The Muffs - "Baby Go Round" (1993)

Little things. Little things that maybe don't code as "genius," but why not? Are the things that code as "genius" so much bigger? Or so much more significant? I want to look at the structure of this:

Intro - vamp on tonic chord (4 bars) 

Verse (A) - 8 bars, 0:07 - 0:21 

Verse #2 (A) - 8 bars, 0:21 - 0:35 

Pre-chorus (B) - 8 bars, 0:35 - 0:48

OK, there's the first little thing that's maybe not so little. This song has a pre-chorus. The tessitura goes higher to build further toward the chorus. The chord vocabulary changes in order to (seemingly, at least in part) differentiate the section from the verse; whereas the verse had a major III chord and a secondary dominant chord, we switch over to a more classicist I, IV, and V only here.  

Chorus (C) - 12 bars, 0:48 - 1:10

Another thing to note here. This is the first time the bars are not squaring up to an even numbered multiple of four. That's because the chorus has two sections (an eight bar section and a four bar section), both involving refrains. Do you see how elaborate this is? The song has a pre-chorus and then a chorus with two sections.  

Guitar solo (D) - 9 bars, 1:10 - 1:26 I'm calling this section D not just because it's a guitar solo, but because it's a guitar solo over chords that start out like the verse chords but then change to something else. Nine bars because it prolongs the pause on the borrowed iv chord.  

Verse #3 (A) - 8 bars, 1:26 - 1:40 

Pre-chorus (B') - 9 bars, 1:40 - 1:56

I'm calling it B' because it includes an extra bar of dominant prolongation.  

Chorus part one (C') - 8 bars, 1:56 - 2:10

First half of the chorus played in order for it to repeat when the full chorus is played after.  
Chorus (C'') - 14 bars, 2:10 - End

The first section of eight bars and then the second section with an additional refrain prolonging it two bars.

To summarize, a lot of little things. They're all packed in, they all occur at the right time. AABCDAB'C'C'' in two minutes and fifty seconds - heck yeah!