Writing A Pop Song

Writing A Pop Song Stage 1: Structure

The Structure Of A Pop Song Intro David Bowie Verse The Beatles Chorus Arctic Monkeys

Bridge/Middle 8 Lana Del Rey Pre-Chorus Amy Winehouse Outro/Coda Amy Whinehouse Hook, Solo & Pre-Chorus

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POP MUSIC: Commercial popular music, in particular accessible, tuneful music of a kind popular since the 1950s and sometimes contrasted with rock, soul, or other forms of popular music

There are several paths when it comes to creating a pop song. You could get an initial idea that could include a title and a bit of melody, a riff and a few words, a part of a story, or any combination of these. It happens differently every time, and some ideas are more fully-formed than others.

The more complete the initial idea, the easier it is to finish. A simpler way of seeing it would be :

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Inspiration, Elaboration, First Draft, Rewriting, Completion.

In these series of books, the process of writing a pop song has been allocated into stages and here we will be looking at stage 1: The Structure. We will focus on the structure to which your lyrics will follow, look at examples from well-known pop songs and learn about artists who have been successful in the pop genre and their methods. After which there will be tasks for you to do which will get you into the process of working with these sections.

Before you do this you should gather together a vast amount of inspiration for your song. Look at your life, the lives around you, what do you notice most, what effects you? These are just a few questions to delve you into the movement of song writing, evolve these questions and ask yourself more, then begin.

The structure of a pop song is the skeleton that holds the sections of the music together, creating shape and order. Each genre of music follows their own and on the opposite page you will see the generic structure for a pop song and it is this that you will follow whilst creating your own.

It is quite simple which allows for creative lyrics and music to evolve it without becoming complicated. Throughout the rest of the book we will learn about each section of the structure and how they are created through lyrics as well as being introduced to a few extras which you can include.

TIP

There are other things to take into account when writing a pop song, one of importance being time length. The song should last between 3-4 minutes as this is best for radio play and in general is a good amount of time to keep the listeners attention engaged, providing them with something new yet keeping a familiarity involved.

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INTRO VERSE 1 CHORUS VERSE 2 CHORUS MIDDLE8 CHORUS CHORUS OUTRO

Outkast Hey Ya!:

‘1, 2, 3, go!’

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The intro is the introduction and very beginning to a song. It is viewed to be one of the most vital parts as it is important to grab the listeners attention within the first 40 seconds. It is mostly used in an instrumental manner and will be a form of the verse or chorus yet can also be a simple vocal sample depending on how you the writer feels will work best for your own . Some will use the title of the song in the intro which can be a good way to ensure your audience remember it easily.

Usually the intro will finish with a slight lead into the beginning of the first verse. For a pop song the intro will typically last between 4-8 bars so as not to become tedious for the listener.

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TASK 1 Look over the song inspiration you have gathered. Using the table below write down 4 different intros you could use for your song.

Whether they are instrumental or vocal, go with your instinct to what would work best for your story.

Remember, 4-8 bars

David Robert Jones was born in Brixton on January 8, 1947. 1972 was certainly the year that Bowie began to get a glimpse of the power of pop. GQ editor Dylan Jones said of the landmark 1972 Top of The Pops appearance on 6th July “This is the performance that turned Bowie into a star, embedding his Ziggy Stardust persona into the nations consciousness”.

The sound of the suburbs suddenly got a whole lot louder. Previewed in London that spring, his rock-n-roll creation Ziggy Stardust staged one of the most spectacular and innovative live shows to date, and the craze that followed was the beginning of his superstar myth.Bowie is well known for his methods of songwriting, specifically one known as the ‘cut-up’ method which was inspired by the work of William Burrows. It would involve putting together three random statements and designing a fourth based on the information created through the arrangement of the first three.

Another method of Bowies is ‘spontaneous writing’ which consisted of ‘writing for the sake of it’ and seeing what came out of it. Both methods come across as pretty straightforward and doable which the man himself has also expressed.

