3 Must-Hear Songs About Circles

Circles make for useful metaphors in songwriting.

A tune can be about the sun or moon. Earth. Things going round and round (see Ratt). Or spinning plates (Radiohead). Or if you’re Post Malone, just call the song “Circles.”

This list looks at three songs about circles. But each approaches the shape from a different perspective. Though the list begins with a metaphor, it’ll end on an actual circle (or disc).

Spin, spin.

“Side” by Travis from The Invisible Band (2001)

Forget about the fact that circles do not have sides. Pop songs are not treatises on closed planes. Rather, the circle in Travis’ hook offers a visual for the same life cycle we all share. This song describes how people envy the lives of others at the expense of missing the beauty around them. Fran Healy wrote songs as good as any Brit in the late ’90s and early ’00s. “Side” appears on Travis’ third album, named after the band’s songs being more famous than its members. Nigel Godrich produced the album, perhaps finding respite from Radiohead’s anti-rock approach to Kid A. Regardless, Godrich and Travis created a post-Britpop masterpiece.

We all live under the same sky
We all will live, we all will die
There is no wrong, there is no right
The circle only has one side

“Can the Circle Be Unbroken” by The Carter Family from Can the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music’s First Family (1935)

A. P. Carter repurposed the hymn “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” and created a gospel and folk standard. Carter’s tune describes a mother’s funeral. Written from the perspective of a grieving son or daughter, it finds solace in belief in the afterlife. The question posed in Carter’s title gets at the dark cloud hanging over everyone’s head. Death is unavoidable. And history is filled with humans believing there’s a post-life chapter somewhere in the cosmos. Beyond comprehension. Religion, philosophy, and science have varying ideas of what this looks like or its probability. Still, mortality is humbling. For as long as humans live and die, love and grieve, Carter’s hymn will never be outdated.

I was standing by the window
On one cold and cloudy day
And I saw the hearse come rolling
For to carry my mother away

“Spin the Black Circle” by Pearl Jam from Vitalogy (1994)

For the final entry, a lighter theme. Kind of. Black is a dark color, but here, it represents a vinyl record. Stone Gossard wrote the riff, and Eddie Vedder scribbled lyrics to it describing his love of vinyl while using an addiction metaphor. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in 1994 that Vedder’s vinyl ode is “one of the few songs from Seattle in which a needle has nothing to do with heroin.” Also, with the resurgence of vinyl, artists are printing in a variety of colors and patterns. Black vinyl sounds the best, which is why it’s still the industry standard. But the other colors make for fun collectibles. And if you’re interested in quality sound, maybe stay away from the glow-in-the-dark discs.

See this needle
A, see my hand
Drop, drop, dropping it down
Oh, so gently

Photo by Donaldson Collection/Getty Images