Stop and Go

You're listening to a really fast song and all of a sudden it just stops. It is silent for a couple of seconds. Then it continues as if nothing happened.

Not to be confused with the name of a convenience or gas store. Contrast Musicalis Interruptus. Compare Subdued Section (where only certain instruments do this). A musical version of Dramatic Pause. Sister Trope to Fake-Out Fade-Out, where the mid-song stop has more of a lead-up.

Examples of Stop and Go include:

• "Brianstorm" by the Arctic Monkeys does this right before the end of the song. the Arctic Monkeys use this very often in their songs. "If You Were There, Beware" and "The View From The Afternoon" are other examples.
• Alanis Morissette's All I Really Want "Why are you so terrified of silence? Here can you handle this?" followed by two seconds of silence. Then the song continues.
• The Young Rascals' 1966 hit "Good Lovin'" has one of the better-known instances of this.
• A fairly obscure example: "A Cowboy Symphony" by Pierre La Plante.
• The Elton John song "Island Girl" does this twice.
• "Jesus I Was Evil" by Darcy Clay does this before the last chorus.
• "Gloomy Sunday" actually pulls three of these.
• These are abused in the higher difficulty songs on Dance Dance Revolution, in which the arrows will freeze in place during said silence. This Troper at least calls them "fatal stops" because at that point she just about trips over herself and loses her place in the song.
• Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel: Come up and see me (make me smile)
• "I'm Only Sleeping" and "All My Loving" by The Beatles. ("Helter Skelter" doesn't count because it's a Fake-Out Fade-Out. Ditto "Rain" and "Strawberry Fields Forever".)
• From Touhou has Alice's theme, the Prismriver Sisters' theme and Flandre's theme.
• "In The Mood" by Glenn Miller was an early example.
• Also jazz, "Moanin'" by Charles Mingus has one that forces a transition from a chaotic section of the song where literally every wind player is soloing at once back to a rockin' bari sax riff.
• Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression (Part 1)" has a variation on this. During the line "We've got thrills and shocks, supersonic fighting cocks" the music cuts out completely for the duration of the word "shocks".
• "Betrayed" from The Producers, when his recap gets to intermission.
• "Monkeywrench" and "Next Year" by Foo Fighters. Exaggerated with "Rope" where it's done twice.
• "I see you shiver with antici...... (CONSTI!)........pation."
• "How Sweet to Be an Idiot" by Neil Innes.
• Happens in "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers.
• "I Looked At You" by the Doors is a great example.
• "This Dying Soul" and "Fatal Tragedy" of Dream Theater are two examples.
• Occurs in "Just" by Radiohead. In the video the silent moment is significant because it is the moment where a man who has inexplicably come to lie down on the middle of the footpath whispers something to the crowd that has gathered to watch. We don't hear what it is, but it cause them all to lie down just like him.
• About 2/3's of the way through the extended jam coda of 'I Am the Resurrection', the last track on The Stone Roses' eponymous debut.
• Used in Electric Six's "Improper Dancing", and explicitly called out by vocalist Dick Valentine: "Stop... Continue!". In live performances they traditionally play with this by sandwiching a whole cover song between "Stop!" and "Continue!"
• This happens in AFI's song "The Despair Factor"—except Davey stops to say, "My whole life is a dark room. One. Big. Dark. Room." Then it carries on fast, as before.
• Appropriately enough, "Dance Stop" by Daniel Amos.
• Mindless Self Indulgence LOVES this trope.
• "God's Comic" by Elvis Costello.
• "River of Dreams" by Billy Joel does this toward the end. Joel would have fun with it during live renditions by seeing how far he could drag out the pause before the audience lost its patience.
  • He did it during a Grammy ceremony as a protest after the network cut short a speech by FRANK SINATRA because it wanted to go to commercial. During the pause, he quipped to the audience, "Valuable advertising time is going by."
• Eels' "Novacaine For The Soul" has a long awkward pause right before the bridge. It's fairly unexpected because it's not remotely a fast song.
• Fugazi's "Waiting Room": somewhat unusually this happens before the lyrics even start.
• Augen Auf by Oomph.
• "The Little Girl I Once Knew" by The Beach Boys does this twice. It was released as a single, but it didn't chart very well because radio disc jockeys were reluctant to play it due to its moments of dead air.
• Queens of the Stone Age are fond of both this trope and the Fake-Out Fade-Out; the most prominent example is the extremely jarring silence in the middle of "You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire".
  • Earlier example: the instrumental "Hispanic Impressions" from their debut.
  • And of course the one right before the Epic Rocking finale of "Song for the Dead".
• Eagles of Death Metal use this trope about as often as humanly possible. "I Only Want You" is the most striking example, featuring two of these in a less-than-three-minute song.
• "The Look" by Roxette.
• "No Matter What" by Badfinger.
• "When Big Joan Sits Up" by Captain Beefheart, after the line "she's out of reach".
  • "Blabber 'N Smoke": "It's gonna hang you all.... dangle you all".
• The introduction to Sonata Arctica's "Misplaced" does this.
• The second verse of P!nk's "Sober" does this immediately after a line that says "I don't wanna be the girl that has to fill the silence" for about 3 seconds.
• Before the final verse of "All Nightmare Long" by Metallica.
• OK Go do this in "Get Over It" (and hang a big fat lampshade on it in the video by stretching out the pause long enough to play some ping pong).
  • And again in "I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe".
• Goldfrapp's "Oompa Radar" stops at a somewhat reasonable point, complete with a quick outro. It then rumbles loudly back into action totally unexpectedly after a few long seconds.
• Britney Spears' cover of "I Love Rock N' Roll" does this.
• They Might Be Giants do a version in their song "Older." "And time... is still marching on." This is another case where the artist likes to stretch out the pause for as long as they can live for comedic value. (And throw confetti.)
• The Who do this in "The Seeker' twice. The echo on Roger Daltrey's voice makes those moments all the more striking.
• Freetime by Kenna has this several times. The video has a Black Screen of Death followed by a Jump Cut to match the audio each time.
• Rock on by David Essex.
• Heart's "Magic Man" has one roughly 2/3 of the way through.
• Garbage's song "Supervixen" has a repeating one as a part of the main riff.
• "Short Skirt Long Jacket" by CAKE.