“One Step Beyond” — Madness

We’re normally all about the lyrics around here. The more the merrier.

But the other day I found myself wondering — how few words can a song have and still be regarded as a song rather than an instrumental, which obviously has no words at all?

The mathematical answer might be one, I suppose, as a single word would mean there was something other than music on the track. Although I can’t think of a hit record in which the lyrics are just a single word off-hand, even one sung over and over again.