Four More Measures

You hear a song coming on the radio. You know the song. You love the song. It's one of your favorites. You're all ready to belt out the start of the song but... the intro keeps playing. Cue embarrassment. You should have waited Four More Measures.

The bane of karaoke singers everywhere, Four More Measures is a music trope relating to songs that trick people into thinking they are about to launch before they do, causing hilarity for everyone in the vicinity.


 * James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". Especially notable as the singer himself screws it up in the version released to the public. The "Weird Al" Yankovic parody lampshades this fact.
 * Journey's "Don't Stop Believing"
 * Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock And Roll"... remember, the piano goes twice.
 * Similarly, Jethro Tull's "Aqualung"; the opening riff is played twice, but for some reason, mp3s tend to cut off the first one.
 * Green Day's "Good Riddance". It's not helped by the two false starts on guitar at the beginning either.
 * Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine". It takes Jimmy Page a couple tries to get the tempo right.
 * The Kingsmen's, "Louie Louie". "See.... (drums here) See Jamaica, the moon above." This is a slightly justified example, as the band had believed they were merely doing a rehearsal of the song.
 * Inverted in the single release of the Monty Python Lumberjack song. The music attempts to transition from the epic listing of trees to the actual singing portion, but when the singer keeps listing, it goes back to its epic tones, almost as if it were ashamed.
 * When recording "Creep", Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood came in too early before the chorus (some sources say this was intentional and that he wanted to ruin the song). However, the rest of the band liked it and decided to Throw It In.
 * Pink Floyd's "Time", noted for its overly long intro section.
 * The Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties."
 * Oasis' "Wonderwall" - man, that intro goes on FOREVER...
 * Metallica's "Creeping Death", just before the "die" section - it seems just a tad too long.
 * The into to "Orion" also is subject to this.
 * The Who's Baba O'Riley (aka Teenage Wasteland).
 * MGMT's "Electric Feel" sure does take its time.
 * Happens a multitude of times in the song "Everything Else" by the group of the same name. l
 * This can be heard during Daft Punk's Alive 2007 Live Album. Twice. The first time during "One More Time/Aerodynamic", in which the intro from "One More Time" was extended an extra bar causing hilarity when members of the crowd were heard trying to sing along, and again during "Superheroes/Human After All/Rock'n Roll", in which if you listen very closely, you can hear some audience members singing along too soon.