Songs where the singer shouts/breaks voice/sings last chorus “more emotionally”

Huge fan of this sort of thing where the singer sings calmly the first round of chorus and then sing-shouts or sings in a higher octave the last one, eg;

Sharon Van Etten - Seventeen
Vampire Weekend - Hannah Hunt
Mormor - heaven’s only wishful
Nirvana - lounge act

lol was going to say "have your pick of Nirvana songs". but on thinking more closely, can't remember another one

it's not really the chorus, but Men at Work/Colin Hay does the verse an octave higher the last time on "Overkill"

John Cale - Fear Is a Man's Best Friend

Although that's maybe "Songs where the singer loses his fucking mind on the last chorus"

Mariah Carey - We Belong Together

Everclear - Santa Monica

Torres - Strange Hellos

Dr Hook - Sylvia's Mother

prince - the beautiful ones

Surely the Beatles must have one ? Can’t think of any though…
« Instant karma » is the other way around : high then a lower chorus at the end

LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations
Bjork - Crying

it's not really the chorus, but Men at Work/Colin Hay does the verse an octave higher the last time on "Overkill"

And on "Who Can It Be Now?" he jumps up not an octave, but a third (?) for the second chorus and on. let's dub this trick the Colin Hay

I feel Radiohead sort of do this trick a lot for a lot of their songs where Thom sings much higher/"goes crazy" at the end of the song but I can't think of many examples where it's a repetition of a chorus? It's usually a new section of the song.

Only example that sort of works that I can think of at the moment is the second chorus/freakout for "climbing up the walls" and "jigsaw falling into place" but the later isn't really a repetition of the chorus, it's more of what Nirvana do on "lounge act" where the whole verse/chorus is repeated again.

Ween - "If You Could Save Yourself" a pretty intense example of this

It's not so much about choruses (probably not unlike the Radiohead example) but I feel like David Byrne switches to manic mode late in a number of Talking Heads songs. eg. "Animals" ("they're making a fool of us..." etc), "Cool Water" (the section starting with "Someone answer!"). Probably not even the best TH examples and also probably not quite the right phenomenon anyway.

^ Actually I guess "Road to Nowhere" is all about increasingly frantic repetition of earlier material.

Surely the Beatles must have one ? Can’t think of any though…

“oh darlin!

others that might fit:
“happiness is a warm gun,” but the structure of that one is so strange that i’m not sure it fits

also, “i’ve got a feeling,” but paul is at a pretty high level of emotion from the start

Come to think of it, the David Byrne and Thom Yorke thing might come from punk rock. It’s sort of a genre requisite to shift gears and get more energetic and loose as the song moves forward.

Roger Daltrey on the Who's "Let's See Action" (and Pete Townshend on his demo). The chorus (which is kind of also the verse) is sung significantly higher, and with some fraying-around-the-edges, as the verse (which is kind of also the chorus).

Speaking of Daltrey, his solo "It's a Hard Life" has a pretty dramatic octave jump towards the end. His range back then was pretty astonishing.

lol was going to say "have your pick of Nirvana songs". but on thinking more closely, can't remember another one

where did you sleep last night? off of unplugged

On The Adventures of Thin Lizzy compilation, there's an uncut version of "Waiting For an Alibi" that contains a third verse that isn't on the Black Rose album, where Phil Lynott doesn't necessarily change the melody, but definitely sings "more emotionally". It's not a chorus, though.
So instead I'll suggest "Space Truckin'" by Deep Purple.

David Bowie - "Heroes"

Wikipedia:

Bowie's vocal was recorded after most of the session musicians had departed Berlin,[19] with a "multi-latch" system devised by Visconti that creatively misused gating, a recording technique to control volume.[21] Three microphones were used to capture the vocal, with one microphone nine inches from Bowie, one 20 feet away, and one 50 feet away. Each microphone was muted as the next one was triggered. As the music built, Bowie was forced to sing at increased volumes to overcome the gating effect, leading to an increasingly impassioned vocal performance as the song progresses.[17] Jay Hodgson writes,

Bowie's performance thus grows in intensity precisely as ever more ambience infuses his delivery until, by the final verse, he has to shout just to be heard ... The more Bowie shouts just to be heard, in fact, the further back in the mix Visconti's multi-latch system pushes his vocal tracks, creating a stark metaphor for the situation of Bowie's doomed lovers.

