The Parliaments - "Don't Be Sore at Me" (1967)

After the intro, you get the chorus of this song first. It's not a chorus that rides a particularly dynamic peak, however, and is in fact quite expository in nature.

It therefore has verse-like characteristics. The first line (the refrain) occurs as the iii chord and the ii chord are merely descending to the tonic, arriving with a very weak cadence (iii-ii-I) if you can call it one at all.

Line two then moves from the tonic en route back to the iii chord for line number three, where you get a repeat of the chords from line one. Line four repeats the chords from line two. The expository nature of these progressions is, in my estimation, verse-like, but the phrasing of the words is not. It's a catchy chorus.

The verse has two parts. The first four bars have two lines of text that run into each other as the tonic chord makes its way toward a secondary dominant (V/ii). Now, they're going to use that ii chord that follows as a dominant prep, but it's not time yet. It's still near the beginning of the verse, so although the chords have been changing every measure for the first four bars, we now get a chord that stays the same for seven bars. When they finally go to the dominant chord in the twelfth and last bar of the verse, they phrase it as a ninth chord so it retains a little of the character of the long-held ii chord that precedes it. It's quite beautiful.

At this point, they could have just gone into a chorus repeat, but the prominent ii chord of the verse contrasts with the crucial chord of the chorus, which is iii. Instead of just letting this juxtaposition occur, there's a little two-bar turnaround phrase ("Darling, forgive me please") where they prepare the iii chord by way of the vi.

Lynn Anderson - "Rose Garden" (1970)

Written by Joe South.

This song starts with the chorus. At 0:22, we get the lines "When you take, you gotta give/So live and let live/Or let go-o-o-o-o-o," leading into a repetition of "I beg your pardon/I never promised you a rose garden." 

What is this section? It doesn't repeat. You could call it a verse, but it's not the regular verse of the song.

Two regular verses are heard at this point, followed by another section not heard before ("Smile for a while and let's be jolly," etc.). Again, there seems to be no nomenclature for it. It ends with a half-cadence and leads to a repetition of the chorus, so perhaps one could say it's either a pre-chorus or an extension of the verse.

After the chorus this time, there is an instrumental section with a new harmonic progression (including an augmented chord), only four measures long. Looking back at the unique section heard at 0:22, we can note that it was four measures long, plus that four measure echo of the chorus.

What do you know? This section adds the echo to the chorus, too.

Billy Joel - "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" (1977)

This song is based on a five-part construction that repeats twice, the second time with the first part removed. The parts play cleverly with perceptions of verse and chorus function to end up navigating a unique path.

After the intro, the vocal starts in with four lines of text over eight bars, the obvious sense of things being that we are in the verse. The fifth line starts as though the verse is continuing or the second verse is beginning, but diverts itself with an unexpected echo of the last syllable.

Working hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack

The next line - "You oughta know by now" - appears to be the beginning of the chorus, but it cuts off afterward and we're back in the verse. This time, however, the verse ends after only four bars and now the real chorus begins.

Oh, it seems such a waste of time
If that's what it's all about
If that's movin' up than I'm
Movin' out

As I say, the whole thing strikes me as a singular structure where the original diversion to the chorus is subverted and brought back to the verse only briefly in order to wind itself up a little more as a springboard into the chorus, the function of which is clearly to wind down.

The whole thing starts again at 1:11 in the song, repeating the exact order of events, and again at 2:07, beginning this time at the divergent line with the echoing syllable at the end. Apart from some vamping on the last words, these represent the sum total of lyrical events in the song (a #17 hit on the U.S. Billboard chart).

ABBA - "If It Wasn't for the Nights" (1979)

This is a song where the composers could have left the chorus as a single refrain line that happens at the end of the verse. It's a super dynamic line and would have sounded nice even if they'd just left it alone. Abba, instead, repeat the line with new rhyming words, giving them a chance to keep clinging to the chorus' precipice.

That's even nicer, but they don't even leave it there. Line three comes in next like another repetition, but then diverges, necessitating another line that rhymes with it and concludes the phrase. Harmonically, they're now set up for the return once again of the refrain line, heard now with a third set of rhyming words. This, in turn, allows them a consequent phrase, for which they finally repeat the original refrain.

All of this plays beautifully into the premise of disco as a music that relies on repetition, a forty-five second long chorus flourishing where some songwriters might not have had much of one at all.

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.

