American Popular Song: Song Forms and Structure

Songwriting is an art, no two ways about it. A songwriter takes two different entities, words and music, and combines that them into something new that is truly greater than the sum of its parts. There have been great songs and songwriters in America for many years. A great song is not a new thing; they exist in all styles and cultures. This article will discuss American popular song forms and their origins

Three popular song forms:

I. AABA (32 bar or 64 bar pop) song form
This form is the classic Tin Pan Alley/Broadway musical song form that dates from late 1800s and early 1900s. Tin Pan Alley is the East Coast scene that gave us songwriters Harold Arlen, Sammy Cahn, Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, George and Ira Gershwin and many more. This song form is easily repetitive and succinct. The A section (a verse) is repeated twice and is typically 8 measures or bars long. The bridge (B section or the "middle eight") is heard as a departure from the verse, after which the verse comes back in. AABA song form is very much a commercial enterprise in some respects, in order to get songs sold via sheet music in those days before recorded music made it big, AABA songs are standardized, easily identifiable and were eminently marketable in those early days.

Examples of AABA song form:
• Blue Moon - Mel Torme, The Marcels, et.al.
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland
• Satin Doll - various artists
• Crazy - Patsy Cline
• He'll Have To Go - Jim Reeves (double 64-bar pop; AABA in ¾ time)
• El Paso - Marty Robbins
• That'll Be The Day - Buddy Holly
• Donna - Ritchie Valens
• Walk Don't Run - Ventures
• Breaking Up Is Hard To Do - Neil Sedaka
• Raindrops - Dee Clark
• I Fought The Law - Bobby Fuller Four
• From Me To You - Beatles
• Yesterday - Beatles (29-bar pop!!!)
• Rhythm of the Rain - Cascades/Dan Fogelberg
• Longer - Dan Fogelberg
• Same Old Lang Syne - Dan Fogelberg (could also be viewed as Verse-Refrain)
• Heaven - Los Lonely Boys

II. 12-bar blues form
12-bar blues comes to us from the Blues tradition of the rural South. At its core is the idea of "call-and-response" found in African-American work songs, field hollers, and old Black Gospel music: where someone sings a line and someone else repeats it back to them or an instrument (guitar, diddley bow, gutbucket bass, washboard, piano) would answer with a line. 12-bar blues did not get "codified" until the days of Robert Johnson, Son House, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters: the 1920s - 1940's.

Classic 12-bar blues is 12 measures long in three 4-measure segments. A music theory simplification…if you'll indulge me….If we are in the Key of A Major - A is home base (tonic) or the I-chord, D is the IV chord (count up four letter names/notes from A), and E is the V chord. So in blues form, the first four measures use the I chord, measures 5 and 6 use the IV chord, measure 7 and 8 back to I, measure 9 and 10 are the V chord, and measures 11 and 12 are the I chord again. Clear as mud? :) good....go and listen to the tunes, you see exactly what I mean.

Looking a little like this (where the lines are measures and letters are chords)

| A | A | A | A |

| D | D | A | A |

| E | E | A | A |

This allows for the call-and-response of the vocals, as well as endless opportunities for improvisation. There are a great many modifications and tweaks one can do with 12-bar blues. The form is now nearly-ubiquitous to American vernacular music; one can hear it on the radio or in your local venues very regularly.

Examples of 12-bar blues
• Crossroad Blues - Robert Johnson/Cream
• Sweet Home Chicago - Robert Johnson et.al.
• Dust My Broom - Robert Johnson/Elmore James
• Hoochie Coochie Man - Muddy Waters (16-bar blues)
• Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
• Carol - Chuck Berry (24 bar blues)
• At The Hop - Danny and the Juniors
• The Twist - Chubby Checker
• Wipeout - The Surfaris
• Mustang Sally - Wilson Pickett (24 bar blues)
• The Thrill is Gone - BB King
• Wooly Bully - Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs (15-bar blues?!?)
• Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan

III. Verse and Refrain (sometimes verse/chorus form, used interchangeably)
The third most common American song form comes from Appalachian folk songs, white Southern Gospel/hymn tunes, and gunfighter/old west/trail songs. These forms can be traced to European seas songs and shanties. This song form is really straightforward: verses then a refrain, these two are then repeated over the course of the song.

Examples of verse and refrain form:
• Hello, Mary Lou - Ricky Nelson
• La Bamba - Ritchie Valens
• Bye Bye Love - Everly Brothers
• Under the Boardwalk - Drifters
• Crying - Roy Orbison
• My Girl - Temptations
• Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell(Webb)
• McArthur Park - Richard Harris (Webb)
• Take It Easy - Eagles
• The Worst that Could Happen - Fifth Dimension/Brooklyn Bridge
• Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffett
• Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
• 867-5309 - Tommy Tutone
• Because He Lives - Bill and Gloria Gaither
• Many hymns and older 18th century songs (Civil War, gunfighter ballads, laments, etc.

IV. Hybrid examples
Especially as popular music entered the 1970s and beyond, these song forms combined to where the point where each of the forms we talked about were not as distinguishable as they were in previous generations. Many of these "newer" songs had song forms that were superimposed on other forms.

• Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry (12-bar blues/Verse and Refrain)
• Oh Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison (Verse and Refrain/AABA)
• Back in the USSR - Beatles (Verse and Refrain/ABBA)
• Leader of the Band - Dan Fogelberg (Verse and Refrain/AABA)
• Weekend In New England - Barry Manilow (Verse and Refrain/AABA)
• Tumbleweed - Coco Montoya (12-bar blues/AABA)
• Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams (Verse and Refrain/AABA)
• House is Rockin' - Stevie Ray Vaughan (Verse and Refrain/12-bar blues)
• Hazard - Richard Marx (Verse and Refrain/AABA)

Coda:
There are many songs that were not mentioned here. Vernacular music has a rich tradition in America, and since the advent of the rock era, the number of great songs has increased exponentially. I could have replaced every song on these lists, and had equally great songs. I would encourage you to find and listen to each of these songs. Also, peruse the links and resources at the bottom of this article: there are also many more resources at your library and book stores. I am sure you will find other songs that fit the categories of these forms.

The American popular song is a national treasure that has never been fully discovered I believe. There is a veritable goldmine of great songs out there. This article does not even begin to scratch the surface but I hope it has piqued your interest. Happy listening!