can someone help me to decipher the meaning of this
phrase, please. I am a non-native English speaker
and I learned English mainly in NZ, where I never heard
this expression, maybe it is American?
H
It relates to songs, where the bridge is the musical link between the verse and the chorus in a song.
(If you listen to U2, Bono will say it regularly to the Edge.)
Oh, it is usually " take it to the bridge…", BTW.
James Brown is well known for this, as he acts like a band leader and will vary the structure of his songs on the night as he performs them.
yeah actually I meant take it to the bridge and I also
remember James Brown singing it. Well, great thanks a lot.
H
Your typical three-part pop song has the following components: verse, chorus and bridge. Usually, songs follow the structure like:
verse
chorus
verse
chorus
bridge
chorus
or some of a million variations thereof. often, there can be a solo after the bridge. i would say that the bulk of songs on the radio probably fit into this format.
To take one example, for some odd reason Pearl Jam’s “Alive” is the first song to spring to my mind…maybe I’m feeling nostalgic. Anyhow, I reckon y’all know that song. So the “Son she said, have I got a little story for you…” and “Oh she walks slowly across a young man’s room…” are the verse parts. The “yadda, yadda, yadda I’m still Alive…” part is the chorus, of course. Now, the bridge is the section which goes “Is something wrong she said/well of course there is…” It’s a contrasting section to the verse and chorus parts, and “bridges” back to the chorus.
Off to Cafe Society.
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator
The question has been answered, but I have to add:
For James Brown, he often said “Maceo, take me to the bridge!!!” asking his bandleader and sax player, Maceo Parker, to lead the band into the bridge section of the song. Definitely one of the tightest, best run bands in the biz…
In Led Zeppelin’s “The Crunge” they are trying to do a funk breakdown, James Brown kind of song. They play with the phrase “take me to the bridge” and the stops with someone saying “where’s that confounded bridge!?”
The World Music group 3 Mustaphas 3 used to parody this by shouting out “Take it to the fridge!” during performances, while having a refrigerator on stage.
Flying Lizards did a cover of James Brown’s Sex Machine. It’s hard to describe their style, sort of uber-clinical techno. And they copied all of the original verbal cadenzas verbatim. It’s hysterical.
“I want to get up and do my thing.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I get into it?”
etc.
Take it to the bridge!