For a Shot of Energy, Try Chorus-First Songs

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If verse-chorus-bridge is your favourite format when composing songs, you already know its strength. There’s a natural energy build that comes from using that song form. That’s because the verse is usually lightly accompanied, with the voice in a relatively low register. The chorus moves the voice higher, and the instrumental accompaniment gets busier, louder, and generally more exciting. That kind of built-in energy increase feels natural and pleasing.

The usual caution is to remind songwriters that it’s dangerous to emote too much in a verse because the audience doesn’t know enough yet about the song’s topic. So the standard approach is to be descriptive in a verse, and emotive in a chorus.

Having said that, there’s a great benefit to starting songs once in a while with the chorus: you give your song a shot of energy right out of the gate.

Here are some great examples of songs that start with the chorus, some after a short intro. Give them a listen, and imagine if the song had started with the verse.:

1. Lady Madonna (The Beatles)
2. It’s My Party (Lesley Gore)
3. Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel)
4. Payphone (Maroon 5)
5. Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne)

In most cases, a song in verse-chorus format will do just fine by making the decision to start with the chorus. Besides the energy shot, there’s another potential benefit that can come from chorus-first songs: you present the song title and most memorable part of the song right away, up front. It goes a long way to making your song very memorable.

Just always remember that there’s the danger that you are presenting the most emotional parts of a song first, you risk alienating your listeners a bit. They hear all the emotion and drama up front, but don’t yet really have anything to connect those emotions to.

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