're supposed to be repetitive and somewhat hypnotic to focus the worshipper on prayer.
• "Down to the River to Pray" is a weird example of this, it's almost like a single multiple choice stanza song. The words are
  As I went down in the river to pray
  Studying about that good ol' way
  And who shall wear the starry crown/robe and crown?
  Good Lord show me the way!
  O sisters/brothers/fathers/mothers/sinners let's go down
  Let's go down, come on down
  O sisters/brothers/fathers/mothers/sinners let's go down
  Down in the river to pray

National Anthems

• The anthems of Japan, San Marino and Jordan each have four lines. They are the world's shortest.
• The national anthem of Germany is the third/last stanza of the 1841 poem "Das Lied der Deutschen" (also known as "Deutschlandlied"), whose three stanzas have been used in various constellations as national anthem since 1922.
• The Israeli national anthem is actually just a single sentence, and then another for the refrain, even though it runs about the typical length for an anthem. However, it also borders on Second Verse Curse, because the words are actually taken out of a ten stanza song.

New Age

• The winning song of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1995 was Norway's entry, Nocturne performed by Secret Garden. The song consisted of just 24 words.

New Wave

• Ladytron's "Seventeen". They only want you when you're seventeen, when you're twenty-one, you're no fun. They take a Polaroid and let you go, say they'll let you know, so come on.
  • Ladytron tends to repeat lyrics in nearly all of their songs, but it's most noticeable in "Seventeen".
• The title of The Police song "Voices Inside my Head" already forms half of the entire lyrics, the other half being "...echo things that you said."

Pop

• Herbie Hancock's "Rockit":
  Don't stop it
  Rock it
  Don't stop it
• Herman's Hermits' "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am" — also a Looped Lyrics song.
  Second verse, same as the first!
• "Night Boat to Cairo" by Madness has only one verse; the rest of the lyrics are just random interjections of the title and "All aboard!".
• Tears for Fears: "Tears Roll Down" (the B-Side of "Sowing the Seeds of Love") is mostly instrumental, but it does contain one stanza, and half of the verses is "Where tears roll down" repeated four times. ^note These lyrics would later be converted into a chorus for the single "Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down)".
  Into that void of silence
  Where we cry without sound
  Where tears roll down
  Where tears roll down
  And when your mother's violence
  Sent your soul underground
  Where tears roll down
  Where tears roll down

Post-Metal

• Most songs by the post-metal band Isis, despite being upwards of 8 minutes long in some cases, often have one verse, sang one time somewhere in the middle of the song.

Post-Punk

• The closing track on Lifter Puller's first self-titled LP, "Mono", has only one stanza before entering a progressively louder and louder noise-rock section.
  "We were talkin' on the hall phone
  You said your boyfriend finally scored
  Now I've got something they call mononeucleosis
  But Ill stay up if you wanna talk some more."

Power Metal

• Several of the songs on Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle-Earth. One of them, "Nom the Wise" consists of just the spoken lines: "Thus he died, Nom the Wise. Lord of the Caves and Friend of Man. Fair and noble, most beloved of the Noldor race. He paid the price, he redeemed the Oath. Farewell, my friend, farewell." Another one consists of the single sung line: "A dark seed of evil is grown."

Power Pop

• Fountains of Wayne's "Yours and Mine".

Progressive Rock

• The lyrics to the 2nd movement of "I've Seen All Good People" by Yes are simply one line repeated several times.
  • "White Car" from Drama has just four lines in it.
• Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy" consists of one verse repeated three times.
• The single version of "Eve of the War" from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds has just an Epic Instrumental Opener and one verse:
  The chances of anything coming from Mars
  Are a million to one, he said
  The chances of anything coming from Mars
  Are a million to one, but still they come!
  • Downplayed in the album version, which does still have only one sung verse, but features Richard Burton's spoken narration as well. And averted altogether by the 1989 hit remix, which has the narration but not the singing.
• The first song from Kansas' first album, "Can I Tell You", is an eight-line stanza repeated twice, then a third time after a frantic instrumental break. "Magnum Opus" also has a single stanza, only sung once, although the piece is a suite of short, unfinished pieces.

Punk Rock

• The Living End's 34-second song "Ready" features the lyrics:
  Well if she's not that kind to you,
  Don't ya think we're through buddy?
  But is she the kind that you would buy the spirits
  Before you're ready, ready, ready
• The Ramones:
  I don't wanna walk around with you
  I don't wanna walk around with you
  I don't wanna walk around with you
  So why you wanna walk around with me?
  I don't wanna walk around with you!
  I don't wanna walk around with you!
  • "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue":
    Now I wanna sniff some glue
    Now I wanna have somethin' to do
    All the kids wanna sniff some glue
    All the kids want somethin' to do
  • "It's A Long Way Back":
    You all alone
    You by the phone
    It's a long way back to Germany
    It's a long way back to Germany
  • "I Wanna Be Sedated":
    Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
    Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-oh I wanna be sedated
    Just get me to the airport put me on a plane
    Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
    I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
    Oh no no no no no
• Flipper's "Sex Bomb" - the only lyric printed in their album liner notes is "She's a sex bomb, my baby, yeah", and the vocals consist of variations on this one line, along with a few shouts of "Whoa!" or "yeah!" and a lot of horrifying screaming. For about eight minutes.
• Rocket From The Tombs' "Frustration" takes this to the extreme - the only lyric in the song is David Thomas yowling the title a few times.