“Now that sounds like an awfully easy thing to do and it is and I think every one should do it” David Bowie

DAVID BOWIE & QUEEN Under Pressure

The collaboration between David Bowie and Queen to create ‘Under Pressure’ has been one of the most iconic songs we know today, the most notable part being the intro. Recorded in 1981 in Switzerland, the song appeared on Queen’s album Hot Space the following year and it reached No. 1 in the UK. The lyrics deal with how pressure can destroy lives, but love can be the answer.

The song includes an intro consisting of the lyrics: Mm ba ba de Um bum ba de Um bu bu bum da de

A pop song usually has two or three verses all containing a common theme with sequential sections. The verse is usually the first lyrical element of the song and the instrumental parts tend to work for the vocals rather than overpower them.

Commonly the verse will have a four or a multiple of four line structure. It is usually repeated throughout the song with a lyrical change but with the same melody.

Verses will have a calmer element compared to the other sections of a song and its purpose is to tell the story or convey the message within. As well as this, the verse is used to help lead the listener into the chorus.

Pop songs almost always follow one of a few fairly simple rhyme schemes, most often with the lines arranged into groups of four: probably the most popular are ABAB, AABB, and XAXA. However, there is no reason why this has to be the case, and more unusual arrangements of rhymes can be very memorable. Paul McCartney’s technique for employing unconventional rhyming schemes, often juxtaposing long and short lines in clever ways, is evident in songs like ‘Yesterday’, and helps to make both the lyrics and the melody memorable.

TASK 2 Again, look at your inspiration. Does anything link together from different notes?

What stands out most? What will work well with the intro you have made? Now choose them. Using a process you feel will work best for you whether its the cut-up approach or simply creating a linear story line note down a verse. For now, use a simple ryhme scheme shown above to which you can adapt later on.

Remember do not over-complicate them, they are your story for the listener to follow with ease and intruiged ears.

Lily Allen ‘LDN’ Riding through the city on my bike all day Cause the filth took away my license It doesn’t get me down and I feel okay Cause the sights that I’m seeing are priceless Everything seems to look as it should But I wonder what goes on behind doors A fella looking dapper and he’s sittin’ with a slapper Then I see it’s a pimp and his crack whore

The Beatles

“Let’s do an album about a band”

The Beatles song writing relationship changed with each stage of their career. John and Paul were a great song writing team because they were both extremely talented, hard working, and their song writing “weaknesses” were balanced by the other’s strengths. They seemed to have an innate ability to simplify complex ideas almost instantly in music. In fact, John and Paul had a lot in common: they were both ingrained with the working class Liverpool sense of humour and charm; they both tragically lost their mothers at a young age; and they both were obsessed American R&B music. They seemed to find both pleasure and competition in song writing.

In their formative days, John and Paul would skip school to get together in Paul’s house to write songs and smoke ciggies. At a mature stage in their career, the Beatles began to come up with an idea for each album to keep their creativity flowing. This began with Sgt. Pepper’s, continued through their trip to India with the White Album, their Let it Be album and their self-proclaimed final album Abbey Road. Later on in the later years, they seemed to work differently with John aspiring to be the philosopher/artist and Paul a more disciplined and accomplished musician.

Verse 1

Yesterday All my troubles seemed so far away Now it looks as though they’re here to stay Oh, I believe in yesterday

Verse 2

Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be There’s a shadow hanging over me Oh, yesterday came suddenly

Verse 3

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

Verse 4

Yesterday Love was such an easy game to play Now I need a place to hide away Oh, I believe in yesterday

Yesterday by The Beatles is a melancholy ballad recorded with simply the voice of Paul Mc Cartney over a string quartet. It details the aftermath of a relationship gone sour. The other Beatles members were at first adamantly against including the song on a Beatles album because the sound was so different from their other work. In the US the song was a #1 hit and in 1999, a BBC poll voted “Yesterday” the Best Song of the 20th Century.

This is not to be one used for an example when designing your entire song as it consists of only verses. However, it is these verses you should take inspiration from when designing your own as we can see that when something so simple is done so perfectly it can become a classic.

