“The Happening” by the Supremes
Technically it was released as a single. By Rolf Harris. Made it to number 1 in the UK.
OK, let me see if I’ve got it:
Simon & Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound
**Verse: **
“Everyday’s an endless stream
of cigarettes and magazines…”
**Bridge: **
“Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound”
**
Chorus:**
“Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing…”
Yes?
Not really. Simon & Garfunkel tunes aren’t quite as delineated. I might consider the beginning of the “homeward bound” part as a pre-chorus, but it’s not a bridge.
How about “Invisible Touch”? -
“Well I’ve been waiting/waiting here so long” - Verse
“She seems to have an invisible touch” - Chorus
“She don’t like losing/To her it’s just a game” - Bridge
This is pretty much the standard pop formula right there, as straightforward as possible.
Almost all of the Beatles’ early hits, and probably plenty all along the way, were structured AABABA: there were two similar verses, a bridge, a verse, the same bridge again, then another verse. Is that bridge a chorus? Not really, but sorta. It’s hard to say exactly what the difference between a repeated bridge and a chorus is, especially when that bridge has the title of the song in it. Is it not a chorus because every verse doesn’t end with one? It’s not used more than twice? Comfortably Numb has two verses with completely different lyrics, each of which is followed by a section whose lyrics have some shared passages and ends with the song title. Is that a chorus? I don’t know.
An example I can come up with quickly for a song that definitely for sure uses a chorus is Bad. Verse, chorus, Verse, Chorus, break, chorus, chorus or something like that. The chorus is repeated over and over and over, taking up the majority of the vocal portion of the song. Anything that does not get repeated similarly, almost ad nauseum, could often be considered some other musical form.
“Bad” by Michael Jackson? “Bad” by U2? Which “Bad”?
Hmmm. The beginning of Homeward Bound is:
“I’m sitting in the railroad station, waiting for my destination…”
Which I’m pretty sure is the verse. If so, that fits in with my “Everyday is an endless stream…” example as being the verse as well.
Unfortunately, I don’t know the song ‘Invisible Touch’. 
mmm
Yes, that’s correct.
OK, do you know Pearl Jam’s Alive? That’s classic verse-chorus-bridge songwriting:
Verse: “Son, she said, have I got a little story for you…”
Chorus: “Oh, I, I’m still alive…”
Bridge: “Is something wrong she said? Of course there is…”
ETA: I should add, it looks like some people do refer to the pre-chorus as a type of bridge (sometimes calling it a “transitional bridge”), so your analysis of Homeward Bound is okay.
Many of Bob Dylan’s songs - especially from the last three albums - are arranged in a particular way: Several lines of storytelling (verse), followed by a single line. This pattern is repeated multiple times, with the single line unchanged.
Would the single line be considered the chorus?
Some examples off the top of my head:
The Times They Are a-Changin’
Man in the Long Dark Coat
Everything is Broken
Shelter from the Storm
I know some of these aren’t his best-known songs - and not #1s - but they are the examples I’ve thought of.
mmm
I personally do not consider that a chorus, per se. Just a refrain. A lot of folk music doesn’t fall into the typical verse-chorus-bridge structure. I would just call it verse-verse-verse structure. This site, for example, lists Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” as an example of verse-verse-verse structure, and a lot of storytelling folk music falls into that.
That said, there is not always agreement on the terminology. “Refrain” and “chorus” are used synonymously by many people.
If I were to tack on a “proper” chorus onto a song like “The Times They Are A-Changin’” it might be something like this:
“The times they are a-changin’
the times they are a changin’
So you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone
for the times they are a changin’”
(With apologies to Bob Dylan.)
Neanderthal Man by Hotlegs? It made #1 somewhere or other and the top 25 in the US. Something I still fail to understand.
ABBA’s “The Winner Takes It All.” Wasn’t #1 in the US but it was in a whole lot of othr places.
Regarding “Every Breath You Take,” the “Oh can’t you see…” part IS the chorus. The “Since you’ve gone…” part is the bridge. In fact, that part modulates down a third [or up a minor sixth if you want to look at it that way]. If you play it in A major, the bridge is in F [some people play it in Ab with the bridge in E].
Perhaps part of the confusion may be because the verses and choruses start on beat 2 of the previous part’s last measure? Not typical in rock.
The structure is:
8 bar intro
16 bar verse “Every breath you take…”
8 bar chorus “Oh can’t you see…”
8 bar verse “Every breath you take…”
10 bar bridge “Since you’ve gone…”
16 bar instrumental over the verse
8 bar chorus “Oh can’t you see…”
8 bar verse “Every breath you take…”
6 bar turnaround/transition into the outro
4 bar outro repeated “Every breath you take/I’ll be watching you…”
I don’t understand how someone could say that it is not a chorus. It occurs twice with the same lyrics and ends on the V that takes it nicely back to the verse. Just because it does not occur after every verse does not make it not a chorus. Sorry for the triple negative:)
Thinking more about it, the “Oh can’t you see” part does sound like a bridge, but its function in the song is the chorus. Does that make sense?
It’s function in the song is a bridge. Bridges can have repeating lyrics too, and songs can have more than one bridge. A chorus shoud be the central hook of the song. The hook for “Every Breath” is the verses. The “can’t you see” part is a middle eight.
Yes, it does sound more bridge-like than a chorus. However, every published chart that I’ve seen of it (The Police - Message in a Box: Complete Transcriptions, magazine transcriptions, other songbooks) have called that part the chorus.
Actually, producer Hugh Padgham called the “Since you’ve gone” part the “middle eight” aka the bridge (even though it is 10 bars long).
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar04/articles/classictracks.htm
Poking around I found this quote from Stewart Copeland:
http://mixonline.com/recording/interviews/audio_polices_every_breath/
He’s calling the “Since you’ve gone” part the chorus.
I guess no one can agree on this one. 
Are you sure Copeland is referring to the piano solo as part of (his idea of) the chorus?
In any case, both “Oh can’t you see” and “Since you’ve gone” sound like bridges to me; if the former is the bridge, what is the latter?
I Don’t Know How To Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar, Memory from CATS and Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera.
What’s really fascinating to me about this discussion of Every Breath is how it illustrates the near-impossibility of using language in a precise way to describe music. The parts of the song are what they are and it is an effective piece of music as a result. The fact that we - including the actual creators of the song - use different language to describe the same parts shows how, at times, words aren’t up to the task of capturing what we’re experiencing in the music…
By the way - I vote no chorus: to my ear, Oh Can’t You See… is a bridge and Since You’re gone is a middle eight - and (language failing me) that means I am somehow asserting that a bridge and a middle 8 aren’t the same thing…:smack:
None of those got to #1 on any chart I’m aware of.