Part 5 - Beyond verse and chorus

 

Right, let's crack on.

The first thing we're going to look at today is moving beyond the bounds and structures of verse and chorus.

We'll start here for a couple of reasons, partly because these are often the bits we come up with first when writing, along with a riff or melody line, and - relatedly - because these are the foundations of modern song. 

When songs were mostly memorised and shared in pubs and houses, a simple verse-chorus structure told everyone when to join in, when to shut up, and gave a natural breathing cycle to the song; a bit of tension, then release.

We're no longer bound by those limitations, but it's important to understand how we can use those natural story-telling tools when we move beyond that simple structure.

And that throws in my first 'gotcha' - which is: do we need to move beyond a simple verse-chorus structure? 

Of course not. Sometimes that's all you need. But if you rely on that for every song then you're making life very hard for yourself and your listeners.

So let's take that as a starting point and look at a few well established alternative structures, and as we talk through some of these I'll weave in a couple of other concepts to think about.

No chorus

Let's start with the easiest variant first. Who says you need a verse and a chorus? Great songs without choruses include The Trapeze Swinger by Iron and Wine, Up The Junction by Squeeze, Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane - I could go on for ages. 

But one thing you'll notice about that list is that they're not all short and snappy like White Rabbit. The Trapeze Swinger is about seven minutes long for example. The song is as long as it needs to be.

The Middle 8 

This is the other very common variant on the verse-chorus structure. Halfway through stick a different pattern in, then go back to your verse-chorus. The reason this is such a common approach is because it's so powerful. You can use a middle 8 to build up tension, to release it, to change a time signature, to change pace, to change key. It's a veritable passport of delights.

And the best bit is that it doesn't even have to make sense. 

Seriously, check out a bunch of middle eights and you'll find that frequently they seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the song. Neil Finn, the songwriter behind Crowded House and Split Enz is a master at this.

I'm not a fan of the Beatles but the middle 8s (yes, there are two) of We Can Work It Out are a great example of change of tension, tempo and overall feel 

End of verse repeater 

This is a sort of cross between the 'only verse' approach and a mini chorus, where the last line (generally) of a verse is the same each time. This can be a nice way of mixing up the structure of the verse as well - take this example where the last line of each verse is only half as long as usual before the repeater line comes in.

A less common variant is where the starting line of each verse is the same. I have a song on my last album where each verse opens with a variant of "He said Something About Soul".

Other approaches you might come across are a pre-chorus or bridge approach (basically a pattern of three repeating parts rather than two), the 'three-act-play* structure (think Paranoid Android or Bohemian Rhapsody), or what I call the 'weird quarter' (where something starts off fairly regularly until the last 25% or so goes off in a different direction; Stairway to Heaven and Sting's Fill Her Up spring to mind). 

You can even take the approach of having only a chorus - plenty of songs-in-the-round are based on this approach but think of There She Goes by the La's or maybe The Ramones' It's a Long Way Back to Germany.

The point of this rough and unscientific analysis is that there are oodles of other ways to structure your song beyond the verse-chorus approach. So when looking at the unfinished song in front of you, the most important question is, 'is it actually already finished?'

How do you choose? Well, that depends. What do you want to say? What does the song need? Sometimes what you have is enough. Not every song needs to be 4 minutes long, with verses, choruses, guitar solos (ugh) a middle 8 and a separate outro. There is beauty in simplicity so it's always worth looking at what you have and asking if it actually needs anymore.

We'll look at that more in part 6.

*If you're not familiar with that term, don't worry, we'll come back to that next time.

P.S. As I write this I'm listening to M83's Outro - a song that is instrumental for 90% of the track with just one verse of lyrics and no repeats or choruses or anything.