Shoegazing wallflowers, Hairy spotty kids – Mopey little herberts, Or chirpy katydids. We were far too cool to dance, And far too lefty-footed, Musoes looking for a cause With ranks in which to put it. But over time, we finally admit That half of it was crap, And pack it up in boxes in the attic, Never looking back. And maybe even grudgingly confess That pop is not that bad, And songs that make us happy Are more fun than songs that make us sad. Until…a chance half-hearing From a car or through a door, Brings us beautif’ly-scored misery In loping seven-four. Suddenly-remembered lyrics Catch a quiver in our throat – And we’re back in adolescent gloom, Re-loving ev’ry note.
Ooh, they’re singing a song… And I think we know this one ? Aren’t we clever ? I say, why not clap along, To show we know this one ? Now altogether ! Ignore the grumps among us Who just think it rather rude – Come on, let’s shout ! I bet the cast will thank us For our effort to intrude And drown them out !
I learned so much of what I know of poetry From the joys of pop – I soaked it up, subconscious, in no hurry, Drop by golden drop. The verse, the chorus, the linking-bit between, And the bridge that would soar – The words were the fuel in the polished machine, In structures as old as lore.
I never knew how I knew it at all, But I knew it all, When I heard the chorus call –
And the songs remained the same, That’s how they came, How any old hit was made – A-B-A-B, occasional C, It’s all a game, Repeat to fade.
I learned so much, I even learned surprise When the form was messed about – I loved it when they threw me, played me wise, Odd takes that caught me out. From starting with the chorus before the verse, Or adding a verse when it ought to end – It felt illicit, and I longed to immerse In my iconoclastic, offbeat friend.
I never knew how I knew it was wrong, But I knew so strong When I heard that rebel song –
Cos the songs can’t stay the same – The past’s to blame – We need to sing new tricks A-B-A-B, you’re boring me – Let’s change the game, Let’s re- the mix !
Come on, pop, I’m looking to you For something new, To change your key. So come on, pop, don’t let it be, Let’s tear on through This boogaloo ! I need you, pop, to shake the tree, Rejecting their authority, A-one, a-two, A-set-me-free, That’s what you do – So do it for me !
Are you ready, Ready to leap right off this ridge ? Into the space beyond the dials ? Into our hungry ears ? To see what’s at the other end of this bridge, In the unfamiliar miles Of the rainbow pregnant years ? Just because we’ve played three minutes, Who says that it’s time to stop ? To push things past the social limits, Isn’t that the point of pop ?
If the songs still play the same – That’s such a shame – We’ve heard them all before. But why not sneak in extra lines To shake things out of old confines ? And rouse a bold refrain That doesn’t quite rhyme, That they can’t ignore ? A-B-A-B, then jamboree, Until the game Comes home once more.
Examples of unusual song structures that struck me over the years:
OMD often used an instrumental hook as a chorus, as does Seven Nation Army, Bad Guy, and Golden Brown, or a ‘la-la-la’ chorus like in Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. Del Shannon’s Runaway used an instrumental in place of the second verse. The Byrds’ version of Mr Tambourine Man has a chorus, a verse, a chorus…and that’s it ! Does that make the verse more of a bridge…? Except it feels it lasts too long for that… This feels like a cut-down version of AABA (like many ‘Great American Songbook’ tunes, such as Somewhere Over the Rainbow), where the verses are doing all the heavy lifting with just a single bridge coming in the latter half.
Speaking of verses, repeating the opening stanza at the end of the song is quite common (Nights In White Satin, Annie’s Song), but Paper Planes by MIA repeats all of its four verses as soon as it sings them, so we hear the first verse twice before moving onto the second, which then repeats before the third etc. Killing In The Name uses the same verse (and of course the same chorus) before it’s extended bridge section that you’ll never hear on the radio, and Mr Brightside effectively repeats the entire song in the second half. Not to mention I’m Henery the Eighth I Am…
Sometimes an instrumental would come early, after the first chorus instead of the second (Pipes of Peace, The Importance of Being Idle), followed by a repeat of the chorus which we perceive as the climax, but then proceed with the second unexpected verse while not actually being any longer. Occasionally, a song such as Queen’s Mother Love will place its bridge after the first chorus, in a way that feels too early. What can it then do after the second chous ? Why, play the guitar solo, of course !
