Department of Redundancy Department/Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

I bring death and destruction
 to all that I now kill!

Then we drive to the drive-thru!
 Heading off to the drive-thru!
We're approaching the drive-thru!
Getting close to the drive-thru!
Almost there at the drive-thru!
Now we're here at the drive thru!
Here in line at the drive-thru!
Did I mention the drive-thru?

He walks up to the closet
 He goes up to the closet
Now he's at the closet
Damn, he's opening the closet...

"Tonight,
I'm gonna rock you tonight!"

  • I love college, I love drinking, I love women, and I love college.
    • Which is Asher Roth's "I Love College".
  • Willy DeVille's Storybook Love for The Princess Bride.

My love is like a storybook story.
But it's as real as the feelings I feel.
My love is like a storybook story.
But it's as real as the feelings I feel;
it's as real as the feelings I feel.

It's dollars to doughnuts that our State Fair
 Is the best State Fair in our state!

    • While intended to be humorous, this is partially justified in that some states did in fact hold multiple regional "state fairs" in different regions within the state.
  • Several Nirvana songs. Aneurysm is a good example.
  • "The Future Soon" by Jonathan Coulton has the line:

I'll probably be some kind of scientist
 Building inventions in my space lab in space

Vankar: Son...you are a betrayer...you have betrayed me!

  • The Baka Song. Its lyrics consist solely of the word "baka" (idiot in english) being repeated over and over again.
    • Not true. It also contains specific descriptions of the ways in which Ranma (the subject of the song) is an idiot, as well as some other lyrics. Most of them refer to him as being an idiot.
  • Iron Maiden's Mother of Mercy. "I'll die a lonely death, of that I'm certain of."
  • "The Drugs Song" by Amateur Transplants is a List Song which pays homage to Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" with drugs in place of elements. Many of the drugs are listed twice, either by their proprietary name and generic name, their slang name (amphetamine and speed) or, in the case of lithium, simply by the same word on two occasions.
  • Any Other World by Mika has "I tried to live alone, but lonely is so lonely alone."
  • "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson features the line "They're American planes, made in America".
    • However, if you encounter an American Fokker, it will be an American (owned) plane made in the Netherlands."
  • An example is in the Elton John song "Love Lies Bleeding" by Elton John which contains the lines:

I wonder if those changes have left a scar on you
Like all the burning hoops of fire that you and I passed through

    • Well, a burning ring can burn from having eaten a good bunch of jalapeno peppers the night before; it's not actually on fire, so the redundancy isn't. Maybe he had something like that in mind, but remembered in time that that line was already taken.
    • It should be noted that this is arguably an homage to Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," itself an eminently worthy example of this trope. Many have joked that it would make a perfect Preparation H commercial.

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire
The ring of fire

  • No Air by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown has this.

So how, do you expect me, to live alone with just me?

Oh! The good old hockey game,
Is the best game you can name;
And the best game you can name,
Is the good old Hockey game!

  • Rock songs about the road are pretty redundant, and Tenacious D's song 'The Road' exaggerates this for humorous effect:

The road is f***in' hard,
It's also really f***in' tough,
There's no question that,
It don't take no guff...

No hope for the hopeless

  • Queensrÿche: "It just started to hit me like a two-ton... heavy thing."
  • Erasure's "Always" opens with: "Open your eyes I see, your eyes are open."
  • Kid Cudi: "The lonely loner seems to free his mind at night..." Not technically redundant as being alone doesn't mean being lonely and vice versa, but it still sounds a little redundant when you listen to it.
    • Makes more sense in the original version, in which a lonely stoner frees his mind at night.
  • "Blackbirds" by Linkin Park: "I'm alone, on my own..."
  • Rick Astley hated doing music videos because "they're too repetitive" and "tend to repeat themselves." See the source here.
  • "Disarm" by The Smashing Pumpkins: "What I choose is my choice."
  • "Small Town" by John Cougar Mellencamp: "I cannot forget from where it is that I come from."
  • "Body and Soul" by The Manhattan Transfer: "That melodic melody."
  • Coheed and Cambria and "Apollo I: The Writing Writer".
  • "Not Afraid" by Eminem: "I'ma be what I set out to be, without a doubt undoubtedly!"
  • "World's Greatest Mom in the World" by Parry Gripp.
  • In Supersonik Elektronik there's "Above us, there is nothing above, but the stars...above!"
  • Eenie Meenie by Sean Kingston and Justin Beiber features the line "She's indecisive, she can't decide"
  • Tim Minchin's "Good Book": "the good book is a book, and it is good, and it's a book."
  • Kerry Livgren's "The Traveler" opens with "I began at the beginning..." and a later verse begins with "Now I have seen the far horizon, at the edge of what is known."
  • "Free Will" by Rush: "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice."
  • Mitch Benn's List Song of everything that's awesome about The BBC has the "I Like X" variant (and he really does):

You And Me, Me And You,
Monty Python, Doctor Who!

    • Then later:

Nationwide, Mr. Men,
Doctor Who again,
Radio 1, Radio 2,
Did I mention Doctor Who?

  • Drake's "Forever" contains the verse "lil Wayne, that's what they gotta say or mention"
  • King Crimson in "Indiscipline" sorta subverts this: "I repeat myself when under stress; I repeat myself when under stress; I repeat myself when under stress . . ."
  • Not unlike Talking Heads in "Once in a Lifetime": "Same as it ever was; same as it ever was; same as it ever was; same as it ever was."
  • "If you didn't know that, well baby, now you know now."
  • "Only time will tell if we stand the test of time."
  • The first verse of "Meet James Ensor" by They Might Be Giants mentions "He lived with his mother / and the torments of Christ". The second verse remarks "He lived with his mother / and repeated himself".
    • "Older" has the lyrics "Time... is marching on / And time... is still marching on"
  • Lady Gaga's "Born this way" music video has this:

Thus began the beginning of the new race.

"We've got cymbals
'Cause we've got a band
We've got cymbals in the band

Faster than a bullet
Terrifying scream
Enraged and full of anger
He's half man and half machine

In this ever-changing world
In which we live in

  • George Thorogood and the Destroyers:

I drink alone
With nobody else
And you know when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself.

  • U2's "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of". Just the song title itself.
  • Everclear's "I Will Buy You A New Life":

I will buy you a new car
Perfect shiny and new

  • Chicago's "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?":

A man came up to me and asked me
What the time was that was on my watch

  • America's "A Horse With No Name":

The heat was hot

I got a letterman's sweater
With a letter in front

I'm dirty, mean and mighty unclean

But you knifed me in my dirty filthy basement

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