VII. Popular Music

Verse-Chorus Form

Bryn Hughes and Megan Lavengood

Key Takeaways

  • Verse-chorus form is a versatile song form that rapidly took over rock-and-roll in the 1960s and has dominated the genre ever since.
  • In verse-chorus form, the title lyrics, the most memorable music, and the main narrative are split between two core sections: the verse and the chorus.

Verse-chorus form is so named because the two most important sections are the verse and the chorus. Other possible sections in verse-chorus form are prechorus, bridge, and postchorus.

A prototypical verse-chorus form song is illustrated in Example 1.

Illustration showing sections as follows: intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, verse, prechorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus
Example 1. A prototypical verse-chorus form, not referencing a specific song. Click to enlarge.

“Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi follows a typical verse-chorus form (Example 2). It also illustrates common usage of five core sections in verse-chorus forms.

Example 2. “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi (1986).

Cycles

Notice that the sections used in “Livin’ on a Prayer” recur and seem to follow a pattern. Sections within a verse-chorus form have certain prototypical orderings and groupings. The verse, prechorus, chorus, and postchorus sections, for example, always progress in this order (though they don’t all need to be present). These groupings are referred to as cycles. In “Livin’ on a Prayer”:

  • After an extended intro, the first cycle begins:
  • After a brief interlude, this cycle is repeated beginning at 1:54.
  • A final cycle at 3:00 begins with a guitar solo (functioning as a bridge and replacing the verse in this cycle).
  • The cycle is followed by repetitions of the chorus, and a fadeout ends the song.

Sections within Verse-Chorus Form

Terms, concepts, definitions, and notational guidelines are taken from common convention and a combination of the resources listed below under Further Reading.

Verse (V)

  • Verse sections are lyric-variant and often contain lyrics that advance the narrative.
  • Until the 1960s, verse sections tended to be harmonically closed.
  • Beginning in the 1960s, verse sections became more and more likely to be harmonically open (Summach 2012, 114).
  • Verses (like strophes) tend to begin on-tonic.

Prechorus (P)

Chorus (C)

  • Chorus sections are lyric-invariant and contain the primary lyrical material of the song (the title lyrics and/or lyrical hook).
  • Chorus function is also typified by heightened musical intensity relative to the verse, including features like “a more dense or active instrumental texture; prominent background vocals; and/or a higher register melody” (Summach 2012, 106).
  • Choruses most frequently (but not exclusively) begin on-tonic.
  • Although the terms chorus and refrain are often used interchangeably when speaking colloquially, take care to keep them separate when discussing music theory. Chorus sections are distinct from refrains because choruses constitute an entire section by themselves, whereas refrains are contained within a section (as described below).

Postchorus (Z)

  • A postchorus is a short section that follows a chorus and serves only to close the cycle (not to introduce or transition to the beginning of the next cycle) (Spicer 2011, para. 9).
  • A clear postchorus can be heard in “Independent Women, Pt. 1” by Destiny’s Child at 1:18, beginning with the lyric “Girl, I didn’t know you could get down like that.”

Bridge (B)

Bridge sections are a flexible section type in verse-chorus form.

  • In verse-chorus form songs, the bridge tends to appear once, followed by the last chorus (or the last prechorus and chorus) of the song.
  • Within a cycle, bridges will replace the verse and/or prechorus sections instead of being added in as an extra element. Thus, you will not usually see all five core section types in a single cycle.
  • A verse-chorus song may not have a bridge at all.

Each of these points contrasts with the way bridges are used in AABA form.

Standout Lyrics within Sections

Refrain

While refrains are primarily associated with AABA form and strophic form, they can occasionally be used within sections of a verse-chorus form song. However, take note that refrains are distinct from choruses—refrains are a lyric within a section, whereas a chorus is an entire standalone section.

Climb

A climb is a phrase with prechorus function. Like the refrain, because it is only one phrase long, a climb is too short to be its own section. The climb is always the last phrase of a strophe or verse.

An example of a climb is in “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners (1982): listen for the one-phrase climb at the end of its verses and bridge (“Tu-ra-lu-ra…”), as heard at 1:13.

Further Reading
  • Barna, Alyssa. 2018. “The Dance Chorus in Recent Top-40 Music.” SMT-V 6 (4). https://vimeo.com/societymusictheory/smtv06-4barna.
  • Covach, John. 2005. “Form in Rock Music: A Primer.” In Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis, edited by Deborah Stein, 65–76. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Everett, Walter. 1999. The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Spicer, Mark. 2011. “(Per)Form in(g) Rock: A Response.” Music Theory Online 17 (3). http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.11.17.3/mto.11.17.3.spicer.html.
  • Stroud, Cara. 2014. “The Postchorus in Millennial Dance Pop.” Paper presented at the Graduate Association of Musicologists und Theorists Conference, Denton, TX.
  • Summach, Jay. 2011. “The Structure, Function, and Genesis of the Prechorus.” Music Theory Online 17 (3). http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.11.17.3/mto.11.17.3.summach.html. Reading Guide
  • Summach, Jason. 2012. “Form in Top-20 Rock Music, 1955–89.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University.
Assignments
  1. Pop Music Form—The Shape of Music Around You (.pdf). Writing assignment that asks students to find songs on their own; identify them as strophic, AABA, or verse-chorus; name the sections of the song; and justify their analyses using form vocabulary.
  2. Verse-Chorus Form (.pdf, .docx). Uses BriFormer web app to create form diagrams of pop songs in verse-chorus form. One straightforward example, and one challenging example.

Media Attributions


  1. This is because prechorus sections originate historically in the d section of an srdc pattern. Think of an srdc strophe becoming longer until sr forms its own two-part verse section, d forms its own prechorus section, and c forms its own chorus section.
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