List songs where the chorus only appears once

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I know I've heard songs like this, but I'm having a hard time thinking of an example. Maybe "Tuff Gnarl" by Sonic Youth?

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

If it only appears once what makes it a chorus?

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

Well, I'm thinking of a part of a song maybe that has the title of the song in it, that is sung to a different melody than the verses, that functions basically like a chorus, but without being repeated. For example, the first time a chorus comes in in a song, you usually know it's the chorus even before it's repeated right? So it would still be the chorus even if it didn't repeat.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

Are you asking for songs where the chorus literally only appears once, like it's only played through in its entirety once, or songs where the chorus only appears in one place in the song but is repeated within that place?
An example of the latter would be "On Warmer Music" by Chisel, which has a V-V-V-V-V-V-C-C-C-C-C-C structure.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:50 (twenty years ago)

I bet a number of the Wire songs on "Pink Flag" could arguably fit in this category as well.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:51 (twenty years ago)

Well, I guess having the chorus repeat at the end could qualify, as long as it doesn't go back to the verse and then back to the chorus again. Though I was mainly thinking of songs where it literally only appears once, without any repeats.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:52 (twenty years ago)

I don't really know about this but Hey Jude perhaps?

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

gotta be something like this on 69 love songs, sorta thing is right up his alley.

― AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

Great question -- but I keep thinking of songs that don't have a chorus.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

Argh, this is really bugging me now.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

my band has a song like this. it goes verse-verse-chorus-bridge-outro, where the outro is a variation on the verse.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)

Slint -- "Good Morning, Captain"

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)

Can - "I'm So Green" ? Maybe that ain't right, going from my mental image.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:03 (twenty years ago)

Thunder Road

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:04 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, early Springsteen had a few -- "New York City Seranade" might fit. God I want to hear that album bad right now.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

"Take Me Out"?

― Roz, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:23 (twenty years ago)

Pretty much everything Guided by Voices. It's all chorus and then ends abruptly.

― william m lynch (wlynch), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

The French Inhaler by Warren Zevon

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

How about "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" by The Clash? I'm referring to the but it was Four Tops all night with encores from stage right / charging from the bass knives to the treble / but onstage they ain't got no roots rock rebel / onstage they ain't got no roots rock rebel bit. I always wish that was a proper repeating chorus or refrain.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

I would say Pavement "Give it a Day". You think they're going to, but they don't- adds to the tension no end.

― mark h, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:18 (twenty years ago)

Just Like Honey
?

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:18 (twenty years ago)

Ha. I once started a thread (here it is: The chorus) about the question of what makes a chorus sound like one even if heard in isolation. The thread flopped dismally, but the question bothers me still.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:29 (twenty years ago)

"Trust" by The Cure from the "Wish" album.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

"And You Tell Me" by a-ha

"Parisienne Walkways", possibly.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

once again today, DEFINITELY mission of burma's "thats how i escaped my certain fate".

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

Not to be pedantic, but a chorus, by nature, is a musical thing that repeats. No repeat, no chorus.

That said, a pop song doesn't need a chorus--I sometimes utilize the highly scientific "thingee" to describe an identifying morif in a song.

I think what you mean is a refrain, an elemnet within a melody that establishes a musical/lyric hook.

Something like "Elanor Rigby" is even more fun--the "chorus" element is in the nominal verse, while the repeating part--what would seem to be the chorus, the "lonely people" bit, is actually a refrain verging on an intro.

― Ian in Brooklyn, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:23 (twenty years ago)

Clan of Xymox have a song like this on their Medusa album called "Back Door" and I was always upset that the chorus didn't get repeated because it's great and you're left feeling like something's missing.

― Seb (Seb), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

Journey did this at least twice with "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'." The choruses don't appear until the very end, and then repeat ad infinitum.

For "Hey Jude," I'd argue that the chorus is the "Hey Jude, don't make it bad..." section that starts out the song and reappears a few times. The final refrain is an important part of the song, but doesn't really add much to the first part, which would work the same way if they cut it off at that final high note.

― mike a, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

I used to be fascinated by the structure of REM's "Turn You Inside-Out," which is sort of like Verse / Chorus 1 / Chorus 2 / Chorus 3 / Chorus 1 / Chorus 2 / Chorus 3. There's only one verse.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

(whereas in "Lovin,' Touchin', Squeezin'," the whole song is a setup for that "na-na-na-na-na" refrain at the end)

― mike a, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

Not to be pedantic, but a chorus, by nature, is a musical thing that repeats. No repeat, no chorus.

