Pop Songs Don't Need to Have a Chorus

Or how we confuse fads with unchanging truths

If you asked a group of artists to enumerate ten commandments of pop songwriting, I think the first thing they’d set down would be the following: don’t bore us, get to the chorus. That piece of wisdom sums up most things you need to know about pop songs. The most memorable part of a pop song is its chorus, so if you want to hook your listener, you should get there quickly. All of the greatest pop songs heed this advice. Or do they?

The funny thing about looking at the history of popular music on a large enough time scale is that you begin to notice things you once thought were hard facts are actually just trends. Today, I want to talk about how the ubiquity of the verse-chorus pop song is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Middle Eight

Take a second and sing “Over the Rainbow” from the film The Wizard of Oz to yourself. If I asked you what the first verse was, you’d probably say the following:

Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high
There's a land that I've heard of
Once in a lullaby.

Okay. We’ve got a verse. And if I asked you to point out another verse, you could probably do that too. Now, take a look for the chorus. Is it the following section? It’s really the only other choice.

Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me

But I don’t think anybody would call this a chorus. It is definitely its own section - the melody and lyrics are different than the verse - but it doesn’t function how a chorus typically does. First, the title of a song is typically found in a pop song’s chorus. The title of “Over the Rainbow” is found at the beginning of each verse.

Secondly, choruses are often connected to verses in a way where the verse feels like it is building specifically to the chorus. Take Don McLean’s classic “American Pie” as an example.

And while Lenin read a book of Marx
The Quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died

We were singing, bye-bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
”This will be the day that I die”

If I sang you a verse of “American Pie”, you would expect me to continue onto the chorus. One can’t really exist without the other. That’s not the case with “Over the Rainbow”. There are indeed two sections - just like “American Pie” - but there is a completeness in the sections of “Over the Rainbow” such that if I sang you the first section (i.e., “Somewhere over the rainbow…”), you wouldn’t necessarily need or expect me to continue onto the next section (i.e., “Someday I’ll wish upon a star…”).

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In short, “Over the Rainbow” does not follow a verse-chorus form. It follows an earlier form sometimes called 32-bar form, AABA form, or even the American popular song form. As the second name suggests, these songs usually have two sections, often denoted “A” and “B”. The song’s title is usually found in a refrain, or short-repeated line, at the beginning or end of the A section. The B section, sometimes called the middle eight or the bridge, will have a distinct melody from the A section but, as previously noted, will function somewhat separately both harmonically and lyrically.

This was the most common Western pop song form throughout the first half of the 20th century. We don’t see the verse-chorus form become increasingly prevalent in American popular music until the end of the 1960s.

Though the verse-chorus songs still existed while the AABA form was dominant, it’s the evolution of AABA that made the verse-chorus form pervasive. As noted earlier, songs of the AABA form usually had a short repeated line, often called a refrain (e.g., “Somewhere over the rainbow…”). Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the refrain was slowly stretched into a longer section (e.g., “Bye, bye Miss American Pie…”).

We can see this illustrated in the evolution of The Beatles number one hits. Many of their early classics, like “Yesterday” and “We Can Work It Out”, follow the AABA form, but by the end of the 1960s, with songs like “Get Back” and “Let It Be”, they began to embrace the verse-chorus form.

On top of the stretching of the refrain, we also see the B section of the AABA form live on as a third section - stilled denoted the bridge - in the verse-chorus song. In the same way that the B section stood apart from the A section in the AABA form, when a bridge is used in a verse-chorus song, it usually functions similarly. Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license” illustrates this well.

In short, even when we look at the evolution of pop song structure from a high-level perspective, like we did in this piece, we see that people won’t necessarily be bored if you don’t get to the chorus. They weren’t for decades.

A New One
"BETTER AFTER DARK" by witS & Smitty!
2023 - Alternative Rap

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling around on Audiomack when I came across a playlist named Jazz Rap. It had a description that intrigued me: “Spitting over live instrumentals”. About an hour into listening to the playlist, I realized that the curator was an artist themselves. Their music fit the vibe of their playlist.

witS & Smitty! is a Brooklyn-based duo that does indeed combine raps with live instrumentals. In fact, the duo’s emcee, witS, is also a talented drummer. And it’s the rhythms throughout their discography, especially on "BETTER AFTER DARK", that keep me coming back.

An Old One
"Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" by Roberta Flack
1971 - Soul Ballad

Originally performed by The Shirelles in the early 1960s, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” highlights the skills Carole King and Gerry Goffin, the pair that wrote it. King’s melody is enough to bring you to tears, but when paired with her ex-husband’s lyrics, the song becomes an absolute gut punch, especially when those lyrics are flowing from the mouth of Roberta Flack.

Tonight, you're mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight, the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow?

Written in AABA form, this song also highlights why I often find that form more satisfying than verse-chorus form. The reason for this actually goes back to the adage I started this piece with: don’t bore us, get to the chorus. In the pop world, there is so much stress on having a great chorus that it often comes at the expense of the verse. Because the A and B sections exist more independently in AABA form, I find that you can’t skimp on either if you want your song to be great.

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Want to hear the last song I wrote in AABA form? Check out the first track from my latest EP.

Are song introductions becoming shorter? Check out this video I made with The Economist exploring why this has happened.