Hit songs without a chorus?

[Rufus]

Obviously discluding instrumentals, can anyone name any hit songs that dont have a chorus?

Paranoid by Black Sabbath immediately comes to mind !

[rcarlberg]

Bridge over troubled water?

[Superfly]

Bohemian Rhapsody

[PeterG]

Bridge over troubled water?

It has a chorus, and it is sung 3 times:


Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will lay me down,
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will lay me down.

[Scott Bails]

Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"

[PeterG]

Although not a hit song, a very long and complex poem as song w/o chorus that springs to mind is Neil Young's Last Trip To Tulsa.

[PeterG]

Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"

Love that song & it has a chorus sung twice:

Strangers waiting up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight, people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night

[arabicadabra]

I would say "Behind The Lines" by Genesis - I don't consider "It's written in the book" to be a chorus.

[Yodelgoat]

Stairway to Heaven

[Rufus]

Stairway to Heaven

Obviously a great song but was it a hit single & was it written with the intention of being one ?

A song writer intending to write a hit surely targets a catchy chorus cos that's what catches both DJ 's & the publics attention .
Some obviously don't play by the rule book, particularly rock bands and Bohemian Rhapsody is a good example & DP 's Fireball, Rush 's Tom Sawyer and Spirit of the Radio being others !

[Yodelgoat]

Obviously a great song but was it a hit single & was it written with the intention of being one ?

I don't know about the intention, but it WAS one hell of a hit.

- Oh, Happy birthday is one too, although one could argue that happy birthday is nothing but a chorus

[rcarlberg]

It has a chorus, and it is sung 3 times:

Well I *did* include a question mark because I wasn't sure.

[PeterG]

And that is why I politely replied "It has a chorus, and it is sung 3 times"

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Stairway to Heaven

It makes me wonder. A very short chorus, but still...

[No Pride]

Love that song & it has a chorus sung twice:

Strangers waiting up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight, people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night

I'd call that a "pre-chorus." The actual chorus (or at least what I consider to be the chorus) is:

Don't stop believing,
Hold on to that feelin'
Streetlights, people
oh oh ooooh

Now here's a couple of hits without a chorus:

Bus Stop (The Hollies)
Yesterday (The Beatles)

[Deano]

Private Investigations - Dire Straits (#2 in the UK)
Up The Junction - Squeeze (another UK #2)

[Yodelgoat]

5 notes? It doesn't rhyme. It is simply words and no identifiable change in the music repeated twice, each time with different music playing underneath - Its more like a comment. I personally would not consider that a chorus. I have heard many people before me say that there is no chorus in STH. It was not an original statement. I'm not looking for a fight. But its widely observed that STH does not contain a chorus. You could probably say the line "and she's buying a stairway to Heaven" as a chorus as well, or the words "A lady" (repeated at least 3 times in the song).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Chorus' generally contain a phrase, and an identifiable melody that is repeated, and considered distinct and separate from the rest of the song - and usually emphasized.

Its funny that we prog fans (generally speaking) don't easily identify choruses. I'll bet the tablature for STH does not show a chorus.

[rcarlberg]

Yesterday (The Beatles)

Yesterday has a chorus:

Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday

Repeated twice.

[No Pride]

^
I consider that to be the bridge.

[rcarlberg]

A chorus generally contains the title of the song and rarely moves to the relative minor (or major if it's in a minor key).

It does. Whether it's a "chorus" or a "bridge" I guess is open to interpretation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Chorus' generally contain a phrase, and an identifiable melody that is repeated, and considered distinct and separate from the rest of the song - and usually emphasized.

[battema]

Hmmmm...what about 'Family Snapshot' by Peter Gabriel? While there is a section that kind of repeats in terms of chords (the "I've been waiting for this..." and "I don't really hate you..." bits), the lyrics and underlying arrangements are completely different. It feels less like a verse/chorus and more like musical continuity. Just IMHO...

[No Pride]

It does. Whether it's a "chorus" or a "bridge" I guess is open to interpretation.

That's why I edited my post.

Having been a professional musician who has had to play a couple thousand songs in the course of my career, I have strong feelings about what constitutes a verse or a chorus or a bridge. But it'd be hard for me to explain and even if I did, I don't think I'd be able to convince anybody I'm right. Because it's possible that I'm not.

[rcarlberg]

Because it's possible that I'm not.

Bus Stop has a twice-repeated "bridge/chorus" too (although it does not contain the title):

All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella, we employed it
By August, she was mine

[Yodelgoat]

It is my opinion, that a bridge is just that, a stepping stone in the song between two parts of a song. I would say that if a bridge is repeated twice it may be considered a chorus.

I'm no music perfectionist, but if you look at the tablature of any song - you should be able to see what is considered by the author, what is a chorus and what is a bridge and what is a verse.

[JJ88]

Maybe it's me but I never thought a bridge was something that was repeated...rather it was what it said, a brief section (of eight bars, or longer), often in the middle of a song, to add 'body' to a song.

I see it's not...yodelgoat says the same thing. I would say, some of those old 'Brill Building' hits are a good way of working out 'what's what' in a song. The Beatles did a lot of those songs in their early days, and recorded some of them. I guess it's that thing of 'you've got to know what the rules are to break them'. Often passed over or dismissed by historians (in a similar way prog has been pushed aside or acknowledged as 'what punk blew away'), I increasingly admire that immediate pre Beatles era of songwriting a great deal.