Songs with an all time verse that the chorus doesn't come close to delivering upon

Don't Stop Believin' has an all time verse that the chorus doesn't come close to delivering upon

― niels, Thursday, September 21, 2017 12:54 AM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think about this post sometimes.

What are other examples of front-loaded songs with an underwhelming chorus?

Funky Town

Closing time
Hard to explain
Gaucho

Serve the Servants

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

God Save The Queen

gaucho is majorly notm

"do it again" is closer

Your Love by the Outfield

Drop Dead Legs

Love Is The Drug

The Boys Are Back In Town

Heat of the Moment

How does the DSB chorus not deliver?

Love Shack

Return of the Mack might be one of these, though maybe an example of a song so good it doesn't actually need a chorus

Your Love by the Outfield

The Prep MC would beg to differ

Love Is The Drug

Are you calling the chorus "oh oh, get that buzz" etc. or the wordless "oh oh oh" parts? Cos I agree with the latter.

How does the DSB chorus not deliver?

I get the feeling a lot of people here don't like choruses that repeat titles over and over.

Message in a Bottle? awesome riff, great verses, insane drumming, real catchy prechorus, then the actual chorus is just "Message in a bottle...whoa....message in a bottle"...also the slowest part of the song

actually a lot of the Police's choruses on their hit singles just sound like placeholders. Can't Stand Losing You, Don't Stand So Close To Me, Spirits in the Material World...they all sound like they were written in 15 minutes

Are you calling the chorus "oh oh, get that buzz" etc. or the wordless "oh oh oh" parts? Cos I agree with the latter.

actually a lot of the Police's choruses on their hit singles just sound like placeholders. Can't Stand Losing You, Don't Stand So Close To Me, Spirits in the Material World...they all sound like they were written in 15 minutes

― frogbs, Wednesday, January 29, 2025 1:26 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no, they put a lot of thought into "de do do do, de da da da." and "so lonely."

i don't necessarily think that repetition is necessarily a bad thing. the chorus to "roxanne" is repetitive, but it's also an incredible chorus.

also, i would say the chorus of "message" includes the "i'll send an s.o.s. to the world" part

damn this is the thread everyone goes to to be wrong

return of the mac is a bizarre choice here, must be one of the catchiest choruses of the last few decades, all those little flourishes. you don't attempt and successfully execute a 'once again' mid-chorus in a shitty chorus.

let alone a "pump up the world"!

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic might be the ultimate shitty Police chorus following an awesome verse

he's nearly crammed a second chorus in there. that's the effect of the rehabilitation programme at her majesty's prison leicester.

xpost

i'm not complaining about the Return of the Mack chorus more in that i'm not sure if it really has one, it's very similar to the verse, maybe this is a lot more common than i think, it's just top of mind because I recently did a mashup with it

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic might be the ultimate shitty Police chorus following an awesome verse

hah, I was thinking of this as one of the examples where they actually do work in a good, distinct chorus

damn this is the thread everyone goes to to be wrong

just think it's a little, uh ... precarious to go on a message board and disparage the choruses of big hits and songs that have endured for decades. by definition, those choruses are quite effective, regardless of anyone's good/bad assessment.

Who Let the Dogs Out

what does 'endured for decades' mean in this context? if every song i can remember is good then why are we even here?

The Beatles suck, actually

they were good before Ringo joined

Someone convince me the chorus of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City" lives up to the verse

It was a big hit that has endured for decades QED

Actually I like that the chorus is in two parts, with different chord changes, and it doesn't rhyme "city" and "gritty".

Baby You're a Rich Man

Drain You by Nirvana

It's not like it was an anticipation-baiting buildup but following

Don't you remember, you told me you loved me, baby?
You said you'd be coming back this way again, baby

with

Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh baby

felt like homer simpson crayoned over the lyric sheets.
https://frinkiac.com/video/S14E02/k7dNYKljiPciQtf17ezpecC6Fh4=.gif

damn this is the thread everyone goes to to be wrong

Looks that way.

