{"id":1609,"date":"2008-08-05T12:57:06","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T16:57:06","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-08-05T13:05:12","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T13:05:12","slug":"choruses-that-fail-to-deliver-the-knocko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/choruses-that-fail-to-deliver-the-knocko\/","title":{"rendered":"Otherwise Strong Choruses That Fail to Deliver the Knockout Punch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b3XN6wZWh7o?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nSome time ago, in a thread far, far beyond my memory, I complimented some song&#8217;s chorus for wrapping up with an exquisitely designed &#8220;bow,&#8221; or some such phrase. I highly appreciated the craft that went into the final section of said chorus.<\/p>\n<p>As songwriters of any degree on Rock Town Hall can attest, choruses can be a bitch to write effectively. The pressure&#8217;s on: the chorus is expected to provide the song&#8217;s &#8220;take-home message.&#8221; Even when the message is garbled, as may be the case on, say, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/08\/04\/please-convince-me-what-are-the-words-fo\">David Bowie&#8217;s &#8220;Changes&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>, a well-crafted arrangement and delivery can provide the necessary &#8220;money shot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Animals, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/WeveGottoGetOutofThisPlace.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve Got to Get Out of This Place&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Granted, this is a matter of personal taste, but occasionally there&#8217;s a mostly great chorus that wraps up in a way that makes me think the songwriter ran out of steam or interest. One that&#8217;s recently struck me as such an example is <strong>The Animals<\/strong>&#8216; &#8220;We&#8217;ve Got to Get Out of This Place&#8221;. The life-or-death build up as the chorus gets underway &#8211; all those sweat-and-grime moans that accompany <strong>Eric Burdon<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;He&#8217;s been working so hard&#8230;&#8221; prechorus lead into a strong singalong to the song&#8217;s title. Then, when I&#8217;m all worked up and feeling part of something special, I&#8217;m left with what I find to be a disappointing and somewhat cheap &#8220;Girl there&#8217;s a better place for me and you.&#8221; The little chord riff and pounding drum part that follows does its best to restore authority, but I can&#8217;t help but hear that last line to be anything more than a device worthy of a dinner theater rock band like <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/05\/15\/hear_factor_blood_sweat_aamp_tears_haunt_1\">Blood, Sweat &amp; Tears<\/a><\/strong>.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n&#8220;How do we get ourselves out of this chorus?&#8221; I hear <strong>Barry Mann<\/strong>, one of the song&#8217;s writers, ask his songwriting partner, <strong>Cynthia Weil<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, we&#8217;ve already introduced the &#8216;girl,&#8217; as if she really matters to the song&#8217;s content,&#8221; says Cynthia. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re right,&#8221; says Barry, &#8220;I mean, the narrator of this song is really concerned with his own fate. It&#8217;s his &#8216;daddy&#8217; who&#8217;s been working so hard and it&#8217;s the narrator who faces the same fate. He doesn&#8217;t once mention his mother&#8217;s dishpan hands or sagging breasts as examples of what his girl faces.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Right!&#8221; says Cynthia, &#8220;The small working-class environment in which this couple exists knows only a traditional family structure. The girl won&#8217;t be slaving away in the coal mines. The narrator of this song is only calling his girl into the story for sympathy. As the wise <strong>Townsman E. Pluribus Gergely<\/strong> might say, &#8216;Songwriters almost always weaken their songs when they write from some imaginary <em>we<\/em> perspective; songs should be written in the first person singular when the writer really means it.'&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s something to be said for what Gergs always says, but we&#8217;re not writing for that college educated Dylan crowd, Cyn. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/We_Gotta_Get_Out_of_This_Place\" target=\"_blank\">The Righteous Brothers<\/a><\/strong> need another smash. Fast!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah,&#8221; sighs Cynthia, &#8220;those assholes wouldn&#8217;t have it any other way. Medley&#8217;s been dragging Hatfield around for sympathy all these years. Let&#8217;s wrap this one up and move onto a new song.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some time ago, in a thread far, far beyond my memory, I complimented some song&#8217;s chorus for wrapping up with an exquisitely designed &#8220;bow,&#8221; or some such phrase. I highly appreciated the craft that went into the final section of said chorus. As songwriters of any degree on Rock Town Hall can attest, choruses can <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/choruses-that-fail-to-deliver-the-knocko\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}