Karmen's 1970 jingle features an ellipsis between its antecedent, "You can take Salem out of the country, but...," and consequent, "You can't take the country out of Salem." Its last instantiation, however, ends on "but," on 6̂. Through this song version of the rhetorical figure aposiopesis, the advertisement instills desire for completion, an urge that resolves musically within the imagination, but that advertisers hope will be satisfied through purchase of product.
This desire evocation serves as a primary function of trailers and television opening sequences, which frequently eschew definitive musical closure as a strategy drawing on the Zeigarnik effect. Informed by form theorists, this paper discusses two oft-linked methods of aposiopesis, both displayed in that Salem ad: 1) incomplete melodic and structural processes, and 2) tonally unstable endings. With such inconclusive conclusions, these binge-worthy multimedia leave the viewer hanging with music as unfinished as the stories they tell.