Peacock by Katy Perry (2010)

Peacock is not subtle and does not want to be. Katy Perry wants to see the "peacock", and over a cheerleader stomp from StarGate the chorus repeats the last syllable of the word, alone, enough times that the sentence stops being about plumage. There is barely a verse. The whole thing plays like a playground taunt that somebody gave a major-label budget and a costume department.

It was a promotional single from Teenage Dream rather than a full release, which did not stop it reaching number one on Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart in December 2010 or becoming a live staple, because a stadium can chant the second half of the word with real enthusiasm and no apparent shame. The album it sits on has since gone Diamond.

Its afterlife is the oldest trick in the book, updated. The blues singers of the 1930's hid the word inside other words; Perry hides the bird inside the word and then loudly takes the bird away. People still search for what Peacock means about a hundred times a month, which makes it the only mystery left in a song that explains itself every eight bars.