Some time ago, in a thread far, far beyond my memory, I complimented some song’s chorus for wrapping up with an exquisitely designed “bow,” or some such phrase. I highly appreciated the craft that went into the final section of said chorus.
As songwriters of any degree on Rock Town Hall can attest, choruses can be a bitch to write effectively. The pressure’s on: the chorus is expected to provide the song’s “take-home message.” Even when the message is garbled, as may be the case on, say, David Bowie’s “Changes”, a well-crafted arrangement and delivery can provide the necessary “money shot.”
The Animals, “We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place”
Granted, this is a matter of personal taste, but occasionally there’s a mostly great chorus that wraps up in a way that makes me think the songwriter ran out of steam or interest. One that’s recently struck me as such an example is The Animals‘ “We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place”. The life-or-death build up as the chorus gets underway – all those sweat-and-grime moans that accompany Eric Burdon‘s “He’s been working so hard…” prechorus lead into a strong singalong to the song’s title. Then, when I’m all worked up and feeling part of something special, I’m left with what I find to be a disappointing and somewhat cheap “Girl there’s a better place for me and you.” The little chord riff and pounding drum part that follows does its best to restore authority, but I can’t help but hear that last line to be anything more than a device worthy of a dinner theater rock band like Blood, Sweat & Tears.
“How do we get ourselves out of this chorus?” I hear Barry Mann, one of the song’s writers, ask his songwriting partner, Cynthia Weil.
“Well, we’ve already introduced the ‘girl,’ as if she really matters to the song’s content,” says Cynthia.
“You’re right,” says Barry, “I mean, the narrator of this song is really concerned with his own fate. It’s his ‘daddy’ who’s been working so hard and it’s the narrator who faces the same fate. He doesn’t once mention his mother’s dishpan hands or sagging breasts as examples of what his girl faces.”
“Right!” says Cynthia, “The small working-class environment in which this couple exists knows only a traditional family structure. The girl won’t be slaving away in the coal mines. The narrator of this song is only calling his girl into the story for sympathy. As the wise Townsman E. Pluribus Gergely might say, ‘Songwriters almost always weaken their songs when they write from some imaginary we perspective; songs should be written in the first person singular when the writer really means it.'”
“There’s something to be said for what Gergs always says, but we’re not writing for that college educated Dylan crowd, Cyn. The Righteous Brothers need another smash. Fast!”
“Yeah,” sighs Cynthia, “those assholes wouldn’t have it any other way. Medley’s been dragging Hatfield around for sympathy all these years. Let’s wrap this one up and move onto a new song.”
I think the chorus is fine. After all, the song is called WE Gotta Get Out of This Place, so it makes sense that the other half is part of the ‘bow’ used to tie up the chorus. He’s already said that she’ll be dead before her time is due. And the song ends with “Believe me baby/I know it baby/You know it too.”
What I don’t like, though I never noticed it till today, are the stupid eighth notes on the tom tom during the guitar riff right after the chorus. Mr. Mod seems to think they restore authority to the song, but I think they’re lame. The drums in the rest of the song are cool, especially the ride cymbal plinks over the bass riff at the beginning.
The scream Burdon lets out between 2:15 and 2:22 gives the song all the authority it needs in my book.
I remember at the time thinking this song gave me authentic insight into British working class life, only later finding out it was written in America by Brill Building pros.
I agree that the chorus is “fine,” BigSteve, but does anyone else see what I mean about how the final line seems to be an easy way out?
More of interest to me is whether any of you have an otherwise strong chorus that fails to deliver the knockout punch, that’s “fine” when it could have been fantastic.
I’m glad I at least got BigSteve to focus on and bum out over the floor tom beats:)
Don’t the tom tom beats depend on which version of the song you are listening too. I know I had a version that didn’t have the toms (and had a different speaking vocal part at the end)as well as the more common version
So I take it you cats are cool with every otherwise good chorus you’ve heard – you never expect more than an artist delivers?
One that comes to my mind is REM’s “Man on the Moon. The chorus starts strong, but then at the end peters out, with Stipe trying to pump life into the lifeless line, “Nothing is cool.”
I always thought that “Blue Jay Way” had one of the lamest choruses ever: “please don’t be long…please don’t you be very long…please don’t be long…or i may be asleep.”
can you get much more pedestrian than this?
On a commpletely different note, I just heard Chicago’s “Stay the Night” in the car. Were it not for this thread, I never would have noticed the weak lyric writing (and the shabby way they’re crammed in) that concludes the chorus:
“Stay the night
Theres room enough here for two
Stay the night
Id like to spend it with you
Stay the night
Why dont we call it a day
No one can stop us, nothing is in the way.”
Great examples of choruses that peter out, Sat, if they ever had juice to begin with. I’m a huge fan of the verses and backing sounds of “Blue Jay Way”, but that chorus definitely goes nowhere.
Songwriters of any degree (ie, don’t be unnecessarily humble or shy – if you write songs you write songs and are fit to answer the following question), like my imaginary Mann and Weil, do you know when you’re trying to skate by with a half-assed chorus? I’m not ashamed to say I’ve been there.
Yeah, mod, I know those choruses don’t really fit the bill. You’re talking about striking out looking after being ahead in the count.
But they both start much stronger than they end.
Perhaps the best example I can think of right now is the chorus to “Get off my Cloud” a song I REALLY love as the Stones nod to the mods. Maybe 2k can help me: What IS that mess after the 3rd “get offa my cloud”? I’m talking about the part that goes “Don’t hang around…on the $#@%#$^ on my cloudbaby.” They’re really coasting on the momentum they’ve established with the great first part of the chorus there.
