Who does this? (Well,...John Schweers, apparently.)
Start with the chorus - OK, that maybe doesn't happen every day. (Perhaps it does in country more than I realize.) It's a great one, though; you can see why he did it.
Then, verse one.
Chorus repeat followed by instrumental break.
Chorus again? OK, but wait, we're modulating up here and...oh wow, this is the end of the song!
That's what you might call tight. Two minutes and twenty-three seconds on the record and it's 1975.
The structure of the whole thing is ABACA, a total of five parts. It works because of what seem to me to be unusual lengths for both the chorus (A) and the verse (B). The chorus is actually seventeen bars you can break down into four sections of 4+5+4+4. Can also be looked at as 9+8, with the second eight bars starting like a repeat of the first part but with a different ending and cadence.
Curiously, the verse is seventeen bars also, but this time it's 4+4+4+5, working in the cadence in the last five bars with three measures on the V chord, one bar plus one beat on the I, and then the three beats on the V again for the pickup notes back into the chorus.