The chorus is traditionally to be the part of a song that is most remembered by the listener and has a literal meaning ‘sung together in groups’ from the Greek word ‘khoros’. It is repeated several times with the lyrics staying the same but in some occasions can be slightly changed to signify a change in the story or message of the song. Choruses are built from a phrase or a collection of phrases but kept simple, short and to the point. It is the repetition of the musical and lyrical element that help to create a catchy vibe. This can also happen through upping the tempo or making the pitch a higher than to that of the verse section.

TASK 3 Taking what you have created already for your intro and first verse, design a chorus that links to them both and sticks to what you have learnt of its dynamic. Use one of the rhyme schemes detailed in the verse section.

Remember, It needs to be well remembered and to the point.

Arctic Monkeys

‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor’ I bet that you look good on the dance floor I don’t know if you’re looking for romance or I don’t know what you’re looking for I said I bet that you look good on the dance floor Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984 Well from 1984 !

ARCTIC MONKEYS Sheffield born Arctic Monkeys began when teenaged neighbours Alex Turner and Jamie Cook received guitars for Christmas 2001; soon, the pair was rehearsing with school friends Andy Nicholson (bass) and Matt Helders (drums). British fans were especially impressed with Turner’s thickly-accented vocals and pointed lyrical style, which commented on British youth culture and more. The band’s debut single, “I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor,” went to Number One in the U.K. in late 2005. The following January, their first album, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not”, became one of the fastest-selling British albums of all time

“There’s this thing where Louis CK is talking about George Carlin, who’s this famous American comedian who used to completely tear up his act at the end of every year and throw it out and write a whole new act. And in doing that you eventually run out of things to talk about. So you start looking inside to whatever darkness may lay there. And that’s where you end up going. I think there’s a weird symmetry with that and song writing. Or at least there is for me.” Alex Turner

LANA DEL REY

SUMMERTIME SADNESS I think I’ll miss you forever Like the stars miss the sun in the morning skies Late is better than never Even if you’re gone I’m gonna drive, drive I’ve got that summertime, summertime sadness S-s-summertime, summertime sadness Got that summertime, summertime sadness Oh, oh oh

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A middle 8 is called this due to being a part in the song that tends to happen in the middle and is mostly eight bars in length. Its purpose is to break up the repetition of verse-chorus-verse-chorus etc. A new melody or chord sequence would be a subtle middle 8 if you wanted to slow the pace down, this would allow the audience time to reflect on the strong emotion of the whole lyric before the pace picks up again for the remainder of the song. Yet if you wanted to make a big impact from one you could include a strong instrumental solo.

The use of a middle eight helps to keep the listener interested by giving an unexpected turn they may of not been expecting. An example would be repeating a chosen lyric from the chorus along with an adapted melody once you have one.

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TASK 3 Now for the middle 8. Look at your song so far and find a part that you would want the listener to remember most. Use this as the basis for your middle 8 and now through what you have learnt evolve it into something new.

Remember, you can adapt it more when a melody is in place.

LANA DEL REY

Lana Del Rey, born as Elizabeth Woolridge Grant on June 21, 1985 in New York City, United States. After scrapes in and out of the music industry, holding onto the fastidious dreams of the possibilities for Lana Del Rey, a breathtaking musical landscape has emerged. Brittle, emotional, cascading with cinematic reference points, her song writing was starting to turn technicolour. The tainted glamour of Video Games, with its lyrical leanings towards the verbal loquacity of hip hop/pop and its noir-ish melodic feeling for torch singing, was a beginning for her.

MIDDLE 8

Blue Jeans

You went out every night And baby that’s alright I told you that no matter what you did I’d be by your side Cause I’ma ride or die Whether you fail or fly Well shit, at least you tried But when you walked out that door, a piece of me died I told you I wanted more-but that not what I had in mind I just want it like before We were dancin’ all night Then they took you away- stole you out of my life You just need to remember

The Zutons Valerie

“Yeah Valerie”

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The outro also known as the coda is the finale of the song. It can be a range of styles, the main ones being either an instrumental section, a repetition of previously used parts from the song or a solo. Not all songs will contain an outro/coda, instead the song will gradually fade out. A good impression and impact on the listener should be the vital point to an outro/coda just as the intro is.

