Song Structure
- By Aeonic Minus (www.aeonicminus.com)

When you analyze popular song’s structure in most radio friendly genres, they normally have three basic short pieces of music.

1. Verse.
2. Pre chorus.
3. Chorus.
4. Bridge.

1. Verse is a melody that is repeated in the song two to three times and each time it is repeated the lyric changes and hence offers the song structure fixed melody and new words. Sometimes when it is done the third time, often the first verse has the same lyrics. Note that repetition is good when done properly as it gives the listener predictability and helps melody stick into listener’s brain.

2. Pre chorus is a lyrical melody that takes the verse into chorus. Some songs do not have a pre chorus.
Examples: “hello…hello” in “Smell’s like a teen spirit” by Nirvana.
“Ah, the sun is blinding…. I stayed up again, I am finding…” in “Sober” by Pink.

3. Chorus is usually the part of the songs that contains the catchiest part that we remember the song with. The main melodic hook is normally here. It is that ‘something’ we wait for when the song begins. Most of the times pitch rises the highest and it seems that we have arrived at some convincing point in the song structure and it slowly moves into another verse or a bridge or a solo depending on where we are in the song structure. Most of the times, the ending of the song has chorus.
Lyrically the each chorus has the same lyrics with minor creative changes in the words over the song structure. Many of the times, the lyrics in the chorus contain the song title and the central idea of the song. Examples of chorus:
“Born in the U.S.A” by Bruce Springsteen.
“'Cause maybe in the future, you're gonna come back
you’re gonna come back” by Ingrid Michaelson.

4. Bridge is the part of the song that could be or could not be present in the song depending on the chosen song structure. Bridge normally gives a break from the repetitive melodies of verse and chorus and takes the song into a different dimension. You could do this lyrically, make the necessary chord changes even to a different key some times but eventually bring it back to the normal mood of the song into a chorus or a verse or maybe even a solo.
Examples of bridges:
“And I swear I don’t have a gun” in “come as you are” by Nirvana.
“There’s a place that I go that nobody knows…..” in “pocketful of sunshine” by Natasha Bedingfield.

Some out of many song structures:
1. Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Verse Chorus….

2. Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Verse Chorus….
Here you may or may not have a solo before or after the “Bridge”.

3. Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Chorus Chorus…
Here you may or may not have a solo before the “Bridge”.

4. Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Chorus Bridge Chorus chorus….

5. Verse Verse Verse Bridge Verse….
Please analyze your favorite songs and see what song structure have been used in them. Be creative and create your own patterns but remember always “How does it sound?”