I do love “Overkill” (mentioned above) as a prime example of this.

"Heroes"! Of course!

Julien Baker does this a bit - "Rejoice", "Sour Breath" come to mind

this feels like such a fundamental piece of the landscape of rock and pop that it should have a widely-agreed-upon name, like the truck-driver key change does. i'd also nominate the phenomenon of coming back to the opening verse (or just the opening lines) with higher intensity as part of the song's emotional climax.... but that should definitely be its own thread!

Mariah Carey’s “Your Girl” does this nicely, too.

Xpost. Ah yeah Julien Baker does it a lot and I always fall for that simple trick.

I've always loved David Sylvian and Robert Fripp's live version of Rain Tree Crow's 'Every Colour You Are' on the Damage album, where he adds a (bit of a grunge-y) emphasized final chorus to the song.

The original song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubuIFBECgOg

The part on the live recording I'm referring to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qESP811_BsQ

How about Emma by Hot Chocolate? Errol Brown is fairly composed at the start. By the time he gets to the final chorus - after he's revealed what happened to Emmalene - he's very shouty and full of pain. Incredibly dark for a top ten hit in that period.

lol was going to say "have your pick of Nirvana songs". but on thinking more closely, can't remember another one

Sliver

Dr Hook “Silvia’s Mother”

shit, sorry, beaten by anagram
best version is that live on German TV thing
actually that’s the best live performance I can think of by anyone.

thanks Vernon, I knew there was another one and it was killing me that I couldn't remember it.

and sarahell upthread w/ "Where Did You Sleep?"

Like a Rolling Stone

I don't hear a dramatic difference in Dylan's delivery between the first and last chorus in "Like a Rolling Stone"?

a lot of American Music Club songs do this, especially live versions

That explanation upthread of how "Heroes" was recorded - does anyone know if there's a book, or books, out there that's just things like that? Cool details about how famous songs were recorded, in language that's not too dense for someone like me to sort-of follow? Because I love reading about sound engineering and production choices and so on, even when I don't really understand what I'm reading.

I’ve read a few interview books with famous/accomplished record producers & engineers (one of them: Tracks), and I think a lot of the interviews have cool anecdotes like that. I don’t recall how much detail they all go into, though; some are more cursory or focused on the interviewee’s career trajectory.

*that title is Inside Tracks (…trying it again)

Oh, that looks cool! I'll check it out. Thanks!

The Heroes technique reminds me of Glenn Gould's album of Sibelius solo piano pieces. From the LP notes:

In addition to receiving a rare and revealing look into a little-known corner of Sibelius' oeuvre, the listener to this recording will be able to participate in another unusual experience. For want of a better term, let's call it "acoustic orchestration:'
Ever since the very first recording of a solo piano, there have been a wide variety of concepts of exactly how the instrument should sound on discs. Should it be projected in a tight, chamber-music-like intimacy? - or across the reverberant span of the concert hall? - or something in between? Record producers have each solved this problem in their own way However, no matter what solution the combined taste of the artist and producer has yielded, one factor seems to have equal meaning for all of them: the acoustic ambience must be "right" for the music. Debussy seems to require a more reverberant surrounding than Bach. Rachmaninoff should be bathed in more "grandeur" than Scarlatti.
However, no cognizance ever seems to have been paid to the variations of mood and texture which exist within an individual composition.
Why should the staccato articulation of an opening theme be wedded to the larger sense of space required by the lyrical second subject?
Long intrigued by this subject, Glenn Gould offers here a bold and fascinating statement on the appropriateness of space to music. The four works of Sibelius contained in this album were recorded on multi-track tape in a simultaneous variety of perspectives. Microphones were placed in several "ranks" throughout the studio - some only a few inches from the piano, others at a distance of many yards. In the final preparation of the master tape, a mixing plan was devised that favors the image of the instrument most appropriate to the music of the moment. Great care was exercised in planning this "orchestration," which not only varies with the mood engendered by Sibelius' score but which also serves to underline the inherent structure of the composition.
So we ask you to put aside any prejudices growing out of traditional approaches and enjoy the extra aesthetic dimension contained in this recording - a mental process not unfamiliar to Glenn Gould's enlight­ened audience.