The Everly Brothers - "When Will I Be Loved" (1960)

I'll refer back to my post on the Beatles' "P.S. I Love You" from June of last year for some previous consideration of songs that blur distinctions between verse and chorus. While I had argued that the Beatles song might be considered to be all chorus, and that's clearly not the case with this song, "When Will I Be Loved" perhaps comes close and as such might be considered to be of a similar type. (A type that doesn't happen every day.)

To me, this case seems a little clearer. This song starts with the chorus, which is eight bars long. It then repeats the chorus with new words. That, in a nutshell is the trick; it's treating the chorus like a verse. When the chorus appears for the third time, it has new words yet again. That said, it's never treated otherwise like anything other than a chorus. The parts in between lead in to it absolutely and when you hear it for the fourth time, it just repeats the words.

The question is, what is that part in the middle ("When I meet a new girl" etc.)? It certainly sounds to me like a bridge that's repeated once. I can't see anyone calling it the verse.

So, we have here a song with four choruses, two bridges, and no verses.

Roberto Carlos - "Eu Te Darei o Céu" (1966)

Another structural marvel, with a chorus so good you've got to hear it six times.

A - solo guitar riff and intro chords (3+4 bars)
B - chorus (8 bars)
A' - intro chords - link (3 bars)
C - verse #1 (16 bars)
B - chorus (8 bars)
A' - intro chords - link (3 bars)
C - verse #2 (16 bars)
B - chorus (8 bars)
A' - intro chords - link (3 bars)
D - bridge (9 bars)
B - chorus (8 bars + 1 bar link)
B' - solo over intro chords (8 bars)
B - chorus (8 bars)
A' - intro chords - link (3 bars)
D - bridge repeat (9 bars)
B - chorus (8 bars)
A' - outro chords (4 bars)

Looks like seventeen parts to me. Even apart from the compositional brilliance, kudos once again to the musicians for memorizing this one.

Notice the unusual metric groupings. The parts I've labeled as "intro chords - link" are single measure alternations between the tonic and the relative minor chords, but the verse begins on what originally sounds like measure four of the link, on the relative minor chord.

Thus, the verse is off-kilter. And it doesn't resolve; at measure nine, a new melody asserts itself as though we are in a strong measure, but it doesn't feel like we are.

At nine bars, the bridge is also irregular, modulating to the parallel minor and progressing through a beautiful cycle of fourths back, as ever it seems, to that chorus.

A Flock of Seagulls - "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" (1983)

The three-note keyboard riff in this song proceeds as though the lowest note, Gb, is the root.

 

Not only is it not the root, it's not even a chord tone. It's the fourth of the scale, a suspension.

When the notes then rise over the Eb minor chord, it's the third.

Schoolhouse Rock! - "Preamble" (1975)

The actual use of the text to the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution works as a sort of song within a song in this cartoon. As an entity unto itself, this short tune lasts about forty seconds and is heard twice (beginning at 0:45 and 1:55 in the video). The construction of the thing is quite beautiful.

There are 24 bars total, the first sixteen with a pattern of one chord and mostly one line of text over two bars of music. It looks like this:

We the people (I)
In order to form a more perfect union (IV)
Establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility (I to V)

Provide for the common defense (I)
Promote the general welfare and (IV)
Secure the blessings of liberty (I)
To ourselves and our posterity (V)

With only a few lines of text left, the tune now takes a turn. The melody is entirely new and the chords no longer hold for two bars each.



Previously sticking to a limited tessitura with no note above G, the melodic line here skips up to the octave right when the chord changes for the first time without waiting for two bars. Text spills over into a four-bar phrase, and then a second one (broken in half) that manages a strong cadence with a real sense of conclusion that, despite the tune's real brevity, doesn't seem at all abrupt.

The Dirtbombs - "It's Gonna Be Alright" (2013)

In a Spin piece, Mick Collins says of this track, "I listened to all five Archies albums with the specific aim of writing (a song) that sounded like an Archies song."

Apart from just sounding like the Archies (which I think it does), there are a couple of structural elements to this song that I wanted to point out. If these didn't come from Archies records, they certainly came from the vast, wider tradition in which pop songs do great and subtle things.

The song starts with a repeating riff, then switches to a vamp on the tonic chord and Collins starts singing. He sings the first line once, then it's repeated with a harmony vocal. It sounded like a verse was starting, but it's not; it ends there.

What is this? It is, I suppose, a refrain that is not a chorus. (I hear this and think, "I've heard this in a bubblegum song. Maybe more than one." I don't know which songs, though.)

After an instrumental section, the repeating riff comes back and now the verse starts as lines over the riff.

