S/D: Songs With No Choruses?

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Prompted by my little sister pointing out that 3 of the 10 songs on my band's CD have no choruses (actually 4, but that 4th one is an instrumental).

So, er, some suggestions? Search? Destroy?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll kick it off with...

Search: Kool-Keith-as-Dr.-Dooom's "No Chorus" :D

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:37 (twenty-three years ago)

don't really search, but if you see it lying around: eminem's "run rabbit run"

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:41 (twenty-three years ago)

"The Queen and The Soldier" Suzanne Vega

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:42 (twenty-three years ago)

S: "Drunk At the Pulpit" Palace Bros

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:50 (twenty-three years ago)

S: Summertime, G.Gershwin
D: Every Breath You Take, The Police (unless you count the main verse as a chorus)

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:52 (twenty-three years ago)

"Every Breath" totally has a chorus, that whole "oh can't you see" business. Unless, izzit, coulditbe, the bridge? naah, that's the chorus. Maybe.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Search Scott Walker's last two LPs

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Positively 4th Street (does it?)

The Gift (VU)

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 10 February 2003 20:55 (twenty-three years ago)

"Every Breath" totally has a chorus, that whole "oh can't you see" business.

I say it's the bridge - I mean, it goes to the IV chord like tons of bridges are wont to do, and serves to develop the point of view of the protagonist, unlike a chorus, which usually just states the central idea. It feels like the archetypical "middle 8" to me. I think.

That song actually reminds me of old Gershwin/Porter style songs where the first line of the song is the name of the song, but there's never actually a chorus. And I only say destroy because I can't stand the thought of another moment listening to it.

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 10 February 2003 21:01 (twenty-three years ago)

raekwon - spot rusherz

― brains (cerybut), Monday, 10 February 2003 21:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually plenty of Child Ballads (most, even) have no choruses.

Mark S to thread: have repeating choruses only become standard since the aforementioned reification of pop music in late 19th/early 20th c.?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 10 February 2003 21:06 (twenty-three years ago)

"Every Picture Tells a Story," unless you consider that bit at the end to be the chorus, which I don't.

― TMFTML (TMFTML), Monday, 10 February 2003 21:21 (twenty-three years ago)

The Cure to thread!

"Another Day", "At Night", "In Your House", "Secrets", "Play For Today", "Seventeen Seconds", "A Forest", "The Holy Hour", "Other Voices", "All Cats Are Grey", "The Funeral Party", "Doubt", "The Drowning Man", "Faith", "One Hundred Years", "Siamese Twins", "The Figurehead", "Cold", "Pornography", "The Dream", "The Upstairs Room", "The Walk", "Lament", "Happy The Man", "Charlotte Sometimes", "Splintered In Her Head", "Shake Dog Shake", "Wailing Wall", "Give Me It", "Dressing Up", "Piggy In The Mirror", "The Empty World", "Bananafishbones", "Screw", "Push", "A Man Inside My Mouth", "A Few Hours After This", "The Kiss", "Catch", "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep", "The Snakepit", "One More Time", "Like Cockatoos", "Icing Sugar", "The Perfect Girl", "A Thousand Hours", "Shiver and Shake", "Fight", "Sugar Girl", "Plainsong", "Pictures Of You", "Closedown", "Last Dance", "Lullabye", "Fascination Street", "Prayers For Rain", "The Same Deep Water As You", "Disintegration", "Homesick", "Untitled", "Babble", "2 Late", "Fear Of Ghosts", "Open", "Play", "Trust", "To Wish Impossible Things", "A Letter To Elise", "Want", "Adonis", "Jupiter Crash", "Bare", "The Loudest Sound", "Coming Up", and "Signal To Noise" definitely don't have choruses.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 February 2003 21:31 (twenty-three years ago)

bill nelson "do you dream in colour"

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 10 February 2003 22:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Wait, is a song being only chorus the same as not having a chorus?

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 10 February 2003 22:12 (twenty-three years ago)

S: "Running Scared" Roy Orbison, all of his songs are sorta weirdly put together

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 February 2003 22:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Search: "She Belongs to Me," "Let It Rock," "New York," "Learning the Game," "Naive Melody," "Mother of Pearl," "For Your Precious Love," there's tons of 'em. And that "Oh can't you see" bit in "Every Breath You Take" is definitely a bridge.

― Burr, Monday, 10 February 2003 22:19 (twenty-three years ago)

But surely the "I'll be watching you" refrain is a chorus?

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 10 February 2003 22:20 (twenty-three years ago)

well, excuse me for only having heard that song ever by horrible accident.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 February 2003 22:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Ween - "Strap on That Jammy-Pac," "Pollo Asado," and most other songs on The Pod.

― Evan (Evan), Monday, 10 February 2003 22:27 (twenty-three years ago)

"But surely the "I'll be watching you" refrain is a chorus?"

Isn't it just the line that ends the verses? like "I saw her standing there?" I suppose there can be one-line choruses, but that doesn't strike me as one.

― Burr, Monday, 10 February 2003 22:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Wait, is a song being only chorus the same as not having a chorus?

surely, this is the opposite of not having a chorus...

Guided by Voices - Glad Girls
is like 3 choruses and a bridge... no verse to be found anywhere

― coelcanth, Monday, 10 February 2003 22:41 (twenty-three years ago)

How about "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Black Sabbath - "Paranoid"

― Curtis Stephens, Tuesday, 11 February 2003 02:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think there's one chorus on Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" -- Lily, Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts, Tangled Up In Blue, Shelter from the Storm, all refrains. Maybe Idiot Wind has one, but I cannot listen to that song, so I'm not sure.

― weatheringdaleson (weatheringdaleson), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 03:26 (twenty-three years ago)

"Shayla" by Blondie.

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 05:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Not true -- the "whoa whoa whoa" part is the chorus.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 05:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I want proof that counts as a chorus!

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 05:30 (twenty-three years ago)

It's not a verse and it's not a bridge and it's not an instrumental break and it's not an intro (although it is the outro too) and it comes after the verses and after the bridge and it repeats several times.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 05:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Ok, smarty-pants. : )

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 05:44 (twenty-three years ago)

search squeeze "up the junction"

― briania, Tuesday, 11 February 2003 06:30 (twenty-three years ago)

re: The Cure...

They've always been fond of instrumental choruses, and 90% of the above-mentioned Cure songs have precisely that.

Thus, young Dan, I think you're disqualified on a technicality - a chorus doesn't have to have *words* in it to be a chorus...

(and oddly, "A Few Hours After This" has been knocking around my head for most of today - nice to see someone else is thinking of it too!)

― Charlie (Charlie), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 06:34 (twenty-three years ago)

The line
"I Saw Her Standing There" would be a hook, not a chorus.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 06:40 (twenty-three years ago)

"Finished" by Throwing Muses. If there's a regular structure to that song, I sure as hell can't work it out.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 09:07 (twenty-three years ago)

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