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TASK 5 Read your lyrics, take in the story you have created. What do you feel would be the most effective way to end it? A twist? How they would expect it to?

Remember, you want this to please the listener and leave them glad to have heard it and want to again

AMY WINEHOUSE One of the U.K.’s flagship vocalists during the 2000s, Amy Winehouse’s platinum-selling breakthrough album, Frank (2003), elicited comparisons ranging from Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan to Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill.

Interestingly enough, despite her strong accent and vernacular, one can often hear aspects of each of those singers’ vocal repertoire in Winehouse’s own voice. Nonetheless, her allure had always been her song writing almost always deeply personal but best known for its profanity and beautifully brutal candour.

One month after Winehouse won Best Female Artist at the Brit Awards in February 2007, Universal released Back to Black in the U.S. The LP charted higher than any other American debut by a British female recording artist before it, and it remained in the Top Ten for several months, selling a million copies by the end of that summer.

Amy Winehouse & Mark Rhonson [Verse 1: Amy] Well sometimes, I go out by myself And I look across the water And I think of all the things (what you’re doing) And in my head I paint a picture

[Hook] Since I’ve come home Well my body’s been a mess And I miss your ginger hair And the way you like to dress

[Hook] Since I’ve come home Well my body’s been a mess And I miss your ginger hair And the way you like to dress

Won’t you come on over?

Stop makin’ a fool, out of me Why don’t you come on over Valerie..

Valerie, Valerie, Valerie...

Won’t you come on over?

Stop makin’ a fool, out of me Why don’t you come on over Valerie..

Valerie, Valerie, Valerie...

[Verse 2: Amy] Did you have to go to jail?

Put your house on up for sale Did you get a good lawyer?

Hope you didn’t catch a tan Hope you’ll find the right man Who’ll fix it for ya’ Are you shopping anywhere?

Change the color of your hair And are you busy?

Did you have to pay that fine You were dodging all the time Are you still busy?

[Verse 3: Amy] Well sometimes, I go out by myself And I look across the water And I think of all the things (what you’re doing) And in my head I paint a picture [Hook] Since I’ve come home Well my body’s been a mess And I miss your ginger hair And the way you like to dress Won’t you come on over?

Stop makin’ a fool, out of me Why don’t you come on over Valerie..

Valerie, Valerie, Valerie...

[Outro] Valerie, Valerie, Valerie, Oh oh Valerie..Why don’t you come on over Valerie..

Now even though Valerie wasn’t written

by Winehouse and Rhonson, I wanted to include it’s adapted version which also includes an outro.

Valerie was the second single taken from the Zutons album ‘Tired of Hanging Around’. A hit in the summer of 2006, it found a fan in Amy Winehouse, who was still humming it a year later as she was invited to contribute to a new project with Mark Ronson. Winehouse told Ronson that she might try “Valerie”. “I wasn’t sure how it would work, but she went into the studio and tried it. I loved it,” he said.

One of the greatest covers we have come to know, Valerie provides all forms of enjoyment and is a wonderful example of how to design an outro.

The hook in a song is anything that is easily remembered by the listener. A catchy melody, the use of the title in the song or an interesting line can be examples of a hook but it is mainly something that will catch attention. The ones that can be remembered after one listen are the most positive hooks not only for the listener but for record companies or publishers you have sent your song to. It is important to include it early on, and from then you can choose to repeat it or not further in.

Blur ‘Song 2’ Woo Hoo

The solo is typically an instrumental section where a specific instrument is dominant but in some cases can also be vocal based.

SQUEEZE Cool for Cats

The pre-chorus is a variation for the repetitive structure of a song and a change in dynamic. It provides fresh chords and lyrics where either only a few instruments will play or a vocal will be unaccompanied by instruments. This is usually kept quite short being two to eight bars long and will be after a verse leading to the chorus. It is similar to a middle 8 yet the pre-chorus’s function is to create tension for the chorus but will only be used on a ‘only if needed’ basis.

Adele ‘Someone Like You’

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it I had hoped you’d see my face And that you’d be reminded that for me it isn’t over