There are eight lines in these verses (two verses total in the song). You can understand why he did it that way; four lines over four utterances of the riff is too short. In the first verse, the second set of four lines aren't linked inextricably to the first four, but they are in the second verse where they extend the theme for a total number of eight lines.

To me, this is someone not taking the easy way out at all and is just real nose-to-the grindstone songwriting:

If you're feelin' bad
And you wanna scream and shout
Do this thing every day
That's really gonna help you out
Call some sunshine down
Let a little into your heart
Take the rest and spread it around
And that oughta do for a start

The album on which this song appears is being released next week and is currently streaming here.

The Peppermint Rainbow - "Will You Be Staying After Sunday" (1969)

Apart from an intro line that repeats once and a bridge, this song also seems to be almost all chorus.

Call it perhaps a chorus that functions like a verse; it begins with a refrain line and then has different words that follow in each of its three utterances.

Is sixteen bars too long to call it a chorus? Maybe, but the last four bars are like an extension and are not even played the third time through.

Three utterances, that intro line that repeats once, and a bridge - I wonder how many other hit records from 1969 were under two and a half minutes.

Hackamore Brick - "I Won't Be Around" (1970)

This song is only 1:35 and works almost as part of a medley with "And I Wonder" on the group's One Kiss Leads to Another album. The structure of the song is AABA, with two verses, followed by a bridge, and then a final verse.

The first verse is fourteen bars long and, seemingly accommodating the irregular set of measures, consists of three lines with no rhyming other than a nice internal one on line three ("Until then/You ain't no friend/Of mine").

Verse number two tags on a couple of measures at the end and a fourth line of text, but continues to forego line-ending rhymes.

The bridge starts off with another line sung as though it has an internal rhyme ("I can't pre-tend/You know what you're do-in'"). Four bars in, it then moves to the same B minor to F# minor chord progression that's heard in the very same spot in the verses.

Eight bars in we get the second half of the bridge, which looks like this:



The phrasing of the words over the first four bars here sounds like it's following the pattern the song has established of having one line of text over four bars of music, but the same line seems to be continuing in bar number five.

The whole thing is ten bars long and the clever part is that they start the last four bar phrase on the F# minor chord, which in other parts of the song ends phrases rather than beginning them.

Notice that throughout the bridge, including the half-cadence at the end with the secondary dominant chord, they continue to refrain from rhyming. This is true of the fourth and final verse, as well.

John Cale - "Macbeth" (1973)

I'll leave the guitar solo out for clarity's sake and diagram this song otherwise as AABCABC.

The A sections are verses and they're short - only four lines each. At first, you get two of them and then the B section, but it's not clear what the B section is. (This is the part that starts off with "And you know it's true/You never saw things quite that way.") It's certainly reasonable to call this section a bridge, but it's odd to get a bridge before you get to the chorus. The other alternative is to say that it's a chorus.

The C section ("Somebody knows for sure/It's got to be me or it's got to be you" etc.) is similarly ambiguous, catchy enough to be a chorus but didn't we just have one?

Given that both sections repeat after the third verse, I'm saying this song has two choruses.

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - "I Second That Emotion" (1967)

The second part of the chorus of this song looks like this:

 
The first time it goes to the G major chord in measure two, there are two upper neighbor notes (F# and E) descending until it finally gets to the chordal tone.

The second time through the four-bar phrase, there is a melodic sequence sung at a higher pitch. On the A chord this time, G is sung as a blue note (a repeated minor seventh of the chord).

This quality is then echoed when the chord switches to G. Once again, there is an upper neighbor (A), but when it descends to F, it's sung as F natural.

The Clash - "Train in Vain" (1979)

I wrote all of the lyrics to this down just so I could compare the verses. I honestly didn't know if they were all the same, but they are - twelve bars with the same chord progression each time.

There are a lot of words! Forty-four in the first verse, forty-four in the second, and a whopping forty-nine in the third and last. It's the contrasts in melodic contour with different syllable counts in particular spots of the verse that are so effective in this song. How many of them are real bigtime hooks?

"You say you stand/By your man."
"You said you loved me/That's a fact/Then you left me/Said you felt trapped."
"The heartaches hurt me 'til this da-a-ay."
"I've seen all my dreams come tumbling down."
"So, alone I keep the wo-olves at bay."
"Now I got a job/But it don't pay."

And the last couple of lines might be the sweetest, this time rhyming where they didn't rhyme before (with the two lines that precede them, making four rhyming lines in a row):

"But you don't understand my point of view/I suppose there's nothing I can do."