I started thinking about this because there's an upcoming project for which I might attempt to write a pop tune or two. I've been writing instrumental prog/fusion type stuff for the last couple of decades, but there was a brief period in the early '80s when I tried to write some vocal pop music. Of course, with prog and fusion, there's no rules about form, but with pop, there is, whether it's official or not.
Here's the thing: I was weaned on the pop music of the '60s; most prevalently The Beatles, but also Motown, The Turtles, The Hollies, The Association, etc. And toward the later '60s, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Cream and that sort of heavier pop/rock. It seems to me that in those days, the hook/chorus was rarely a four bar pattern that repeats... and repeats; it might've repeated once and then moved on. Take just about any Beatles song (except for the coda of "Hey Jude") and if there was any part of the song you could identify as "the hook," it was just the strongest part of the melody. In fact there often wasn't a chorus; for example "Bus Stop" by The Hollies or "Yesterday" by The Beatles; there is no chorus, just a verse and a bridge. In "Ticket to Ride," there's a chorus where they repeat the lyric, "she's got a ticket to ride" three times, but each time, the melody is a little different. I could cite dozens of examples of early rock/pop songs that don't have a repetitive chorus. And heck, in the "tin pan alley" era when show tunes became jazz standards, they never had chorus sections, let alone a four bar repeating pattern.
So I'm just curious; when did the repetitive chorus thing come into play? Can I avoid it and write anything that would even be considered as pop?
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Originally Posted by bigbassdrum
Anyway, I just found myself thinking about form and wanted to discuss it.
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