Here’s a list of musical artists who reached the finish line of their song, realized they were two minutes short of a radio-friendly length, and decided to just hit “copy-paste” until the producer turned the lights off.
Here is the “I Ran Out of Lyrics” Hall of Shame, focusing on the songs that run out the clock by repeating the same lines at the end.
Hall of Shame: “Running Out the Clock” Offenders
1. The Beatles – “Hey Jude”
The gold standard of musical filler. Paul McCartney essentially wrote a four-minute pop song and then decided the world needed another four minutes of “Na-na-na-na.” It’s an iconic chant that eventually becomes a psychological experiment in endurance. By the time it finally fades out, you’ve forgotten the song even had verses, and you’re fairly certain you’ve accidentally joined a cult.
2. Oasis – “All Around the World”
Oasis took the concept of “grandeur” and confused it with “refusing to stop.” Clocking in at over nine minutes, the final third of the song is just the band shouting the title over and over like a GPS that has suffered a catastrophic hardware failure. You don’t listen to this song; you survive it, emerging at the end three years older and deeply confused about what planet you’re on.
3. The Police – “Message in a Bottle”
Sting, buddy, we got the message. We called the rescue crews. We sent the boats. But no, you’re still there on that island, chanting “Sending out an SOS” for the 400th time. It’s less of a cry for help and more of a hostage situation where the listener is the one being held captive by a relentless bassline and Sting’s refusal to find a new rhyme.
4. The Police – “Roxanne”
As mentioned in your prompt, this is the textbook example. Sting spends the final minute of this track reminding Roxanne to “put on the red light” with the frantic energy of a man who’s late for a shift at a lighthouse. We get it. The light is red. Put it on. Please, for the love of all that is holy, just flip the switch so we can move on to the next track.
5. The Killers – “All These Things That I’ve Done”
Brandon Flowers really wants you to know he’s got soul, but he’s not a soldier. He wants you to know it so badly that he repeats it for two straight minutes. It starts off as a profound spiritual anthem and ends up sounding like a guy at a karaoke bar who’s forgotten every other lyric in his repertoire and is just leaning into the one line he knows for sure.
6. Journey – “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'”
This song is a classic, but the “Na na na” section at the end is the musical equivalent of a student trying to hit a word count by increasing the font size. It’s a catchy hook that quickly turns into a test of character—specifically, how many times can you hear the same three syllables before you “love, touch, and squeeze” the power button on your speakers?
7. Bill Withers – “Lovely Day”
Bill Withers is a legend, and that 18-second note is a feat of human lung capacity. However, he then spends the rest of the song repeating “lovely day” until the day is no longer lovely. It’s the sonic version of a morning person who won’t stop talking about how much they love the sunrise while you’re desperately trying to nurse a hangover in the dark.
8. John Lennon – “Give Peace a Chance”
Lennon’s heart was in the right place, but his lyric sheet was clearly empty for the second half of this session. It’s a beautiful sentiment, but by the tenth minute of the same chant, you start to feel like “giving peace a chance” is actually just a codeword for “I didn’t have time to write a bridge.”
9. Michael Jackson – “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'”
The “Ma-ma-se, ma-ma-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa” chant is legendary, but it also feels like MJ just found a cool phrase and decided to ride it into the sunset. It takes up a massive amount of the song’s ending, turning a high-energy dance track into a rhythmic mantra that eventually makes you wonder if you’ve accidentally looped the CD.
10. Kanye West – “Runaway”
Kanye spent five minutes building a masterpiece, then decided to spend the next four minutes doing a vocoder solo that sounds like a robot trying to cry underwater. It’s the ultimate “I’m not done with the track, so I’ll just gargle into the microphone for a while” move. It’s art, sure, but it’s also the longest “I’ll wrap this up in a second” in music history.
Honorable Mentions: The “One More Time” Club
- Fleetwood Mac – “The Chain”: (Repeats “Chain, keep us together” until the gears grind to a halt).
- The Verve – “Bitter Sweet Symphony”: (The string loop is great, but the vocal repetition at the end is a marathon).
- Justin Bieber – “Baby”: (By the end, you’re not sure if he’s singing to a girl or just stuck in a nursery rhyme loop).
- Eiffel 65 – “I’m Blue”: (The “Da ba dee” chorus is the whole song, and the end is just the final descent into blue madness).
- Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Give It Away”: (Anthony Kiedis shouting “Give it away now” until there’s literally nothing left to give).
- Tommy James & The Shondells – “Crimson and Clover”: (The “over and over” part is very literal).
- Prince – “Purple Rain”: (A beautiful ending, but let’s be honest, he really milks that vocal run for every second it’s worth).
- Nirvana – “All Apologies”: (The “All in all is all we are” loop is the definition of grunge-era clock-running).
- Pearl Jam – “Jeremy”: (Jeremy spoke in class today… yes, Eddie, we were there. We heard him).
- The Proclaimers – “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”: (The “Da lat da” section is the auditory equivalent of a long-distance walk you didn’t sign up for).
Since we’ve officially put the “repeat offenders” on blast, let’s wrap this up with the ultimate satirical resource. If you’re a songwriter who just hit the 3-minute mark and realize you’ve still got 60 seconds of dead air to fill before the radio edit is satisfied, this guide is for you.
The Professional Songwriter’s Guide to Hitting the 4-Minute Mark (Without Actually Writing New Lyrics)
So, you’ve written a verse about your breakup, a chorus that rhymes “fire” with “desire,” and a bridge that’s… okay. But your producer says the track is too short. Do you dig deep into your soul to find more poetic truth? Absolutely not. Follow these industry-standard “Time-Wasting Techniques” to run out the clock like a pro.
1. The “Broken Record” Outro
This is the “Roxanne” Maneuver. Simply take the last five words of your chorus and repeat them until the listener begins to question their own reality.
- Pro Tip: Increase the volume slightly every four bars to trick people into thinking the song is “building” toward something. It isn’t. You’re just going home.
2. The “Vowel Extension” Program
If you have a one-syllable word like “Yeah” or “No,” you can easily turn that into a 30-second odyssey. By the time you’ve sung “Yeeeaaah-heee-aaa-aaah-oh-woah,” you’ve successfully bypassed the need for an entire second verse.
3. The “Instructional Manual” Loop
When in doubt, tell the audience what to do.
- “Clap your hands.”
- “Everybody now.”
- “One more time.”By asking the audience to do “one more time” repeatedly, you are legally excused from providing any new content. It’s not laziness; it’s crowd participation.
4. The “Nonsense Syllable” Safety Net
If your brain is truly empty, look to the greats like The Beatles or Journey. “Na-na-na,” “Da-ba-dee,” and “La-la-la” are the duct tape of the music industry. They fit everywhere, they mean nothing, and they can be looped for an eternity.
5. The “Fade-Out” Fakeout
This is the ultimate coward’s exit. Instead of writing a proper ending, just have the band keep playing the chorus while the sound engineer slowly slides the volume fader down to zero. It implies that the song is still happening somewhere in the universe, and you just don’t have to listen to it anymore.
Reader Challenge
What songs would you add to this list?
You know the ones—the songs where by the end you feel like the singer got stuck in a verbal loop and nobody in the studio had the heart to stop them.