# When did a bridge in songs become standard? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 5, 2020, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969 "2020-01-05T14:02:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/1 "2020-01-05T14:02:10Z")
We listened to Christmas music for at least a month, and many songs that have been recorded my current artists are actually old songs. I noticed that older songs usually just have a verse and a chorus that get repeated. Some might have 2 verses, but if they have a bridge, it is a newer addition to the song. So I began to ponder pop music of the last 35 years and realized that a bridge in a song is a rather new thing. When did it become standard in popular music? Mr. CelticKnot suggested sometime in the 60’s, but couldn’t come up with any specifics since he was driving. So when would you say a bridge in popular music become the usual format? What songs began the trend? Are there any modern songs that don’t have a bridge (or that weird thing, a pre-chorus)? I don’t listen to rap at all, so maybe I am wrong and the bridge is not standard in that genre. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/2 "2020-01-05T14:18:30Z")
New? Cole Porter had a bridge in “I Get a Kick Out of You” in 1934 and he was hardly the first. It was an expected part of a popular song by the 1920s, at least. It looks like it was used in classical music from the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/3 "2020-01-05T15:56:38Z")
A number of Dylan songs don’t have bridges, just verse after verse. Here’s a list of [15 modern songs with no choruses](https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/10-amazing-songs-without-choruses-762322). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/4 "2020-01-05T16:02:26Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > a bridge in a song is a rather new thing. [Wikipedia says:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_(music)) > [@](#): > > The term comes from a German word for bridge, _Steg_, used by the Meistersingers of the 15th to the 18th century to describe a transitional section in medieval bar form. The German term became widely known in 1920s Germany through musicologist Alfred Lorenz and his exhaustive studies of Richard Wagner’s adaptations of bar form in his popular 19th-century neo-medieval operas. The term entered the English lexicon in the 1930s—translated as bridge—via composers fleeing Nazi Germany who, working in Hollywood and on Broadway, used the term to describe similar transitional sections in the American popular music they were writing. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/5 "2020-01-05T16:38:09Z")
The classic tin pan alley song was in what’s called the AABA pattern: two verse/choruses, a bridge, and another verse/chorus. Many also had an introduction. See, for instance, [Old Man River](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9WayN7R-s) as a good example. Some songs repeated the final verse and chorus after an instrumental break It wasn’t until the 60s that the particular form began to change. Introductions went first and I’ve seen the Beatles credited with dropping the form. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/6 "2020-01-05T16:50:17Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The classic tin pan alley song was in what’s called the AABA pattern: two verse/choruses, a bridge, and another verse/chorus. Many also had an introduction. See, for instance, [Old Man River](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9WayN7R-s) as a good example. > > Some songs repeated the final verse and chorus after an instrumental break > > It wasn’t until the 60s that the particular form began to change. Introductions went first and I’ve seen the Beatles credited with dropping the form. A lot of Beatles tunes (especially early ones) only had verses and bridges, no chorus/refrain type sections, at least not in the sense of a conventional chorus/refrain that contains the hook and main melodic section of the song. Just listen to most of the songs on “Hard Day’s Night.” In the title song, the “when I’m home, everything seems to be right” is really a bridge, not a chorus, to transition us from verse two to three and from verse four to five. A lot of songs on that album have similar structure. I personally tend to refer to that as “A” section and “B” section to avoid confusion because “bridge” is often used in conversations of songs with verse-chorus structure, but music scholars like [Alan W. Pollack](http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/ahdn.shtml) do simply call it a “bridge,” because that is, indeed, what it is functioning as in pop music structure. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/7 "2020-01-05T16:57:51Z")
Lucinda Williams - “Changed The Locks”. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XCo0J_kVKHw/maxresdefault.jpg "Lucinda Williams - Changed The Locks") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCo0J_kVKHw) She says in the liner notes: _“I had managed to come up with a song without a bridge or a refrain. I remember being advised against this unconventional style of writing by a man in the music business who claimed to know about these things. He told me it would never work.”_ ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/8 "2020-01-05T18:26:06Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The classic tin pan alley song was in what’s called the AABA pattern: two verse/choruses, a bridge, and another verse/chorus. Many also had an introduction. See, for instance, [Old Man River](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9WayN7R-s) as a good example. > > Some songs repeated the final verse and chorus after an instrumental break > > It wasn’t until the 60s that the particular form began to change. Introductions went first and I’ve seen the Beatles credited with dropping the form. I don’t know. Most songs back when had a “verse” that we don’t sing anymore, and what we know as the song is the chorus. Here you see an archaic verse that isn’t sung anymore, a chorus, and a bridge (The “Old man sorrow” part) which occurs twice. I Got Rhythm Ella Fitzgerald (Days can be sunny with never a sigh Don’t need what money can buy Birds in the trees sing their dayful of songs Why shouldn’t we sing along I’m chipper all the day Happy with my lot How do I get that way Look at what I’ve got) I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man Who could ask for anything more I’ve got daisies in green pastures I’ve got my man Who could ask for anything more Old man trouble I don’t mind him You won’t find him 'round my door I’ve got starlight I’ve got sweet dreams I’ve got my man Who could ask for anything more Ba ba da da da ah Old man trouble, I don’t mind him You won’t find him 'round my door I’ve got starlight I’ve got sweet dreams I’ve got my man Who could ask for anything more I’ve got rhythm, I’ve got music I’ve got daisies in green pastures I’ve got starlight I’ve got sweet dreams I’ve got my man Who could ask for anything more ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/9 "2020-01-05T22:22:56Z")
drag dog wasn’t it verse/refrain? Yeah, most don’t get played anymore which is too bad. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/10 "2020-01-06T00:13:19Z")
> [@K364](#): > > drag dog wasn’t it verse/refrain? > > Yeah, most don’t get played anymore which is too bad. Maybe. I mix them up some times. The “verse” used to be almost a recitatif against slower music, and the other part was the one you could dance to. Lush life is a good example. I think the verse for it gets sung today. I think the industry kind of let it die, maybe in the fever when radio was new etc. And you can’t dance to those old verses. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-a-bridge-in-songs-become-standard/845969/11 "2020-01-06T03:01:20Z")
I like a nice bridge in rock. Especially the inevitable B.