radiohead's "how to disappear completely" and "let down"

exit music kinda does this too

Dashboard Confessional - Screaming Infidelities
Mitski - Drunk Walk Home (sort of...not sure if you could call it a verse or chorus, but certainly descends into screams)

like every pinegrove song this happens

How we get this deep into the thread without anyone mentioning Aerosmith's "Dream On?"

Oh I just thought of another obvious Bowie one : Five Years !

I was coming here to say, "Has no-one mentioned, "Five Years" yet". Bu now I'm here, there's also "Rock and Roll Suicide".

A lot of Jacques Brel songs.

there's also "Rock and Roll Suicide".

Yeah although it's not really a chorus, more like a coda, imo ?
I have embarassing memories of playing that song on the guitar to some girlfriends in a rental appt during summer holidays, as a teenager.
And when I reached that final screaming part (which of course I was unable to sing properly), the neighbours started yelling "FERME TA GUEULE !!" (shut the fuck up) through the opened windows...

Lucy Dacus’s “Night Shift” is a recent fave

Prince - "Kiss"

good one !

yeah great one

Are there any examples of the opposite of this, where the last chorus is "less emotional" or more low-key than any of the preceding ones?
The only thing that leaps to mind is "Beautiful Noise" by Neil Diamond, where the first verse and chorus are in a higher key than the rest, making the vocal more relaxed as it goes on.

I suggested Lennon's "Instant Karma" upthread !

True, his voice gives out!

Re the original question, there are a number of OMD songs where this happens ("Joan of Arc" for sure), to the extent that it became one of the band's defining characters and yet these outbursts still feel "out of character" somehow.

Ao many...
Nirvana - Milk It is one example

"Holidays in the Sun" maybe?

(Speaking on Neil, he seems like King Crescendo: “I Am I Said,” “Forever in Blue Jeans”…).

Usually, yes; maybe production by Robbie Robertson on Beautiful Noise was keeping him lower-key.

Joy Division did this, e.g. "Transmission", "Day of the Lords".

ctrl-F "unchained" oh OK!

I was reading the wiki for Unchained Melody this morning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unchained_Melody and there were so many interesting tidbits.

First, I didn't realize that the song was written by film composer giant Alex North

Second:

The best-known version of "Unchained Melody" was recorded by the duo The Righteous Brothers for Philles Records in 1965. The lead vocal was performed solo by Bobby Hatfield, who later recorded other versions of the song credited solely to him. According to his singing partner Bill Medley, they had agreed to do one solo piece each per album. Both wanted to sing "Unchained Melody" for their fourth album, but Hatfield won the coin toss.

Third:

Hatfield made a change to the song during the recording sessions. Hatfield initially recorded a couple of takes of the song as it was written, but returned later for another session, changing the melody for the "I need your love" line in the final verse, and sang it much higher instead. After this recording, Hatfield said he could do another take better, to which Medley replied: "No, you can't."

And lastly, when I read the first half of this sentence:

The song has an unusual harmonic device as the bridge...

My brain immediately filled in the second half of the sentence with "has that artsy whole-tone descending progression"? But no:

...the bridge ends on the tonic chord rather than the more usual dominant chord.

And I thought, you know? that is unusual, and my ears have always thought so, and I'd never seen it pointed out.

i checked it on youtube because i couldn't recall the song, thinking "i doubt i'll enjoy this corny chestnut" and now i'm crying lol

A spicy meatball, except a corny chestnut

Everyone forgot about the best song ever i.e. Neiked's "Sexual"

The thread title (this time around) had me hearing Hefner in my head. I feel like maybe 43% of Hefner songs combined the Soft Intro/Louder Chorus thing with choruses that also got more shouty each time.

shellac - "prayer to god"