Songs that never start

I don't mean songs like eg "Cortez the Killer" or the live versions of "Purple Rain" that start late after a long instrumental intro. I mean songs that simply do not start, you wait for the beginning, you wait for the chorus or the outbreak but it does not come.

Example: This song by Kim Deal from the Breeders thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtcXD3cefuA

many GBV songs

I always think this one sounds like it's about to break into a full-throttle 6/8 groove and it never does, whole thing sounds like an intro. That's why I love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zokWB7De9Bk

this is a fun way to conceive of "Generation" by Liturgy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcrUuCDFLOQ ?

John Cage 4’33’’

Goldie - Truth
It's basically David Bowie singing over the pads that usually serve as prelude in a Goldie song.

Mademoiselle Mabry is a good example. Jazz in general seems to be like this quite often. That's one reason why I like it. The other one being the physical groove which classical music does not have.

Fleetwood Mac "World Turning"

I completely disagree about the KD example. Its an exercise in sustained tension - it reflects the subject matter expertly. I don't consider that it hasn't 'started' - although I can kind of see what you are getting at - I think its a fully resolved song - which uh, starts at the beginning and finishes at the end. It has slow build / climax and ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z77nkj4DrhY

Boredoms "Super You" first time i heard this record (Lo Yo-Yo in Athens) i was most impressed w the way it built tension and deflated it to great and comedic effect. the whole song starts off feeling like a big crashing end of a live song that could be from any random 20th century rock band's live show. like this is the last note of the song and the band is hyping up the end just hitting the same note over and over. but stuck doing that for 6 minutes!

the whole song is starting and rewinding and starting itself up again. it can be frustrating to listen to (my friends had a mixed reaction on the ride home esp. to the high pitched noise)! ah but the ending is so sweet, such a nice little jam to arrive at, a quick oasis for the ears. imo not really a start either. this song is unconcerned with carrying out one linear start. it's scribbling all outside of the lines.

the first 20 seconds of "Tea for One" by Led Zeppelin

'We will fall'

my friends had a mixed reaction on the ride home esp. to the high pitched noise

i once played this at work and someone came in to ask if there were workers outside my office window.

"At Seventeen" by Janis Ian. I keep waiting for the chorus to kick in but it never happens.

I completely disagree about the KD example. Its an exercise in sustained tension - it reflects the subject matter expertly.

"Sultanesque"

Springsteen's 'State Trooper' - the whooping just before the fadeout is a great bit of misdirection.

As someone who first heard the Kim Deal song in the OP at a recent show and was blown away by it (thus posting it on The Breeders thread), it reminded me in ways of "In The Mood" by Robert Plant which I bet fulfills much of the criteria in this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj5nH0O8lmg

I think we are talking about semantics here. An exercise in sustained tension is a good example of what I mean when I say that a song does not start. It is one way to withhold the "start", there are others. The song never fully blossoms, the listener waits for the petal to open but it does not. The tension stays there until the end.

I feel like this is TV On The Radio's entire MO.

Always wanted to write a song that was just an intro and an outro with no inbetween

Ain't it Funky Now by James Brown has a chorus of sorts that occurs twice but still the track never really breaks from the tension held across nine minutes.