Rock

• "Summer's Day Song" from McCartney II.
• The Beatles:
  • "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" consists of the same six-line verse sung three times. All six lines are simply the song's title except for the fifth line, which is "No one will be watching us." A few tracks earlier in The White Album there's the even worse of "Wild Honey Pie", where the only lyrics are "Honey Pie!" (aside from a stray "I love you")
  • "Can You Take Me Back", the hidden song that immediately proceeds "Revolution 9" on the White Album.
  • "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" uses three different arrangements using the vocals then follows with a jazzy piano arrangement with the sounds of harmuphing and coughing.
  • "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" from Abbey Road has a single verse ("I want you / I want you so bad / I want you so bad it's driving me mad, it's driving me mad", repeat) played three times (the second time as an instrumental) alternating with the chorus, which consists solely of the words "She's so heavy".
  • The Abbey Road closer "Her Majesty" consists of a single verse and only lasts 23 seconds.
    Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl but she doesn't have a lot to say
    Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl but she changes from day to day
    I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine
    Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl, some day I'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah
    Some day I'm gonna make her mine
• Sparks' "There's No Such Thing as Aliens". The lyrics consist mostly of the title, with two nearly identical stanzas in between.
• David Bowie's "Eight Line Poem" is... Well, an eight line poem.
  • "Lightning Frightening", an outtake from 1971, is another example. One line repeated twice, chorus, lengthy instrumental part, repeat.
• "Guide Vocal" by Genesis, off their somewhat lackluster Duke album, is just over a minute long, and is one of the nastiest breakup songs ever (with the exception of the outright Ax-Crazy "Vow" by Garbage).
• Peter Gabriel recorded several single stanza songs over his solo career.
  • The entirety of the lyrics of "Fourteen Black Paintings" from Us are as follows:
    from the pain comes the dream
    from the dream comes the vision
    from the vision come the people
    from the people come the power
    from this power comes the change.
  • "Lead A Normal Life", from his third Self-Titled Album (aka Melt), is a single verse of lyrics sandwiched between a lengthy instrumental intro and outro:
    It's nice here with a view of the trees
    Eating with a spoon?
    They don't give you knives?
    'Spect you watch those trees
    Blowing in the breeze
    We want to see you lead a normal life
  • "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)", from So:
    We do what we're told
    We do what we're told
    We do what we're told,
    Told to do.
    We do what we're told
    We do what we're told
    We do what we're told,
    Told to do.
    One doubt
    One voice
    One war
    One truth
    One dream
• The ''only'' lyrics of Roky Erickson's "I walked with a zombie" are "I walked with a zombie last night" - that's verse, chorus, everything. Unless you count the backing vocals ("He walked with a zombie").
• "Passive Manipulation" by The White Stripes is Meg singing the following verse, looped for thirty seconds:
  Women, listen to your mothers
  Don't just succumb to the wishes of your brothers
  Take a step back, take a look at one another
  You need to know the difference between a father and a lover
• Bob Dylan's "All The Tired Horses" consists of the chorus girls singing the lines "All the tired horses in the sun/How'm I supposed to get any ridin' done?/Hmmm." This hasn't stopped dylanologists from examining and interpreting them at length.
• "Colour My World" by Chicago starts with a piano solo and ends with a flute solo, and has this verse in the middle:
  As time goes on, I realize
  Just what you mean to me
  And now, now that you're near
  Promise your love that I've waited to share
  And dreams of our moments together
  Colour my world with hope of loving you
  • Reportedly, Frank Sinatra expressed interest in covering the song, on the condition that composer James Pankow write a second verse. Pankow respectfully declined.
• "T-Bone" by Neil Young has 2 lines and various permutations of it:
  Got Mashed Potato
  Ain't Got No T-Bone
  • Even the lyric book itself tells you to repeat the line in order to save space.
• Steely Dan's "The Fez" has one stanza repeated three times:
  No, I ain't gonna do it without my fez on, oh no
  Don't make me do it without my fez on, oh no
  That's what I am
  Please understand
  I wanna be your holy man
• Frank Zappa's "Willie The Pimp" consists of one stanza, followed by a nine-minute jam.
• Billy Joel's "Souvenir" is one stanza with a short piano motif on either end.
• The Radiators (US) have the under-one-minute title track from their album Law of the Fish:
  Big ones eat the little ones;
  Little ones got to be fast.
  That's the law of the fish, now, baby�
  You got to move-uh your ass.
• Lenny Kravitz has a song on his first album called "Freedom Train" that goes like this:
  It's on the freedom train
  Come on and dance on the freedom train
  It's on the freedom train
  Come on and dance on the freedom train
  It's on the freedom train, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
  Come on and dance on the freedom train

Rock and Roll

• "Naked, If I Want To" by Moby Grape. Four lines (in an ABCB rhyme scheme), 51 seconds long.
• "Hey" by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band ("I knew we had/to say goodbye/when I felt that warmth/against my thigh.... HEY! is that you pissing on my leg?")
• "Runaway" by Del Shannon is one of the most awesome old time rock'n'roll songs ever, being the obvious genesis of hard rock (particularly punk). It also has a second verse consisting entirely of an organ solo with no words whatsoever.
• The Rock-a-Teens "Woo Hoo", famously covered by Japanese all-girl band The 5.6.7.8's in Kill Bill Volume 1. It goes only "woo-hoo, woo-hoo-hoo" over and over and over.

