Tomorrow - "Three Jolly Little Dwarfs" (1968)

Extraordinary compositional economy, not just melodically/harmonically/structurally but also dynamically: one of the great drum records but with utterly simple parts and fills. Great power of the chorus hinges on at least three factors: 1) the fact that it's preceded by a break, but there's actually an intensification of energy when the song resumes and the chorus begins, 2) the repeat of its first part, and 3) the fact that it continues after the repeat, building on the drum dynamism with an overdubbed mallet on a bass or kettle drum.

"Three Jolly Little Dwarfs" on Lala.

The Pretty Things - "Walking Through My Dreams" (1968)

Dream as sacred ground, rapture in the word "dream" on the high notes in the chorus. Just a back and forth on two chords in the verse, vocals coming in immediately in the first bar of the song, and fourteen and a half seconds into it, you're already in the chorus: a beautiful construction, beautifully sung.

Simple, two-part instrumental break including a guitar solo and then, at 1:40, the full chorus again for the third time already. At 2:14, the full chorus for the fourth time.

And then, a repeat! The fifth time! Each time as rich as the time before.

Sixth, seventh, and eighth times, surrendering the narrative to a wordless choir.

"Walking Through My Dreams" on Lala.

The Beach Boys - "Little Pad" (1967)

Exquisite harmony. Extremely evocative of its subject matter. Pleasant, extraordinarily minimal arrangement. And the sheer triumph of a band tapping into the real depths of their own resources (their voices).

"Little Pad" on Lala.

Neighb'rhood Childr'n - "Behold the Lillies" (1968)

Flower as pure religious symbol, transcending negative tendencies of the genre. Purity of intention, purity and innocence in execution.

"Behold the Lillies" on Lala.

Wings - "Single Pigeon" (1973)

Depth in the details: the spot-on role-playing in the vocal performance, the harmonic turn in the piano between the first and second verse. Just a little thing, 1:53, post-White Album songwriting, but depth also in small sectional details and the horns that come in at the end are just grand.

John Cale - "Paris 1919" (1973)

There's a sense in listening to this that no one had taken the revival of Romanticism that had originally cropped up in late '60s rock music as seriously as Cale does here, that no one had striven for and landed so lucidly in the past as in this song. It is an anthem and a thing of beauty.

"Paris 1919" on Lala.

Stereolab - "Ping Pong" (1994)

Fifteen years later, this sounds like music you've been hearing on commercials for years, but the depth of the composition starts to become apparent when you hear the four-note lead guitar line for the first time. And the late sixties melodicism in the the vocal melody and background vocal parts is very rich.

The unusual chord (the one that first occurs on the last syllable of "recovery" in the lines about "smaller recovery" and "shallower recovery") sounds evocative, though I can't place it anywhere. It's a bVI chord, unusual because it's occurring in a song that otherwise emphasizes diatonic seventh harmony. Would be curious to know what, if any, precedents there are for the use of this chord.

"Ping Pong" on Lala.

Neu! - "Neuschnee" (1973)

The B-side of their 1973 single, this track is really remarkable for having a sophisticated sound and construction along with its primitive compositional elements.

"Neuschnee" on Lala.

ABBA - "Bang-a-Boomerang" (1975)

The intro, bridge, and closing of this song are all absolutely succinct. Apart from these, the only other sections of the song are two verses and three choruses. Still, the song manages to last for three minutes. It does so because of the lengths of both the verse and the chorus, each of which have three parts.

In the verse, you have a two-line exposition, a two-line dramatic moment, and then what might be called a rising action, the final two lines that lead into the chorus.

The first part of the chorus, then, is the climax, with the second and third parts something akin to the falling action and the denouement.

The Four Tops - "Bernadette" (1967)

OK, we can assert here that the verses are in two sections, but I'm going to label the first section A and the second section B because sometimes one of the sections will occur without the other. If we label the bridge section as C (the song has no chorus), then the basic structure of the song is this:

ABABACB

This is discounting the return to the A materials at the end of the song (first abbreviated, then repeated as a vamp for the fadeout), but let's look at what we've got otherwise. The two-section verse, both sections very distinct and separated by a pause, certainly seems to me to be a structural curiosity. It's a very long verse, over forty seconds, and its length naturally had to be reckoned with in terms of the overall compositional structure. The song itself is not incredibly short for a pop record of the time; it's over three minutes (barely, but it is), and yet it manages to run that long without a chorus and without an instrumental break.

This leaves the full duration of the song open for Levi Stubbs' lead vocal part to run as a very singular, linear utterance. And three minutes is a pretty long time for that singular drama to unfold.

"Bernadette" on Lala.

Klaatu - "A Routine Day" (1978)

The second section of the verses resonates with me as being evocative of early '70s songwriter pop: Gilbert O'Sullivan and I'm not sure what else. With Klaatu, though, these are only sections in a progressive-minded compositional context, occurring after the excellent, Beatle-esque first parts of the verses.

The chorus also seems to me to be of the same genre, but it only occurs once in the song! And it carries itself perfectly to its conclusion.

In the third and final verse (hastening the song to its structurally appealing end), John Woloschuck's lyrics take that same second part of the verse and invest it with enough drama and enough poetry that the effect is completely transcendent:

I stand here in the queue behind a foul cigar
My face discreetly buried in a book on Mars
Humdrum
And I'm waiting on the pier 'til Charon comes

Entire Klaatu catalog on BullseyeSongs.com