It has a chorus of sorts, doesn’t it?
I tend to agree with you, but something about it just doesn’t feel like a chorus.
Jamaican rapper. The song is very catchy, or at least I always thought it was.
Definitely has a chorus musically. The words of the chorus change except for the title line.
“I don’t want to leave her now/You know I believe, and how,” followed by that guitar lick. It’s a short chorus but I think it counts.
ACK!!!
Sorry, I screwed that one up in my head. You’re totally right.
Actually, no I’m not going that crazy.
Others interpret it as I do, as a song with verses and two bridges, not choruses.
Same with the Beatles songs I mentioned upthread.
The chorus is:
You’re asking me will my love grow.
I don’t know. I don’t know.
You stick around now it may show.
I don’t know. I don’t know.
Clearly this thread needs a working definition of “chorus.”
Whatever it is, I suspect several house tracks that reached #1 on various European singles charts would qualify.
Why she had to go, I don’t know,
she wouldn’t say.
I said some…etc.
In the Beatles books I’ve read they usually talk about trying to come up with a “middle 8.” So if there’s a distinct section of the song that’s 8 measures, it’s probably fair to call it the chorus.
That’s the bridge. It’s in a different key and only appears once in the song.
“Middle 8” = the bridge.
Interesting. This is more complex than I thought.
Some of the songs mentioned (in particular the two where bridges were mistaken for choruses) are songs where the verses are essentially choruses – the melodic, repeating hooks of the song. This used to be a common songwriting formula back in the day where the songs were basically one refrain (albeit usually with changing lyrics in a “verse” style) broken up by an 8 measure bridge (a “middle eight”) to keep the song from being too monotonous. The Beatles used this forumla a lot in their early days and beyond (Lennon still used it even in his solo career on songs like “Mind Games”)
The Police used it on “Every Breath You Take” as well.
Another #1 to use that formula (at least I think it was a #1) is U2’s “With or Without You.”
This is the song I thought about when I first read the title, then I didn’t post it 'cause I wasn’t too sure if Bono’s singing of the title at the end of every verse constituted a chorus or not…
And yes, it went to #1 - U2’s first #1 song in the US, fwiw.
Could someone provide a succinct definition of verse, chorus & bridge?
mmm
I can give you an example: “We Can Work It Out” - “Try to see it my way” section is the verse; “We Can Work It Out” is the chorus; “Life is very short and there’s no time…” is the bridge. Being a musician, it seems natural to me to be able to differentiate, but I’m not so good at explaining it (I’m not a trained musician).
This has got a summary of the terms. For “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” I think of the repeating phrase at the end more as a refrain than a chorus.
Perhaps I’m being too narrow in my definitions, but when I think of a proper “chorus” from a songwriting perspective, I think of a musical figure that contrasts with the verse, and can stand alone, repeated pretty much ad infinitum, as the hook or summary/encapsulation of the song.
See, “We Can Work It Out,” for me, is an example of refrain, not a chorus. But, not everyone makes that distinction. See, a song like “Yellow Submarine” is one with a standard verse-chorus structure, in the way I think of verses and choruses.
Also, most pop songs, unlike “We Can Work It Out” (and a few other Beatles songs, come to think of it), only make use of the bridge once in the song, which makes it easier to tell apart from the verse or chorus, which are generally repeated.
Lyrically, the chorus is generally the same every time. It’s the hook of the song. The sing along part. the part that repeats.
A bridge is a part that connects a verse to a chorus (“bridges it”), or sometimes just breaks up a refrain as stated above. Bridges that set up choruses are often repeat themselves lyrically as well.
In Madonna’s 'Like virgin," The “made it through the wilderness…” parts are the verses, the “You made me feel” part is the bridge and the “like a virgin” part is the chorus.
In Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean,” the “more like a beauty queen” part is the verse, the “people always told me be careful what you do” part is the bridge, and the “Billy Jean” part is the chorus.
These rules are not hard and fast. These formulas can be played with and some songwriters (like Jim Steinman, for example) can make a complete hash of them. These terms really describe conventions more than they have pedantic technical meanings.
In classic songwriting there are four elements:
- Introduction. This was big in the 30s, but has died out.
- Verse. Musically, the same, of course, but repeated with different lyrics.
- Chorus. Several lines that are repeated both musically and with the same lyrics.
- Bridge. A single group of lines with a different melody and different lyrics.
The standard song would be Introduction, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Verse, Chorus. However, there are actually few songs that fit exactly into that model.
A lot of times those formulas are expressed with letters representing different parts (and using letter names avoids any bother about how to identify the parts. For instance you commonly see the following formula for pop songs:
A/A/B/C
A/B/C
D
A/B/C
Wherein A=verse, B=bridge, C=chorus and D=an interlude like a guitar solo or dance break.