Stoner Metal

• "Lick Doo", the hidden track on Kyuss's Welcome to Sky Valley.

Thrash

• S.O.D. has "The Ballad of Jimi Hendrix", consisting of a few seconds of the intro to Purple Haze followed by the words "You're dead".

Traditional

• "Happy Birthday to You!" might be an example, unless the "How old are you now?" part counts, in which case it's Second Verse Curse instead.
  • The Portuguese version averts this. It's a full-fledged poem with four quatrains, although people usually only sing the first two - yet it's not uncommon in Portugal to sing the third one after the clapping.
• This is the song that doesn't end/ Yes, it goes on and on, my friend
• An old perverted Brazilian song: "coelhinho, se eu fosse como tu, tirava a mão do bolso e enfiava a mão no... coelhinho, se eu fosse como tu..." (translation with an added word to make sense: "bunny rabbit, if I were you sass, I'd take the hand off the pocket and into the...")
• Parodied by Neil Innes's "Short Blues", which abruptly ends after one line of lyrics.

Zydeco

• Rockin Sidney's "My Toot-Toot" consists of one verse sung three times.

Uncategorized

• I Love Beijing Tiananmen is a strange example. the lyrics stay the same but the tune changes.

Examples from other media:

Film

• "Our State Fair" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's State Fair has a four-line refrain and no verse, not even an unused one.
• The song "I Am Sad, So Very, Very Sad" by Crash and the Boys in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World consists of only the words "Soooooo sad!". The song only lasts about five seconds. In the graphic novels, it's said to last less than one.
• Here's to you, originally written by Ennio Morricone for the movie Sacco e Vanzetti, and later featured in the game Metal Gear Solid 4.
  Here's to you, Nicola and Bart
  Rest forever here in our hearts
  The last and final moment is yours
  That agony is your triumph

Opera / Theatre

• The musical Wicked has one when the students sing about Dear Old Shiz.
• The musical She Loves Me has the very brief recurring chorus "Thank You, Madam".
• In Allegro, the Greek Chorus's recurring song "Poor Joe" is only 8 bars long.
• "Day By Day" from Godspell has only about six lines of lyrics. "Prepare Ye" has only a single line.
  • Much of Godspell is like this. The finale consists of 9 lines of lyrics, and "All for the Best" is two characters singing one stanza each on top of each other repeatedly.
• "I'm Like The Bluebird" from Anyone Can Whistle is a Two Stanza Song. The stanzas are four lines long and nearly identical.
• The title song of The Pajama Game.
• "Wintergreen for President" from Of Thee I Sing has two lines of lyrics, not counting repetitions of the title or wordless snatches of other campaign songs:
  He's the man the people choose;
  Loves the Irish and the Jews.

Video Games

• The lyrics to the beatmania IIDX song "thunder" are composed of two whole sentences (albeit stretched out over eight measures each), both of which are identical save for two words, and are repeated twice in the 2 1/4-minute game version and even more in the extended 5:43 version:
  I'm drifting through the mists of love to find out where my heart belongs
  I'm drifting through the mists of love to find the place my heart belongs
• The credits song for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has only one verse and one chorus.

Web Original

• "A Bug Fell In Love With A Cat" by Songs to Wear Pants To. In fact the title is the lyrics in their entirety. There's also "Don't Feel Bad", where the lyrics consist of the single line "Don't feel bad, it's better than being shot in the face".
• "Red Like Roses", the Red theme from RWBY has just one verse; the rest is instrumental.
  Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest
  White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test
  Black the beast descends from shadows
  Yellow beauty burns gold
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has "Bad Horse (Reprise)" which runs for a few seconds of suddenly-appearing singing cowboys:
  He saw the operation you tried to pull today,
  But your humiliation means he still votes "nay"!
  And now assassination is just the only way.
  There will be blood, it might be yours,
  So go kill someone!
  (Signed, Bad Horse)

Western Animation

• The credits theme to The Raccoons, "Run with Us", was this at first, but was later turned into a full-length song.
• Many, if not all of Jem and the Holograms' songs (and the ones by The Misfits, and The Stingers for that matter).
• The first song at the beginning of The Rescuers, "The Journey", is mostly instrumental but with one stanza.
  Who will rescue me?
  I'm lost at sea without a friend.
  This journey, will it ever end?
  Who will rescue me?
• The extended version of the theme from Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers consists of the same verse and chorus repeated twice.

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