A true ‘Ahr-teeeeest’ would tell you (cue the generic Euro accent) that there are no rules, just inspiration. Cool. Well, there are certainly conventions, and for the sake of whatevah, we’ll just call them rules to piss off hipsters and Europeans.
Years ago, Paul McCartney (I omit the ‘Sir’ here; this was before his knighthood, just to be perfectly timely) once laid out a simple, fantastic blueprint for writing a pop song. It goes something like:
- An Intro (optional)
- A first ‘verse’, where the music itself establishes a pattern (call it ‘A’), and the lyric starts to tell the ‘story’
- A refrain, or ‘chorus’, where the music sets a new pattern (call it ‘B’), and the lyric pauses on a thought of the story
- A second ‘verse’, where the music repeats the A pattern, but a new lyric carries on the narrative from the first verse
- A second ‘chorus’, where both the music and the reflective lyric repeat themselves, identical to the first chorus
- A ‘bridge’, where the music or lyric (or both) set a brand new pattern (call it ‘C’). The spirit of this is ‘the big reveal’, the climax of the song: either the lyric tells us the hidden meaning or the moral of the story, and the musical parts – through a texture shift of new instruments or sounds (like a guitar or sax solo), or a jolting key change). This is where the songwriter really shows his chops.
- A ‘reprise’: either a third chorus (B) or a new verse plus a chorus (AB)
- An Outro or ‘Coda’: could be just the chorus (B) repeated over and again ‘til it fades out (on a recording) or an instrumental section that ends with a proper cadence, or sometimes even a new section of material (much less common)
A common form of a ‘typical’ song structure is
ABABCB[BBBB...]
And it can be called ‘strophic’ or ‘song-form’ or ‘verse-chorus’ or a bunch of other monikers that stoned kids in basements made up.
For shits’n’giggles, pick a couple of songs off your playlists and see how many conform to this. I know of no real science, but I’d guess about 90% of top-40 hits and probably 80% of alternative material hold this up (only in prog does the formula break down to any real measure – half, maybe? – and even then its shadow is never really gone).
Here’s an even harder challenge. Find two songs that stick perfectly to the same identical structure. Betcha can’t. Truth is, there are infinite variations of the framework (e.g., Level 42 often introduces a new lyric in each chorus, as in Lessons in Love; some songs have the same music for the verse and chorus, e.g., April Wine’s Tonight is a Wonderful Time; some songs only have a single verse-chorus before the bridge; some don’t even have a chorus at all, e.g., Tragically Hip’s Titanic Terranium). Indeed, some composers use a ‘through-composed’ form, where that pattern is scrapped altogether and they just rely on little leitmotifs to string together an evolving, often long, piece. Now you can see why Bohemian Rhapsody – never mind the riot of operatic craziness – was and remains to this day one of the most remarkable works in the entire pop music anthology.
The formula probably comes from a bunch of different centuries-old traditions. One is the ‘round’ style of British folk music (ABACABA – and yes, that’s where the Genesis song/album name, truncated, came from), or, for that matter any other folk music tradition; another is the call-and-response (verse-chorus) traditions that grew organically in improvisations and repetitions in many parts of the world; another is the recitative-aria (again, verse-chorus) iterations of opera; and others still are the many classical music forms in both instrumental and vocal music throughout the centuries. Think about the opening movement to Beethoven’s (or any other composer’s) Fifth Symphony: two contrasting themes introduced sequentially, then repeated (there’s your verse-chorus), a ‘development’ section, where both themes get a rigorous workout (there’s your bridge), and a ‘recapitulation’ of the main theme(s) and a coda (there’s your chorus repeat and outro). It’s not just music: many other artforms – film, literature, even lectures – follow that kind of theme and development.
What’s often special about songs often has to do with just the structure itself. It’s the story arc (and remember, I’m often talking about the musical story, not the story the lyric tells). Where does the pattern break, and why? Whole musical adventures have been laid out in just the sectional patterns of songs that can take a listener’s breath away. I’ll be riffing a lot on this in future posts.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with 4×4, ABABCB, stick-to-the-rules stuff. There’s way more than enough room within that framework to get creative and inspiring (and when one parameter – here, form – is kept rudimentary, it’s usually so another – maybe rhythm, harmony, or a great lyric can shine). Many listeners want to be challenged, even to the point of bewilderment. That’s possibly why so many prog rock listeners have a propensity to listen to non-pop forms. But sometimes I don’t want to be challenged or even inspired – I just want a fun, whistleable toon. Y’know, a cupcake. I love cupcakes.
