In verse-chorus songs, a verse melody’s tendency to wander isn’t necessarily a drawback.
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In verse-chorus songs, the part that needs to be memorable is the chorus, not so much the verse. It’s not that people don’t go around humming verses: they often do. But for many hit songs, it’s all about the chorus, which really needs to be memorable.
That’s why, when you look at the way song choruses are usually built, you see:
- Short, repetitive melodic fragments;
- Short, basic chord progressions;
- Repetitive and emotional lyrics;
But verses – that’s a different story. Verses can wander about a bit more, and it’s not usually a problem. There is an important reason for this. Verse melodies accompany a lyric that describes a story or situation. To do this, a verse melody, along with the chords underneath, often needs to be more creative and further-ranging.
You can hear this clearly demonstrated in Paul Simon’s hit song, “My Little Town”, for which the verse is long, taking many different turns and angles.
But once the song gets to the chorus, everything becomes much more predictable. The chorus melody is short, repetitive and catchy. It’s highly unlikely that people will sing that verse melody to themselves as they stroll down the street. Far more likely that they’ll sing the chorus.
And that’s completely fine. In this respect, don’t think of “wandering” as equating to “aimless.” A wandering verse melody may be an important ingredient in the telling of a good story.
All of this changes when dealing with verse-only songs. In a verse-only structure, you’ve got a challenge: create a melody, chords & lyric that are descriptive (in ports), emotional (in other parts), with the whole thing being memorable and catchy.
So if you’re writing verse-chorus songs (with optional bridge and/or pre-chorus), don’t worry so much if the verse wanders a bit in its bid to tell the story. Tighten things up in the chorus and it’ll usually be fine.
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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.
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