Repetune - The Songs of our Heads

Daft Punk - Da Funk

Writing by richard on Sunday, 7 of October , 2007 at 8:11 pm

I was hesitant to orginally write about this track, but decided it had to be discussed because this song is not only a repetune, but repetitive.  And though one tends to call repetition annoying in music, in dance music it is commonplace, and in electronic music, it is practically definition.

For 5:28, the same basic riff repeats over and over. It begins what sounds walking through a mall, then it plays the generic riff twice. But it does not sound as clear as you would expect, it is as if a continuation of the walking through the mall, only now you are walking by an Ambercrombie and Fitch where they are playing this song. Immediately after, you get hit with a bassline which reminds me of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. Then what follows sounds like a sample from the eternally sampled Apache by Michael Viner and the Incredible Bongo Band. But, I may be mistaken.

Then a bassline that makes me want to sing Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust starts, then the riff begins again. And after every loop of the riff, it sounds like they add one extra layer after another until they have the full riff. They then begin to dismantle it and put it back together.

I think back to myself in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s playing on the electronic keyboards in stores. I would hit the Demonstration button then begin to change the sounds. It was undoubtedly the same demonstration, but in my hands, the sounds changed. In the original demonstration, it would be a piano, but in my rendition it would now be a banjo. In a similar fashion, Daft Punk throw on scratchy noise.

Over and over, Daft Punk push Humpty Dumpty off the wall and manage to put him back together again. It is said repetition makes things permanent, and it would be easy to say this song is permanently in my head. But, I think it would be a mild understatement. This song is part of the soundtrack that plays in my head as I go about my day. Walking around with my head held high and feeling like king of the world, Da Funk plays. I dismantle the world around me and put it back together. If Live Forever makes me think the world is my bitch, Da Funk makes me feel I’m a god.

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Category: Daft Punk

What is a repetune?

It has happened to us all. For any reason, and sometimes for no reason at all, some obscure song we have heard but try to avoid manages to sneak itself into our head. It does nothing but repeat in our head over and over until one day, we realize it is gone. Then it only comes back again. These are those songs. These are repetunes.