Technically the chorus comes first, and Weird Al kind of has no choice once he's committed to doing song-length parodies, but the remainder of "This song is just six words long" is just filler.

The Boxer is the only one I can immediately think of, especially knowing that the li-li-li chorus is literally a placeholder.

Summer in the City is perfect, come on now.

"This song is just six words long" annoys me for another reason, it's seven words, the song it's parodying has seven words in the chorus, I think he should not have done it

The Boxer's chorus is perfect

Heat of the Moment

― unboxing helena (Matt #2), Wednesday, January 29, 2025 12:48 PM (seven hours ago) bookmark flag link

Right album, wrong song. The correct answer is "One Step Closer."

Dido - Thank You

Dua Lipa - New Rules

is it even a chorus?

I think Ariana Grande has a bunch of these tbh…

Also

Alicia Keys - Try sleeping with a broken heart

Lyrics aside, the verses sound like Prince and the chorus sounds like subpar Prince.

I'll second Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Always felt the verses deserved more than just shouting the song title in the chorus

don't necessarily think that repetition is necessarily a bad thing. the chorus to "roxanne" is repetitive, but it's also an incredible chorus.

Police were masters of the repetitive chorus. Personally I dug it, but live when every song incorporated Bob Marley’s “eee-aaa-oooh” thing it was insufferable.

Led Zeppelin - All My Love

Agree w/ Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds

Hard disagree w/ "Return of the Mack" and "Who Let the Dogs Out"

Insofar as Paul Simon songs go, there's really no greater disparity between "a great verse" and "a not-great chorus" than "You Can Call Me Al"

Burt Bacharach has a lot of these imo, but I feel like it's less that "the chorus isn't great" so much as "the verse is impossibly good": "Always Something There To Remind Me", "The Look Of Love", "I Say A Little Prayer For You", three insanely great songs with choruses that are just such a let-down-- but perhaps my taste is for loping melodies over shouty maxims

Insofar as Paul Simon songs go, there's really no greater disparity between "a great verse" and "a not-great chorus" than "You Can Call Me Al"

idk about that, much better example is "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" imo

which it looks like Moka has already mentioned. Moka otm

tbf i do like the chorus, it's just that it's objectively stupid

100% but whoever wrote the lyrics to "Into You" did something astonishing in the chorus— a feat of nominalization unrivalled in contemporary pop afaic. (I'm talking about the "a little less conversation/ a little more touch my body" couplet, which still just blows my mind every time I hear it, I know it's dumb, but fuck it's good).

adore this song!

a.g. has strong verses that sell generic choruses imo.

"Always Something There To Remind Me"

I just can't imagine what would go in the place of that chorus (at least in the Dionne Warwick version). The final "and I will never be free" gets me quietly shouting the finale every time.

Heresy maybe but Soft Cell effectively make the chorus of “Always…” amazing, good chorus when it’s delivered with 80s sterility

is it cheating to name a song with a do-do-do chorus? "no more i love yous" by annie lennox has amazing verses while the chorus is .. well, you know. i love it personally and think sometimes it makes the most sense for a chorus to be nonsense syllables.

can't we map this onto pop vs rock?: pop dictates the supremacy of C.

Using Sanneh's Equation: if C < 1.5 V, then we're in the grey area; if V > C, we are in the world of rock...

The chorus begins with the title. Verses with the “I used to…” lines

xp re: the Annie Lennox cover

Bacharach is a great text for this though; the chorus is always likely to be less surprising, no? Not yet mentioned: "Mexican Divorce" which for me is one where the chorus holds up

The chorus begins with the title. Verses with the “I used to…” lines

― by the clicking of her thumbs, something canine (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 25 November 2025 03:54 (twenty-six minutes ago)

how i also hear it. god, i love the shit outta that song

it's a little easier to hear it that way in the original arrangement imo

I remember that Lennox covers album getting ignored or whatever but I loved it, felt a twinge of vindication when the cover of “Old Man” got sync’d to the climactic sequence in “American Beauty”

wow, I love the chorus of "No More 'I Love You's."

