Songs That Say Their Title Too Many Times

In case you missed the name of the song, here it is again.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A dandelion blowing apart in the wind over a suburban backyard, a toy keyboard and three bikes lying in the grass.

    10. MMMBop

    Hanson · 1997

    Three brothers, the youngest about 11, No. 1 in at least 12 countries, two Grammy nominations. Under the nonsense it is a song about how fast things fade and what lasts. Then it says the title until the title is the thing that lasts.

  2. A glass candy jar overflowing with bright gumballs on a soda fountain counter, three spoons stuck in a sundae.

    09. Yummy Yummy Yummy

    Ohio Express · 1968

    Bubblegum by design: Joey Levine co-wrote it and sang lead, and it went to No. 4 in the US and No. 1 in Canada. Time put it on a 2011 list of songs with silly lyrics, and Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs ranked it second. Still a medal.

  3. A surfboard leaning against a beach shack with a small cartoonishly loud megaphone and a single feather on the sand.

    08. Surfin' Bird

    The Trashmen · 1963

    Two Rivingtons songs stapled together, with the bird is the word yelled until it sounds like a medical event. No. 4 in 1963. The Rivingtons threatened to sue and got the songwriting credit. Family Guy brought it back for a generation that had not asked.

  4. A deserted church pew with a hymnal open to a blank page, a car's crumpled hubcap on the floor and an empty school locker.

    07. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

    Crash Test Dummies · 1993

    Three verses about kids having a rough time, then a chorus that gives up on words altogether. No. 4 in the US, No. 1 in Australia and Germany, No. 14 at home in Canada. It shows up on worst-song lists and best one-hit-wonder lists. Both are fair.

  5. Wooden marionette controls with slack, cut strings lying on a stage floor under a blue spotlight.

    06. Bye Bye Bye

    NSYNC · 2000

    5ive turned it down, NSYNC aimed it at the manager they had just escaped, and the video put them on puppet strings. Deadpool & Wolverine revived it in 2024 and it passed a billion Spotify streams. Three byes in the title, plenty more in the song.

  6. A pair of hoop earrings on a dresser beside a phone glowing with unread messages, warm Caribbean-colored light through slatted blinds.

    05. Work

    Rihanna featuring Drake · 2016

    Nine weeks at No. 1, sung with syllables truncated somewhere past Patois. One critic said the hook's repetition gave it a built-in expiration date. NME and Pitchfork later put it among the decade's best songs. The expiration date has not arrived.

  7. A red lamp glowing in the window of a narrow Paris hotel at night, a piano keyboard in the foreground.

    04. Roxanne

    The Police · 1978

    Sting wrote it after seeing sex workers near the band's Paris hotel and took the name from a Cyrano de Bergerac poster. The laugh at the top is him sitting on a piano by accident. By the end it is her name, the red light, and her name again.

  8. A cluttered living room floor after a house party: bongos, an acoustic guitar, paper cups and an ashtray, a beach visible through the window.

    03. Barbara Ann

    The Beach Boys · 1965

    A 1961 Regents song turned into a fake-party singalong, with Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean on lead and no album credit. Capitol released it as a single without telling the band, and it hit No. 2. The verses exist mainly to get back to her name.

  9. A tiny toy keyboard and a cheap plastic microphone on a bare white table, a lone glass of mineral water beside them.

    02. Da Da Da

    Trio · 1982

    The full title is Da Da Da I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me Aha Aha Aha, which is most of the lyric. It was a hit in over 30 countries, sold about 13 million copies, and came back in a 1997 Volkswagen ad. Germany's minimalism peaked here.

  10. A small turntable on a spinning globe, the needle tracing a groove that loops around the equator under purple disco light.

    01. Around the World

    Daft Punk · 1997

    The title, 144 times in the album version and 80 in the radio edit, over a bassline doing most of the talking. A 2017 analysis of 15,000 Hot 100 songs found it the most repetitive of the lot. Michel Gondry directed the video. Nobody forgot the name.

Honorable mentions

  • A bottle of tequila, a lime wedge and a tenor saxophone on a jukebox top in a dim roadhouse bar.

    Tequila

    The Champs · 1958

    The opposite problem. Saxophonist Danny Flores says the title three times and that is the entire lyric. A B-side a Cleveland DJ flipped over, it hit No. 1 and won a Grammy at the first ceremony. Pee-wee Herman later danced to it in platform shoes.

Dishonorable mentions

  • An open backyard gate with three empty dog leashes hanging from it, a stadium scoreboard glowing in the distance.

    Who Let the Dogs Out

    Baha Men · 2000

    Anslem Douglas wrote it as a jab at men catcalling women; the Baha Men turned the question into a stadium chant on loop. It won a Grammy, then placed third in a 2007 Rolling Stone poll of the most annoying songs. Both honors were earned.

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