Rock/pop #1 singles without a chorus

[pulykamell]

@WordMan

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:

The easiest convention would be just to identify musical sections by letter. So “Every Breath You Take” is AAABACAABAAA… (The first “A” is the instrumental intro, and the AA between the C and B parts is also instrumental.)

I would just call the B and C parts both bridges, if I had to use some kind of descriptive terminology for them. The C part is more like your typical pop songwriting bridge, where the song takes a bit of a left turn to introduce a new lyrical and musical idea. The B part has more of the feel of a pre-chorus, but goes right back into the verses. At any rate, none of the parts feel like a typical pop chorus, which is usually the sing-along part, the most recognizable that can stand alone and be repeated ad infinitum as an outro, etc… (Which, actually, is most similar to the A part, as in the outro.)

It’s all kind of hairsplitting, though.

[Rysto]

The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals.

[WordMan]

@pulykamell

It’s all kind of hairsplitting, though.

But really well-done hair-splitting, my musically-articulate friend.

[cjepson]

I made a post earlier this morning but it seems to have disappeared…

“My Guy” by Mary Wells

“El Paso” by Marty Robbins

“Me and Bobby McGee” (depending on whether you count the “Freedom’s just another word” part as a chorus or bridge – I think it’s a bridge)

“The Loco-Motion” (Borderline. I think the “Come on, come on, do the Loco-Motion with me” is a refrain rather than a chorus, and the “Come on baby, jump up, jump back, well I think you’ve got the knack” is a bridge.)

[I-VI-ii-V]

OK, the more I wrap my mind around it, I’ve been converted into the two bridges camp. Superficially, the song seems like a simple pop song. A thoughtful analysis clearly shows that is not the case. Simple pop songs traditionally have a VCVCB… or VCVB… structure (or some variation). I guess the two bridge concept is yet one more “broken rule” to add to the list.

Another deviation from the norm on this tune is the chord progression in the verse. Usually a I - vi - IV - V progression is either one or two bars of each chord for eight bars. On EBYT, it is:

| I(add9) | I(add9) | vi(add9) | vi(add9) | IVsus2 | Vsus2 | I(add9) | I(add9) |

The last two bars actually alternate between | I(add9) | I(add9) | and | vi(add9) | vi(add 9) | depending on what part comes next.

But back to the OP, what other rock/pop songs have no chorus but have TWO bridges?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I think I might look to the music of Rush. They don’t really follow pop formula conventions at all, and they have lots of songs with multiple bridges and no conventional chorus.

I agree that this terminology is not exact, though, and it’s often easier just to use the letter names for changes rather than trying to categorize them. Try to diagram somebody like Frank Zappa conventionally and you’ll drive yourself nuts.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

By the way, how about Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters?” That kind of follows the Beatles formula with the verses serving as a chorus and the “never cared for what they do” part as a middle eight.