^

Ok damn i forgot how super fucking gay the original is, annie lennox didn't even camp it up that much

I think i prefer the annie lennox cover for the feather-light groove and the whole powdered wigness of it, but i'm sorry the lead vocal on the OG is just *supremely* gay. i'm actually on the fence

Lennox really goes for it in the last minute.

I'd say the whispering bits -- like on her original "Why" -- are camp.

I remember that Lennox covers album getting ignored or whatever but I loved it, felt a twinge of vindication when the cover of “Old Man” got sync’d to the climactic sequence in “American Beauty”

― by the clicking of her thumbs, something canine (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, November 25, 2025 2:00 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

it was "don't let it bring you down," right?

Xp oh i wasn't suggesting the annie lennox version isn't camp!! like, by any means. "annie lennox didn't even -have to- camp it up that much"

forgot about don't let it bring you down cover! i loved that too at the time, i was just getting into after the gold rush when it came out. objectively one of the best songs ever

That's the one in American Beauty, not "Old Man."

Yes it's "Don't Let It Bring You Down", I always forget the correct title of that song lol

Dunno if Lennox ever covered "Old Man" but I doubt it, that'd be weird

Why? She'd sing it in her Elvis drag.

Lounge Act and especially Drain You by Nirvana

til No More I Love Yous was a cover. Just checked out the original and it's great

Oh Verisimilitude tfc fits here right? Or am i getting verse and chorus wrong? This is a challenging thread sometimes I really think....

yeah but that one’s an underwhelming chorus on purpose? he even says “i only hope the verse is good”

just listened to it for the first time tho lol, i like it!

drain you for sure but hell no re lounge act, “i’ve got this friend who makes me feel” etc is such a rush the songs seems to get faster and more intense based entirely on shorter syllables and more rhythmic drive from the sixteen-sixteen-eighth note, sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-eighth note device.

OK, you convinced me. Lounge Act is spectacular all the way through. But Drain You is like the quintessential answer for this.

Because the video was just on the retro video station here: "Hold Me Now," by Thompson Twins. Verses are lovely; chorus is clunky as hell.

All the Led Zeppelin mentions but not "Whole Lotta Love"? Both the verses and the bridge/break ("Way down inside...") overwhelm the offhand, nothing-delivered chorus.

I don't see a large distinction of quality between the verses and chorus on that one.

the entirety of "whole lotta love" is just scaffolding to hold up the immensity of jimmy's solo after the theremin break

while also having, like, the platonic ideal riff that wikipedia should use a sample of to define what a riff is

yes

the chorus is great! the call-and-response with the "nnnnnyyyear!" guitar move was what first grabbed me about that song.

[

the entirety of "whole lotta love" is just scaffolding to hold up the immensity of jimmy's solo after the theremin break

^^^ verses and choruses kind of beside the point for this one

Yeah the famous slide thing Page does is the most memorable thing about that chorus.

Led Zeppelin was not at about choruses really, were they? So many songs are like a perfectly choreographed sequence of explosions, riffs tearing the heavens asunder

“Was not at about”

Seems true. Mostly when I think about particular Zep songs I think about the riffs first.

Yeah, they've got a handful of really great choruses that land as such (Ramble On, What Is and What Should Never Be, Hey Hey What Can I Do) and a lot of songs where it doesn't matter whether the chorus is good or not, or if it even registers as a chorus, since the real hook is instrumental. And then there's D'yer Mak'er, where every section of the song could plausibly be taken as the chorus, and they all stink.

all threads on ILM eventually become threads about led zeppelin

i will say

Speaking of otherworldly guitar work wedded to a boring chorus -- Neil Young's Change Your Mind.

idk why my phone posted « i will say » … especially seeing as i already said it