05-23-2015, 01:28 AM
To be honest I'd never really thought about it until I read this post and then went through a handful of songs to see if it was noticeable. I think I understand what you mean and it is very evident in some songs, although it's definitely not always the case and at the moment I would hesitate to even say that it is the norm. The first thing that your statement presumes is that every song has a chorus which isn't true, it's probably more prevalent in pop music, but even then it's not as prevalent as you may think.
Examples of songs without a chorus would be Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze, Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues and probably Dylan's Shelter from the Storm, although this song does have a refrain and because a chorus is also classed as a refrain then technically this might count as a chorus to some people.
A couple of examples that I've come up with where the words in the chorus seem to be shorter and more rapid than the verses would be The Police - Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, which I would say is noticeably faster in the chorus with the words being sung quicker. The other song I thought of is Steve Miller - The Joker where again the chorus where he sings "I'm a picker, I'm a grinner etc" the words seem to be shorter than the verses. The difference between these two songs however is that in The Police song the chords for the chorus are totally different to the chords for the verses. The verses are all one chord but with a rising bass line and then at the chorus it just alternates between two chords. In the Steve Miller song the chords for the chorus are essentially the same as for the verse but the phrasing becomes different which makes it stand out more which I suppose is the purpose of a chorus in a song, especially if we are talking about pop music. So here we have two different examples of how to make a chorus stand out from the verses, which is what I think is happening when you say that you perceive the words in the chorus to take more time.
I think an example of this would be Bill Withers - Lean On Me, which would be yet another method of distinguishing the chorus from the verses which in this song is even more necessary because the chord sequence is exactly the same throughout the whole song for the verse and chorus. Although saying that I've just looked at it again and I would say that it's only the first verse that is different as regards the phrasing then the remaining verses all have the same phrasing as the chorus apart from the first line which it seems is what really distinguishes the chorus from the rest.
I'll leave it there for the moment just to make sure that I have understood what you were trying to say first. There are other things I could highlight with examples, because I believe that what you are noticing is a just a way of differentiating the chorus from the verse, it seems also that you are looking at it from the point of view of a wordsmith and how it may be possible to play with different words and how to make them longer or shorter, whereas to a musician it is melody and although they are shortening or lengthening phrases they are not thinking in those terms of a technical process.
Hope some of this makes sense.
Mark
Examples of songs without a chorus would be Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze, Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues and probably Dylan's Shelter from the Storm, although this song does have a refrain and because a chorus is also classed as a refrain then technically this might count as a chorus to some people.
A couple of examples that I've come up with where the words in the chorus seem to be shorter and more rapid than the verses would be The Police - Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, which I would say is noticeably faster in the chorus with the words being sung quicker. The other song I thought of is Steve Miller - The Joker where again the chorus where he sings "I'm a picker, I'm a grinner etc" the words seem to be shorter than the verses. The difference between these two songs however is that in The Police song the chords for the chorus are totally different to the chords for the verses. The verses are all one chord but with a rising bass line and then at the chorus it just alternates between two chords. In the Steve Miller song the chords for the chorus are essentially the same as for the verse but the phrasing becomes different which makes it stand out more which I suppose is the purpose of a chorus in a song, especially if we are talking about pop music. So here we have two different examples of how to make a chorus stand out from the verses, which is what I think is happening when you say that you perceive the words in the chorus to take more time.
I think an example of this would be Bill Withers - Lean On Me, which would be yet another method of distinguishing the chorus from the verses which in this song is even more necessary because the chord sequence is exactly the same throughout the whole song for the verse and chorus. Although saying that I've just looked at it again and I would say that it's only the first verse that is different as regards the phrasing then the remaining verses all have the same phrasing as the chorus apart from the first line which it seems is what really distinguishes the chorus from the rest.
I'll leave it there for the moment just to make sure that I have understood what you were trying to say first. There are other things I could highlight with examples, because I believe that what you are noticing is a just a way of differentiating the chorus from the verse, it seems also that you are looking at it from the point of view of a wordsmith and how it may be possible to play with different words and how to make them longer or shorter, whereas to a musician it is melody and although they are shortening or lengthening phrases they are not thinking in those terms of a technical process.
Hope some of this makes sense.
Mark
wae aye man ye radgie