Sunday, January 5, 2014

The Everly Brothers - "Man with Money" (1965)

Here's another one. Chorus as verse.

It starts right off the bat. First eight bars, there is really no question that we are in the chorus. The second eight bars (starting at 0:16 in the video) are clearly part of the same section of the song, but sound less like a chorus in that they don't sound like words that are going to repeat. So, call the whole sixteen bar section half chorus and half verse.

Nevertheless, the chorus half functions as verse too because the second time through, the words are different. Actually, they're only half different, so it's chorus-like when they're the same and verse-like when they're different.

What do you do with a song like this at this point? You could have a bridge. We're at 0:56 at this point in the video.

The 36 second part that unfolds here is no bridge. Could I call it a wrench? It throws a wrench into the proceedings, both as a musical composition and as a narrative. Navigating key changes and irregular measure groupings, the Everlys (the song was co-written by both brothers) nevertheless paste a beautiful, symmetrical eight lines of poetry over the top, landing somehow on the dominant chord of the home key at the end so they can nail that chorus, or that verse, once again afterwards.

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