You can define a multi-part verse melody in many ways, but the kind of melody I’m talking about is the kind you might find in a song like Eagles’ “Take It Easy” (Jackson Browne/Glenn Frey), which is a verse-only song where the verse consists of several short phrases joined together to make one complete melody.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this great song ever since learning of the death of Glenn Frey. What a great songwriter, both in collaboration with bandmate Don Henley and others (“Tequila Sunrise”, “New Kid In Town”, etc.), and as a solo singer-songwriter: “The Heat Is On”, “You Belong to the City”. Many of his songs sounded like classics the day they were released.
Other kinds of verse-only songs make use of repeating sections. Amanda McBroom’s “The Rose” is a good example, where the first phrase is repeated, then a new section is written, but then ends on a repeat of the first phrase: AABA.
“Take It Easy” consists of a verse that pulls together three different phrases to make one long verse: a verse in ABC form. We might tend to hear the 2nd and 3rd phrases as a chorus, but really it’s just a continuation of the verse. It’s a fine point, but the main difference is that each phrase leads naturally and effortlessly to the next one, with the final phrase ending on a strong cadence.
Writing a song that consists mainly of one long verse is not overly tricky, but there are some points to keep in mind:
- The melody benefits from a climactic high point. It’s good to find a spot where your highest note(s) will happen, and it’s often best if it happens in the last third or last quarter of the song.
- Simplify the rhythm on the title words. As you can hear, the lyric here gets sung on relatively quick, short note values with lots of syncopation. But when the title words are sung (“Take it easy…”), the rhythm simplifies and the words become much longer in duration. This is an important lyrical principle that applies to any song, regardless of whether or not there’s a chorus.
- Keep chord progressions relatively strong and simple. Verse-only songs need the strength that comes from a chord progression that keeps the tonic chord in its sights. In “Take It Easy”, the tonic chord is G, and you can hear the importance of that chord throughout all the progressions that occur.
- Use one section of your melody to venture away from the tonic. In a song like “Take It Easy”, venturing away from the tonic won’t be (and shouldn’t be) a complete change of key. In this case, the second section of the song — still in G major — starts and ends on Em, giving a nice contrast to the very prevalent sound of G.
- Verse-only songs give lots of opportunities to add other non-chorus sections. In “Take It Easy”, there’s a nice instrumental solo that occurs, but you can also consider adding a bridge, perhaps using the song’s intro as a quasi-bridge — anything that offers a variation and breaks up the constant repetition of the verse melody.
Another good example of this kind of multi-section verse, where each phrase is different and new, is Chicago’s “Old Days” (James Pankow), which strings together four phrases, the last of which is a brass instrumental.
It follows all the same characteristics we hear in “Take It Easy”: it’s got a climactic high point in the latter half of the verse, it simplifies the rhythm on the title words, and the progressions are strong with one section pulling away from the tonic before returning solidly to the tonic chord.
If you’re writing a verse-only song, you can work the last phrase to end with a line of repeated lyric. (“Like a Rolling Stone” is a bit like this.) That way, you give the impression that you’re using a verse-chorus or verse-refrain format, which can strengthen the song’s structure.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter
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And another quick one – Take it Easy’s principle writer is Jackson Browne – Glen helped him finish it as the story goes……….
Thanks for all your superb tips!
Andy
Ha! And now I figured out where I made my error.. I misread the article that described Frey as the singer of (not necessarily the co-writer of) those songs. 🙂
Thanks, Andy, for keeping me on my toes. 🙂
-Gary
Hi Gary.
I love this song. What makes it a verse-only song and not a song with a verse and a chorus? The “I’ve been running down the road” (part A) section sounds like a verse and the “Take it Easy” (part B) section seems like a chorus to me. I wonder this often with different songs where it seems their sections could be given different labels.
-Ryan
Hi Ryan:
To me, a chorus is similar in size (sometimes shorter) than the verse that precedes it. It also usually uses a clearly repeating lyric. (This one repeats some parts but not others.) Also, there’s a feeling that the section itself can be repeated easily, as a sort of self-contained section. I lean toward calling this a 3-part verse because the 3 sections are equal in length, with one section leading easily to the next.
I don’t suppose it really matters a lot whether we call it a verse and chorus, or simply a 3-part verse… the qualities of each section remain the same, no matter what we decide to call them. It’s often the same with pre-choruses. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, if it’s a long verse, or if it really is a verse-pre-chorus. Ultimately it doesn’t matter a whole lot if you’re studying what each section is doing.
Thanks, Ryan!
-Gary
Just a quick one Gary –Peaceful Easy Feeling– was written solely by
Jack Tempchin Not Glen and Don
Thanks, Peter. That’s just me writing too quickly! I’ve made the correction. 🙂
-G