Some songs reduce the chorus to a single line, like The Sound of Silence, or two, like Blowing in the Wind. Perhaps this is less ‘chorus’ and more ‘refrain’. And songs like The House Of The Rising Sun and Blue Monday don’t even have that ! Conversely, songs that could be thought of as all chorus include Love Me Do, There She Goes, and Relax, though each of them does have a bridge section at the half-way point. Other songs, like many by Def Leppard, deny us the chorus the first time through, moving from pre-chorus straight into the second verse. And of course, there are plenty of songs which open with their chorus, from Shout to Le Freak via I Shot The Sheriff and Song 2.
But speaking of choruses, it is very rare that they change their lyrics from one repeat to the next (except perhaps for the odd word for emphasis). A couple that do are The Winner takes It All and Bob Dylan’s Hurricane, and one that frustratingly doesn’t is Paul Simon’s Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover. In the latter example, the chorus lists five ways, one tenth of that promised by the title, and then repeats it three further times with the same five examples!
Metal has often seen songs as more of a symphony, and not just in terms of guitar solos – they often have more lyrics and parts than three-minute pop – for instance, Metallica’s One develops midway into almost a completely different song, and doesn’t even circle back to its origins. Even more medley-esque is Happiness is a Warm Gun, where the parts only feel loosely related. Another song which wanders yet finds its way back home is Bohemian Rhapsody, keeping us on our toes through the journey (or at least it did when first we heard it, way back when).
Some songs seem to introduce the bridge for the first time, but then forget to repeat the chorus, so we have an outro instead, like Immigrant Song, Flash, or Don’t Stop Believing. Meanwhile, Franz Ferdinand described their approach to Take Me Out as singing only the verses in the first half, and then singing only the choruses in the second. And speaking of outros, there are plenty of eight-minute stadium-fillers with an extended instrumental after all the singing is done (Sultans of Swing, Comfortably Numb, Hotel California), but it’s rare on short-attention-span pop. But one song that shuts-up before the one-minute-thirty mark and then noodles away for over two minutes more is Gary Numan’s Cars, while Shuggie Otis’s Strawberry Letter 23 is not far behind.
But best of all are the songs which refuse to keep under five minutes, and not just by repeating the chorus too many times (looking at you, Hey Jude, because you always feel to me like a three-minuter with far too much bloat). Some, like Suede’s The Asphalt World make us think they’re winding down, but the coda turns into an intermission as they kick themselves up once more and regain their momentum. I get this sense from I Feel Love as well. Whole Lotta Love touches on this, though its extended breakdown never quite feels like its coming to a stop.
Of course, not every song can have a bizarre structure, nor should it – but neither should we feel compelled to follow the formula when the song wants to go somewhere different. If only, following AAB, the Rainbow had led us to a C instead…?
Violins are slim and light To perch upon the shoulder so – They mustn’t pile on extra wood, Or lose their cinched-in waist for good. For no-one wants to see the sight Of a bloated bridge beneath the bow – Don’t let the fretboard become baggy, Stop the strings from slouching saggy. Play less heavy, play more bright, And never let the tension go – Work those quavers through their paces, Else they’ll end up double-basses.
Painting’s hard, with all those tiny strokes, And poems are endless rhymes, And anyway, they’re the preserve of snooty folks And so behind the times. And architecture’s super-hard to build With all that carving and stuff I mean, who’s got the time to be that skilled ? Just pour the concrete rough. And music’s hard, not worth the perk To learn an instrument – Just sample other people’s work, And pay them not a cent
Creating beauty’s hard, we can’t be arsed, We’re far too lazy – But critics dig our arsey arts, And worship us like crazy. Make it ugly, hard to parse, This public-funded junk – The future finds it vain and sparse, Agog at how we’ve shrunk. We’re sinkholes in the bedrock karst, And ev’ryone knows we’re farces. Amazing how we can’t be arsed, And yet we’re up-our-own-arses.
Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
You Know What I Mean ?
The trouble with pop songs is how they say so little, Popping with so few words – They open a question they barely can answer, With most of their meaning inferred.
And choruses, of course, Just underscore – They only reinforce What’s gone before.
It’s not like they’re frightened to tackle the big themes, They’re sometimes incredibly plucky. It’s not that they’re vapid, it’s just that they’re brief – With two verses, three if we’re lucky.
And choruses repeat, That’s what they do – The feelings are complete, And they are few.
So much time is wasted, wasted, Misplaced in repeat repeatings – Saying all the same things That you said it all already. So much wasted time repeatings, Same things all the saying wasted – All already is misplaced In that repeat you said it.