Are you just talking about a strict musical definition of a "chorus"? Because in a practical real-world sense, your statement is certainly not necessarily true. Take a song with verses and choruses, let's say "Louie Louie" just for the sake of an easy example. If we edited it, or rerecorded it so that we had a version of LL that was just one verse and one chorus, and asked people who had never heard the original version to listend to the edited version and say which part was the chorus, don't you think it would be pretty easily identifiable despite the lack of repetition?

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

I can sort of see Ian's point - a chorus that appears once should probably count as a "break" (Tori Amos is, or used to be, a master of inserting ultra-catchy breaks into the last third of a song, never repeated; that was usually the part where a ton of overdubbed celestial harmony vocals would suddenly pour in).

That said, I feel like we're using some pretty musty definitions here. Seems like, for better or worse, these rules have been blown open as wide as the rhyme and meter constraints in poetry. Not that that's a good thing.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:40 (twenty years ago)

Wouldn't you think of the "I believe in watching you" part of "Turn You Inside-Out" as being more of a pre-chorus/bridge leading up to the chorus?

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 18:06 (twenty years ago)

OK, so it's verse / bridge / chorus 1 / chorus 2 / bridge / chorus 1 / chorus 2. that's even better!

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)

How about Chicago, "Colour My World"?

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 18:19 (twenty years ago)

Q Lazzarus - "Goodbye Horses"

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 18:37 (twenty years ago)

JAMC - "Taste of Cindy"

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 18:42 (twenty years ago)

Queens Of The Stone Age - "Leg Of Lamb"

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 18:42 (twenty years ago)

"It's Raining Men" - The Weather Girls, I think..

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 18:43 (twenty years ago)

I mean chorus in the common usage sense.

Like, say, Low's "Dinosaur Act." Couldn't be simpler.

Intro is chorus chord progression.

Verse is another chord progression/melody.

Chorus repeats title with a more clear sense of the melody implied in chorus usage.

And so on. Is what I meant.

"Louie Luoie" hews to a standard a/b/a/b structure--you don't need (obviously) to change chords to change the melody above them that signifies a hook.

More interesting is something like Queen's "Death on Two Legs".

Usually, as in the Low example (shut up, professor), the verse is building to some sort of resolution usually reserved for the chorus to fullfil.

But the Queen song totally screws with that.

You have a minor key verse, then a variation that contains the title phrase and is, indeed, repeated, but on the first repeat, it's turning chord changes--

--and we're into another part altogether, wherin Freddie catalogues his manager's assorted unsavory qualities, and THIS is the part that supplies the aforementioned sense of resolution--but what would you call that part?

A bridge, I guess. But then you realize the whole thing is a build-up to Freddie mouthing solo--"But now you can kiss"--guitar noise--"my ass goodbye," followed by uber-kewl guitar solo thingee.

There's really no formal chorus or refrain. *That* is some fucking excellent songwriting.

― Ian in Brooklyn, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 21:09 (twenty years ago)

"Stardust"

― Burr (Burr), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 22:38 (twenty years ago)

"You're Just Too Good to Be True" by Frankie Valli

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 22:53 (twenty years ago)

That "Louie Louie" example is horrible because any song that was written that way wouldn't be verse/chorus, it would be A section/B section. A chorus that doesn't repeat is by definition NOT a chorus.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:03 (twenty years ago)

"Wet Blanket" by The Chills only has the chorus once. But I am certain it is a chorus. And it is wonderful.

― Ally C (Ally C), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:06 (twenty years ago)

pretenders, "message of love"

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:37 (twenty years ago)

elvis costello, "beyond belief"

if the chorus is the "i might make it california's fault..." part, then it appears exactly once.

if the chorus is the "i've got a feeling..." part, then it appears only at the end of the song, though it then gets repeated as the song fades.

either way, it more or less qualifies, i think.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:52 (twenty years ago)

Rod Stewart, "Every Picture Tells a Story" (saves it till the end)

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:54 (twenty years ago)

In Helen Reddy's version of "Delta Dawn," once the chorus hits, there's nothing but that to fade.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 03:05 (twenty years ago)

For "Hey Jude," I'd argue that the chorus is the "Hey Jude, don't make it bad..." section that starts out the song and reappears a few times.

On the other hand, though the Hey Jude bit keeps repeating, it's altered every time (I think!) so perhaps is more akin to a verse. But really, I dunno!

― NickB (NickB), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 06:52 (twenty years ago)

Husker Du - 'Merry Eiffel Tower High'

― NickB (NickB), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 06:53 (twenty years ago)

Another verse - chorus - chorus to fade: Spinners, "Love Don't Love Nobody"

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

Pink Floyd:

"Another Brick In The Wall" (Parts I and III)

― ZionTrain, Wednesday, 4 May 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

Queen "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll"- One Unmistakable Chorus- ONLY.

― ZionTrain, Wednesday, 4 May 2005 22:47 (twenty years ago)

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