Whats born first; your chorus or your verse

Whats born first - your chorus or your verses

  • More often my verses

    Votes: 23 37.7%

  • More often my choruses

    Votes: 14 23.0%

  • 50/50

    Votes: 24 39.3%
  • Total voters
    61
E

Emusic

New member
Of all my songwriting time, I have mainly started songs from the beginning; with the verses. Too often I have ended up with a pretty "catchy" verse, but not being able to follow up with a chorus thats more "radiofriendly" (thats what we attempt to write here nowadays) than the verse itself.
The best known example of such a situation is Dido's Thank you - a beautiful verse followed by a downer of a chorus. When Eminem decided to use parts of Dido's tune as a chorus in his Stan, he used the verse. An eminent move.

My plan is now to write my choruses first.

Any inputs on this subject?

/bow
 
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i tried to listen to eminem once. it seemed like all whiny complaining.

i think you should start with something to say. the message. the message can dictate what you do from there.

saying youre gonna start with choruses sounds like formula writing

what do you really want to say and whats the best way to say it

why cant you write songs with no choruses or songs with just a single chorus that repeats infinitely and no verses
 
Recently I have been starting with the first line and have hit a few Chorus problems as you note – one song I posted about a month ago Autumn Leaves – I completely dispensed with the ch and mid8 and just used the Autumn Leaves line rpt over a piano riff.

I also find that my riffs (which tend to guide my melody) are orientated to the Vs rather than the chorus – so that also seems to be making me start with the Vs as well.

That said the song I have just posted Broken Universe was written so quick that I am not sure which came first.
 
groovyisland said:
i think you should start with something to say
Click to expand...
Sure, but here I'm speaking of pure rythm and melody. And in terms of writing "good" in terms of catch-factor and melodisiousity (is that a word). Read: catchy.
Sure the lyrics is important; but not in this poll.
Formula writing or not; songwriters pitching for the radiofriendly pop/poprock segment of the market(I try to) want a catchy chorus. Thats the bread and butter. Not being able to get a good enough chorus is often the same as another song for the dustbin. Hense the poll and my interest to start off with just singing sha-na-na till I think I got a killer chorus.

When all that is in the box - I agree - then the hard part comes: the lyrics and the message.
 
strike that...reverse it

Emusic
Considder this.
Since the chorus usually doesn't start a song most writers assume that the first thing to come out of them is a verse. The "catchy verse weak chorus" headache then ensues.

But maybe that really strong verse you've written (the first & most exciting thing to happen in your proccess) is actually your chorus. You just didn't recognize it.

Now the pressure's off & all you have to do is come up with a strong verse, usually much easier than that big radio chorus (if that's what you're after).

Of course you have to look at it on a case by case basis but looking at it from a different perspective has salvaged many tunes for me.
-small
 
Hey

I start with the message, decide on a vehicle for the message, and then come up with the title and main hook. Next comes the chorus and then verses.

I used to organically write. Whatever line popped into my head, grew into a section, be it verse, chorus or lyrical bridge etc. but I found too many dead end lyrics, or I was writing lyrics that sounded nice but didn't actually say anything worthwhile.

Sometimes a few lines will come out organically like that, but now I tend to stop myself and think about what I am going to write about before I continue, or I accept that it I want to go with the flow and write with no real attachment to getting a song out of it.

Cheers

John
 
I start with a snippet of something.. a phrase or a line of melody and I think I usually begin organically. There has to be some music though.

But that is just to get a start point. Like John (above), I always know what the song is about first. Hmm. Sometimes that changes though - which is nice, because then I have two songs to write :)

Really, chorus or verse can come first - whichever is flowing and wants to be written. Sometimes the structire comes together fast, but at others I try numerous different structures. Indeed, sometimes I have to hear it back before the structure comes clear... usually when I overwrite and need to simplify/cut down!
 
Mostly I just write.

Then I worry about structure. 90% of the time if I try to write a specific chorus it comes out contrived sounding. In my song Decomposition the chorus is what was originally the first verse. For my song Testimoney the chorus was an entirely different poem I wrote a long time ago. I went digging through older work to find some inspiration and found an entire chorus.

Don't let abstract ideas interfere with the flow. Puke it all out first then try to impose some order.
 
If we're talking primary melody/rhythm - I find I more often than not find a general chord progression/groove and start humming a melody or vamping some lyrics - generally this tends to be a verse - and then as I develop an arrangement I try to find a chorus.

There have been times that I have determined that the "verse" I'm working on will be stronger as a chorus - and I then allow the song to go in that direction.
 
i can't write a catchy chorus for shit. i think this is why.

i am a very literal writer. i just cant write songs about "day to day life" or a song that "anybody can relate to". i write about very specific things, so i have to say those things in the verses and/or bridges. choruses to me, are supposed to sum up the song in a couple lines. for example (you can always go back to good old neil) "keep on rockin in the free world" pretty much sums up that song, but the verses specify what exactly the song is about. thats the best way i can explain it. usually i write some verses and hope that my band can help write a catchy chorus.

Adam
 
i don't know what's what until music goes with it.


i usually just write about whatever. if i write something in the same period, they'll usually be about the same thing, and if ones more general, then that's probably the chorus.
 
i need to work on my choruses for the first few years of my rapping all i wanted to do was write super-lyrical raps, thas all i cared about, so i didnt even try to fuck wit choruses, now its like damn, my verses are tight but tha chorus needs work,

oh well, i'll juss keep workin on em...
 
I find there is no real rule. Sometimes its verse (or even first line) first, sometimes Chorus (or hook).

Alot of times, I have a catchy phrase or idea that seems to lend itself very clearly to a coherent chorus. Then it is an easy task to "tell the story" with the verses.

Other times, I'll come up on a line that seems like it's a good start to song. I know it's a keeper when it points really clearly to some idea. If it's just an "I woke up in the morning..." kinda line, I find it doesn't lead anywhere.

If I have a first line, then the game is to discover where that line points. Recently, I co-wrote a song that began "She's driving southeast from Seattle..." and the whole game was figuring out why she was driving and what the song would be about.

A great tip a varsity songwriter gave me years ago (and something that is quite common among professional songwriters) was to get myself a little journal, a "hook book" that I keep handy to jot down ideas whenever they hit me--this means at work, in a bar, in the middle of the night. Trust me: write them down when they hit you because you'll forget them otherwise. Two of the best songs I've written (IMHO) were based upon ideas jotted half-heartedly in the hook book and re-discovered later.
 
I think it varies all over the map for me. Sometimes it's a line that can be either chorus or verse. Sometimes a riff if I'm writing with guitar, maybe a chord progression (guitar or piano) which is either also. Sometimes I hear the whole thing musically with or without some of the lyric, sometimes just a small bit of a tune.

One tune started out as just a lyric with no real chorus and then I remembered an old guitar thing from a year or 2 back that worked well. Threw in a "chorus" as a transition that felt more like a B portion of a verse and had the tune complete. The guitar thing turned into the hook and never put in a "real" chorus. As so many have said there seems to be no "always" situation. I've got 4 or 5 songs rolling around in my head - some as old as 5 years ago - that I need to get down. Since they've stuck so far though I figure they'll still be there whenever. Who knows?
 
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