Quick thoughts about a change in tempo

I love songs that feature an interesting change in tempo. The music goes along at whatever pace and then BANG, it turns into something else entirely, shaking me out of whatever placid state I'd been in and firing up my imagination. One of my all-time favorites is "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand:

Man, when Paul Thomson's drums slow down and drive the song in a new direction, I can't help but start smiling. I love that they spend almost the whole first minute of the song with the guitar rhythms up front before surprising you with that heavy beat.

Perhaps the best known example in rock music is Eric Clapton's "Layla" (technically a Derek & The Dominos song, but let's just call a spade a spade, okay?) which makes an even more startling shift: from a classic guitar-driven rock lament to a sprawling, almost orchestral instrumental that amazingly manages to pick up the same emotional thread from the song's first half and make it even more heartfelt:

I'm not sure why I love a good tempo shift so much. Maybe it's the joy of discovery, something new popping up in the middle of things. Even in a song I've heard dozens of times before, the immediacy of music and sense of instant connection I experience when listening to a song I like leaves me unprepared even if I know the change is coming. Or maybe it speaks to something deep within me, an existential desire to send my life spinning off into a wild new direction.

Whatever it is, I love it.