For songs that use one of the verse-chorus formats, you’ll know that verses usually use the same melody but different lyrics. Occasionally you’ll find a song that uses different melodies in the verses — “I Know What I like (In Your Wardrobe)“, by Genesis for example, or a song with the same lyrics in subsequent verses (“Sister Golden Hair“, by America, using the same lyric for verses 2 and 3). But those are outliers; we expect the same melody with different lyrics.
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This might be straying a bit into the world of music production, but it’s worth thinking about what else you might do differently between verses 1 and 2. Why? Because in general, musical energy needs to increase as a song progresses, where we hear a bit more intensity in at least some aspects of the music toward the end than we do nearer the beginning.
And because so many songwriters now are producing their own songs, you’ll need to step out of your role as a songwriter and think about production values that differentiate your verses from each other.
There’s probably a longish list you could create, but here are some important aspects of musical production to consider:
- Verse 2 will probably use busier or fuller instrumentation. Think of The Beatles’ “Dear Prudence” as a good example of this. Verse 2 most notably adds drums (or at least carries drums over from the chorus), and adds a busier bass line. Sometimes the difference is subtle, like when you compare the start of verse 1 in Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” with the subtle build we hear in verse 2. But it’s usually there.
- Verse 2 lyrics will intensify the emotions we experience in verse 1. Most of the time the emotional stuff is held back until the chorus, but all verses will have at least some emotional content. Again, subtlety is usually the best approach. In Adele’s “When we were young”, the first verse is quite observational in nature, but the second verse increases the emotional value when we get lines like “I was so scared…”, “you moved overseas…”, “when you left me…”, and so on.
- Verse 2 needs to allow for a compelling build to the story. So it’s not just that emotions of specific words and phrases intensify, it’s that the story itself needs to prove its worth in verse 2. Verse 1 allows listeners to learn what the song’s actually about, and verse 2 needs to prove that it’s a story worth telling. Read your verse 1 and verse 2 lyric in sequence (without the chorus in between), and it should be as enticing as any good short story.
- Verse 2 vocals need to allow for a compelling build. Verse 2 might include something additional, like a countermelody (“Time” – Alan Parsons Project), or vocal harmonies, and in general a bigger, more intense vocal approach, like we hear in most songs in the pop genres. Vocal build just feels natural most of the time.
Sometimes the build doesn’t happen so much in the verses, but in subsequent choruses, like in The Doors’ “Light My Fire“. But in any case, most songs in practically any genre you can name will use the verses to subtly build musical energy as a way of keeping audiences listening.
In your own songs, record what you’ve written and listen closely for that aspect of good songwriting production: the gradual build from beginning to end, using verses as a way to allow for a subtle intensifying of musical energy.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter
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