Oh and hell YES, I’ve been there in my own writing. Anybody who has heard our stuff should feel free to note the weak endings to choruses. I won’t mind.
“Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd…”
Yeah, it’s that same kind of stock soul ending that “We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place” relies on. At least “Get Off My Cloud” gets right back into the main riff. The Animals tip their hand with all that floor tom/chord riff nonsense. That works for “The Midnight Hour” but it’s a hard trick to get away with.
I like the ending of that chorus. The internal rhyme and the words help, and it has a nice building tension after the really stomping first two lines that gets released by the Bernard Purdie drum riff as it kicks back to the top.
meh…i disagree, geo.
as the mod suggests at the beginning of this thread, the best choruses are so seamless that we don’t applaud them for releasing tension or whatever it is you think that garble of lyrics does after such a stellar start.
i thought it was:
“Dont hang around, fall TO the ground, off my cloud”
either was it does peter out.
HaHaHa you listened to Stay the Night!
yeah…i thought it was “don’thangaround on the WORLD’S around onmycloudbaby.”
Mick sings the word “TWO” but Keith’s backing vocal is a grunt of some other vowel sound, which may have prompted my description of it as “garbled.”
Kilroy, it was with immense ironic enjoyment that i cranked Stay the Night. And I think the mod’s assessment that it had no juice to begin with is more a commentary on the general crappiness of the song (with which I agree). But I think that at the beginning, that chorus is hooky, effective enough compared to its lame ending, to merit inclusion in this thread. Scads of people across the globe can probably sing that first part without having to strain their memories, only to get tripped up on either the penultimate, or last couplet.
I always thought it was “don’t hang around, on my USUAL cloud… on my cloud, baby…”
… which didn’t make much sense, but it sounded okay.
I like ‘fall TO the ground.’
One of the problems is that the ‘Hey (hey)! You (you)!’ bit is so very cool. How do you follow that?
In what way is this song a nod to the mods, saturn?
I can’t believe *I* knew lyrics that confused others!
Hey I like ‘usual cloud’ too! I know when I sing a sing I like I feel free to change to lyrics as it suits me.
I have to print some lyrics from a Japanese lyric sheet of Get Off My Cloud for you guys. I have to type it so it might not be until later, but it’s great.
Sat, that’s one I never had any trouble with. I guess I just always heard “two’s a crowd” I think in general, that’s one of Mick’s best lyrics throughout the song, and I always thought it was cool when Mick sang the “don’t hang around case twooo’s a crowd..onmycloudbaby.”
I might have to drive around and listen to The Singles Collection today.
I said “nod to the mods” but I probably should have said “nod to the Who.” I see it that way for a couple of reasons:
Mick sings about “a guy who’s all dressed up like a Union Jack” and who says “I’ve won five pounds if I have his kind of detergent pack.”
It’s the very kind of pop-art imagery the Who were putting out there at the time.
But the music makes me think so, too: those major chords are more like stuff of Who songs from that period than anything else the Stones had done up to that point, or would do after that.
The drums are also busier than any other Stones song.
Context comes into play, too: of course, at the time, the Who had just emerged as a force on the English charts. Since the Stones (and Mick in particular) were oh-so competitive, protective of their turf as bad boys, and acutely aware of trends that might affect their undisputed claim to it, it only makes sense that they would write a song that would take a poke at the Who.
I can almost see them farting around on guitars, casually mimicking the Who songs on that first album, with all those poppy major chords, and then realizing they had something.
I’ll admit my imagination is overly vivid on this last point, but not by much: I’ve been in bands where the exact same thing happened.
I could be wrong…it’s just my take.
2K, you’re much more in tune with the *spirit of the stones* than I am!
“Two’s a crowd” *is* a great, clever lyric. I’m not taking issue with that.
But now that I know what it is, I feel like it’s a better lyric to read on a piece of paper and think about than it is to *hear* in the song.
My problem with it is its relation to the music. To my ears, it compromises the momentum of the first part of the chorus, which is, as BigSteve said, “so cool!”
Oh…and dig THIS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss02sfQinxI
pretty sweet.
All this talk of misheard lyrics reminds me of this video which was posted to some list I’m on a few weeks ago; wasn’t this list, was it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4_MsrsKzMM
Sat, that’s a great clip! Not only do I highly admire the guitar interplay of Richards and Jones, what really makes that guitar tandem my favorite among all Stones lineups is their Facial interplay. Those guys really knew how to compliment each other with nasty, rhythmic Rock Faces and Head Bobs. How any of you prefer the Mick Taylor-Keef tandem is beyond me. Don’t you guys ever see what you’re hearing?
I’m with you mod: Keef and Brian all the way.
Of course, the murderer’s row of albums that starts with “Beggars” is great, and I love every one of those albums, but….when push comes to shove….”England’s Newest Hitmakers” is still my fave Stones album (which “December’s Children” not far behind) and the guitar interplay is a BIG part of why.
That’s a nice clip – I don’t think I have that one, but it may be on a VHS somewhere. Brian’s hair is awesome. It’s no wonder they called him Mr. Shampoo.
Of course, what’s *really* great about that clip is…
… not one, but *two* Firebirds!
Having said that, I feel no closer to understanding what Mick says in that bit we’ve been haggling over. Is it “Don’t hang around and LOSE the crowd, on my cloud, baby”?