Boy, does this feel like a long time between posts or what?!
An insane week at work. Busy early mornings. A week of fascinating blog posts t0 read from all my usual haunts (ha ha, no pun intended) — generally yours. Little to no spare time at night. It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya. A conspiracy.
I’ll be back tomorrow for a real post — the usual end-of-week whiskey-river-inspired rambling. And then at some point over the weekend, I hope to finally (!) put up Part 2 of the What’s in a Song entry on “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”
Working on the latter has proved to be a lot harder than usual (and that’s saying something). I have almost too much information to draw on (at least if I’m to stay below the 2,000-word absolute maximum length I’ve set). One fascinating little nugget has turned out to be something of a mystery, but really just a side issue from the central topic; I thought I’d turn it over to RAMH readers for help — especially any of you who know something about songwriting and/or music at more than just a listener level.
“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and numerous other popular songs, as it happens, apparently are considered examples of verseless songs. Obviously, this term doesn’t mean that they lack lyrics. And just as obviously, my assumption that the word verse equates roughly to stanza is completely off the mark.
Can anybody explain for me what that means?
As background, one of the most complete explanations I’ve read is from a book called What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis, by Ken Stephenson. Although primarily concerned with rock, the book does refer to other genres, like show tunes, to illustrate and explain key concepts. In this case, it says (bleeping over a lot of jargon):
The portion [of “Over the Rainbow”] starting with [“Somewhere over the rainbow, Way up high”] is actually only the chorus of the song; the verse, not sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and thus largely ignored or forgotten, begins with the words “When all the world is a hopeless jumble.” Similarly, few of the millions who know Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas (1940) remember — or have ever heard — the verse, which begins with descriptions of the sunny weather and green grass of Southern California in December… Now, a chorus intended to be independent of a verse must have not only length but formal complexity as well… In many songs from this period, “Over the Rainbow” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” included, the chorus has taken on a multisectional form itself.
I don’t get it. Maybe in the case of “Over the Rainbow” — for which lyrics apparently exist for something called the “verse,” apart from the rest of the song — I can sorta kinda almost accept that “Somewhere over the rainbow/Way up high” is… something else. But what makes “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” verseless?
DarcKnyt says
It is my belief, in this instance, “verse” might refer to what we the unwashed unmusical masses may call a “chorus” or “refrain” — the repeating part of a song which made groups like the Beatles (She loves you, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH) and catchy songs so popular.
Does Smoke Gets In Your Eyes have such a portion to the song? Unchained Melody does not, IIRC, and perhaps this is that to which the “verseless” refers?
Thoughts only. Not even an educated guess, since I have no formal music theory training.
Plus I haven’t said anything on your blog in a while.
Ashleigh Burroughs says
This is one of those things that academics get PhD’s for and which serve only to make the rest of us kinda sorta almost crazy. Let it be……. and get me the 2nd installment of the Smoke post….. I can hardly wait.
a/b
Sherri says
I agree with Knyt, that the verseless may refer to having no chorus or bridge, though that seems backward from how we usually think of it. Everybody knows musicians are weird. :)
Sherri says
Or, on further thought, that it has ONLY a chorus, according to the example you provided about Over the Rainbow. Which seems strange to me, because the way I’ve always see OtR, it has an intro (which they’re calling the verse), then the verse, then a bridge (someday I’ll wish upon a star), then another verse, and an epilogue.
I’ll probably be pondering this for a while. You always get me thinking.
Jules says
I’m sorry to say I can’t help with your musical question, but I’m still checking in to say hi and don’t. work. too. hard. We’ll always be here when you return.
cynth says
I have no musical training at all, however, I’ve heard numerous songs that actually being with I’ve always thought was an into…Barbra Streisand does this with “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”–which is pretty ridiculous for her as she’s Jewish, but you get the idea. Perhaps what it means is that the verses we have come to know as part of the song, were actually tacked on after the original piece of verbiage was scripted. I have a friend who is of a terrifically musical bent. I’ll forward your post and see what happens!
And don’t stress about the posting, we’re here whenever you are…thank goodness.
cynth says
Okay, it should have said “begin with I’ve always thought…” so much for typing and re-reading on days off…
John says
All: thanks!
I was thinking about this some more on the way into work today, and came up with a way to think about it — which also would explain why we typically think of it the other way ’round:
In many (most?) songs, each verse is longer than the refrain. The refrain also tends to be repeated throughout the song, and is sometimes just a single phrase, sometimes up to 3-4 lines long, while the verse is more “complex.” Think of longer complex sentences, punctuated by terse simple ones.
All of which is why we might think of the verse as the “important” part.
But what the refrain does is to state, succinctly, what the song is about. (The repeated refrains just drive the point home.) The verse is all the “Whereas…” clauses/paragraphs in a resolution, and the refrain is the “Therefore let it be resolved…” concluding sentence.
So what would be a “verseless” song then? Well, musically speaking I of course am no smarter now than before. But in terms of the song’s meaning, sort of like Sherry says, the whole thing is a chorus: thus, in order to get the whole “point,” you have to listen to the whole thing.
???
Ah well. I really should move on to more answerable questions. :)