Contrast Attracts

Contrast the melody in the verse to the chorus with phrasing, melodic rhythm and pitch.

A lot to remember? Just remember that your song has to be interesting. If your verse is four lines with a melody and your chorus is four lines with the same melody and rhyme scheme, it will sound like another verse. When repeated, it will sound like a repeated verse.

A repeated chorus is comforting. The same music, melody and rhyme scheme repeated with the same lyric driving home the message of the song reinforces the song's concept.

A repeated verse, except at the very end, tells folks you couldn't think of anything else.

Toby Keith had a ground-breaking song with sharp, staccato lyrics in the verse, then a chorus that proclaimed: "How do like me now?" The long stretches, held words and punchy hook line were in contrast to the verse lyrics. It is the contrast that is attractive for that song.

In the often-recorded blues song about when Bill Bailey's woman regretted throwing him out, she sings:

Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, won't you come home

She cries all night long.

I'll do the cookin', honey, I'll pay the rent,

I know I done you wrong

It is a different rhythm and melody from the verse and as a result is one that the audience remembers. I've yet to meet an audience who didn't recognize that chorus once begun.

Ruby Tuesday begins on the sub-dominant chord in the verse. If played in A, as I do it, you begin the verse in a D chord. Then the chorus begins on an A chord and changes rhythm, rhyme pattern and range, sung higher on the scale.

"She would never say where she came from

Yesterday don't matter 'cause it's gone

When the sun is bright,

Or in the darkest night, no one knows

She comes and goes"

(chorus)

"Good-bye, Ruby Tuesday

Who could hang a name on you

When you change with ev'ry new day

Girl, I'm gonna miss you."

The chorus ends, again, on the sub-dominant, the D chord, ready for the next verse, but also being very haunting.

One of the most recognizable choruses in the world has one of the least recognizable verses.

"The night was mighty dark and you could hardly see

And the moon refused to shine.

Couple sittin' underneath a willow tree, for love they pined.

Little maid was kinda 'fraid of darkness

So she said, 'I think I'll go.'

Boy began to sigh, looked up in the sky

And told the moon his little tale of woe."

Now comes the chorus, with a new lyric pattern and new melody, one of the most popular ever:

"Shine - on, Shine on Harvest moon, up in the sky.

I ain't had no lovin' since January, February, June or July.

Snow time ain't no time to stay outdoors and spoon

So shine - on, shine on, Harvest Moon, for me and my gal."

If you vary your chorus from the verse, make it memorable as well as novel, you will win thereby.