Now hip-hop has plenty to say for itself, But pop is a hit-and-run lover. A beautiful thought or a rallying cry, And time’s up !, it plays us another.
And choruses declare The point is made. They’ve nothing more to share – Repeat to fade.
I’ve got a sampler at my feet, I’ve got a long synthetic beat I’m strumming my guitar, But there’s no-one on the stage but me…
It backs me up just fine, And it always keeps in time When I’m strumming my guitar, But it never lets me change the key
I’m a one-man band With my digital friends, Just playing a solo that never ends. And I can’t speed up, And I can’t slow down, So see me next week in Camden Town.
I’d love to sing a duet with someone Who’s backing me up in analogue. Could you syncopate me, someone, To put some roll in my rock ?
I’d love to thrash about the stage, I’d love to whip you to a rage, But I’m strumming my guitar To a hundred-and-twenty beats, inspite.
I’d love a ballad to unroll, I’d love an easy slice of soul, But I’m strumming my guitar To a hundred-and-twenty beats, all night.
I’m a one-man band, And it takes too long To set up the backing for every song. So I can’t slow down, And I can’t speed up, So see me next week in Lower Sidcup.
I’d love to sing a duet with someone, Without the need of a metronome. Could you be my freestyle, someone, And let my tempo roam ?
All of the best tunes are already written, I swear, Before I was even born. I spent my teens so acutely aware I was out of my time and the world didn’t care. So all the best tunes have already bitten me, Hooked me, then left me forlorn, Changed the planet, and now they are history, Un-recreatable, storied in mystery, Came and then went and it’s not even fair – Each time that I sing them I mourn. It’s not my aloofness, it’s not of my choosing, It’s downright confusing why I cannot bear Whatever my peergroup is eager to share – I call theirs noise and they call mine corn, Abusing the ears of the other, with no tune to spare. But that’s just me, ignore my scorn, I guess we each tootle a different horn. So set it to music, and that is my essence – An unrequited adolescence, Only enlivened by songs from the dead and the square. But throw in the Trident piano, and baby I’m there !
My daughter is getting into vinyl, And I wonder why, She can’t have much nostalgia For its world of middle-fi. It ended long before she even started, Dead and gone, Revived by boomer hairshirts Who cannot accept the world moves on.
She’s far too young for this old man’s hobby, Far too poor for these rich man’s toys, She never had to twiddle knobs To boost the signal, damp the noise. She never had the pops and crackles From the deep-down dirt that rocks her records as they roll – She never had to live with scratches, Etched across her far-too-fragile sheened and spiralled soul.
Give me digital to feed me, Give me digital to save, Give me megabytes of songs To last me to my grave. She’ll find out in her own time, And till then, let’s let have her thing – To swing the arm into the secret vault That makes the diamonds sing.
My teenage self would envy all her Easy access to her tunes, With soundwaves at her fingertips For filling busy afternoons – And not just playing them, but finding them, No matter how obscure. And yet, she wants to give it up For the world of the analogue-pure.
But maybe she’s cosplaying other lives, With second-hand vinyl bought-up cheap – I’d gladly give her my old forty-fives, But I long since chucked the useless heap. Music shouldn’t need kid-gloves, To tiptoe past, afraid to jive, to keep her groove on track. Let each girl play the songs she loves In beautiful fidelity, unshattered by shellack.
Give me digital to sing to, Give me digital romance, Give me cold hard ones and ohs On which the lasers dance. She’ll find out in her own time, And till then, let’s let her have her bliss – To open up the gatefold gates Of needle-drop and soothing hiss.
Disco sucks When it’s made by corporations, Disco sucks When it’s got no good vibrations, Disco sucks When it’s played to saturation, Disco sucks – On ev’ry bloody station till the end of the dials, With mindless hedonism and compulsory smiles, Just smothering with strings, suffocating other styles, With too much of a good thing round the clock. So if we just can’t face it, Then that doesn’t make us racist, Or homophobo hateist, Just because we wanna rock. Yet rock music sucks When it’s made by corporations, But all music rules When it undergoes mutations. So play your disco, sure, But play other stuff as well, To live in multi-Heaven and keep out of mono-Hell. When I hear too much rock, Then I mentally must clear it, To find something else pumping At a thousand kilojoules – And if I don’t hear disco for a while, And then I hear it, That hearing is the time when Disco rules !
Rhyming Couplets 