Songs without choruses
April 17, 2019 10:32 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for songs that genuinely do not have choruses. It can be any genre, my fave is indie rock, folk, neo-folk but anything will do. What are your favorite songs without choruses? Thanks!
posted by fairlynearlyready to Media & Arts (58 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'll take any opportunity to share Phil Och's Love Me I'm A Liberal.
posted by General Malaise at 10:37 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


(Although I guess it does have a repeating line, but I don't think that counts.)
posted by General Malaise at 10:38 AM on April 17, 2019


I don't think that White Rabbit has a chorus.
posted by Gray Duck at 10:41 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


The Clash - Complete Control
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows
Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe
Black Sabbath - Paranoid

(previous thread)
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:43 AM on April 17, 2019




Abba has a few of those, including "The Winner Takes It All."
posted by Melismata at 10:46 AM on April 17, 2019


Do you literally mean any genre, or are you looking for songs that have vocals but no chorus?
posted by heatvision at 10:50 AM on April 17, 2019


Bohemian Rhapsody
posted by sacrifix at 10:52 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


A lot of Led Zep songs don't have choruses.
posted by jtexman1 at 10:54 AM on April 17, 2019


Hmmm - I think, "Sympathy for the Devil" has a chorus:
Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game

posted by jkaczor at 10:56 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


Scotch and Soda.
posted by JanetLand at 10:59 AM on April 17, 2019


Subterranean Homesick Blues keeps sounding as if it's going to have a chorus ("Look out kid") and then not doing it.
posted by flabdablet at 11:02 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


Changed the Locks by Lucinda Williams was, according to the liner notes, written specifically because someone challenged her to write a song with no chorus that could still get radio play.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:09 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


The Shins, Australia.
posted by teststrip at 11:09 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


I feel like Iron & Wine does this often, with repetitive verses but no choruses. "The Trapeze Swinger" and "Passing Afternoon" spring to mind.
posted by northernish at 11:10 AM on April 17, 2019


Many Grateful Dead songs do not have choruses.

Dark Star->The Other One->Dark Star->Wharf Rat-> St. Stephen Dark Star, Wharf Rat and St. Stephen do not have a chorus. The Other One has one paragraph that repeats.

Chinacat Sunflower
posted by AugustWest at 11:11 AM on April 17, 2019


The Bevis Frond has loads of songs without choruses.

Examples:
Once More
Long Journey Into Light
posted by flabdablet at 11:11 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]




I'm surprised no one has mentioned Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Their songs have little repeating vignettes, but the repeats come in much more random form than verse-chorus-verse-chorus. Especially on their first album.
posted by roll truck roll at 11:13 AM on April 17, 2019


The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
posted by bondcliff at 11:14 AM on April 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


Leonard Cohen, "The Stranger Song": lyrics, song on youtube
posted by theatro at 11:14 AM on April 17, 2019


If a chorus has to be repeated at least once elsewhere in the song, Elvis Costello's "Beyond Belief." I've heard people call the ending ("I got a feeling I'm gonna get a lot of grief...") a chorus, I guess because it incorporates the song title, but those lyrics don't occur anywhere else.
posted by praemunire at 11:14 AM on April 17, 2019


Black Sabbath Supernaut has no need to chorus.
posted by bdc34 at 11:14 AM on April 17, 2019


(Similarly with the Mountain Goats' "Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton," where you get repeated "HAIL SATAN!"s right at the end, but nowhere else.)
posted by praemunire at 11:16 AM on April 17, 2019


Actually, now I think of it there are a ton of Mountain Goats songs without choruses: "Fall of the High School Running Back," "Broom People," "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod," etc.
posted by praemunire at 11:18 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


A song I wrote and recorded back in 1996 called "The Shattering" doesn't have a chorus:

https://soundcloud.com/veloway/09-the-shattering
posted by nikaspark at 11:26 AM on April 17, 2019


Joanna Newsom's songs seem to lack choruses more often than they have them. "Sawdust & Diamonds" and "Only Skin" from Ys, "Easy", "Have One on Me", "Esme", "In California", and a bunch more from Have One on Me, "Sapokanikan" from Divers, and that's just the handful that I'm confident about from memory.
posted by invitapriore at 11:29 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


Eight Miles High - I like this Golden Earring cover version better than the original

Up The Neck might be disqualified if the single line 'I said "baby, oh sweetheart"' counts as a chorus.

Child In Time either has no chorus or the whole thing is a chorus: your call.
posted by flabdablet at 11:30 AM on April 17, 2019


Echoes
posted by flabdablet at 11:57 AM on April 17, 2019


Witch of the Westmoreland by Archie Fischer, performed here by Stan Rogers
My Father's Ghost by Ron Hynes
The Unfinished Song by J.P. Cormier
The Stonecutter by James Keelaghan
October 70 by James Keelaghan
Fires of Calais by James Keelaghan
Sinatra and I by James Keelaghan
Night Drive by Garnet Rogers

I think songs that tell stories tend to be like this. All the examples above are such songs.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:06 PM on April 17, 2019


Pretty much everything on the Silly Sisters album. Try The Seven Joys of Mary, The Doffin Mistress, the Lass of Loch Royal. A lot of their songs are on YouTube, but I don't have time to check out the quality just now.
posted by FencingGal at 12:14 PM on April 17, 2019


Up The Junction and Vicky Verky by Squeeze
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:15 PM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


Rocket's Tail (lyrics)
posted by flabdablet at 12:25 PM on April 17, 2019


Another Louden Wainwright III one - Motel Blues
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 12:44 PM on April 17, 2019


Two very different tunes that meander to a climax came to mind:
“I’m Gonna Be Strong” (Blue Angel)
“Lush Life” (Billy Strayhorn)
posted by Smearcase at 12:57 PM on April 17, 2019


Loudon Wainwright, Half Fist
posted by ficbot at 12:58 PM on April 17, 2019


Is Radiohead's Paranoid Android too obvious an example?
posted by saladin at 1:02 PM on April 17, 2019


A lot of songs by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark have no chorus.

"Enola Gay"
"Messages"
"Electricity"

Then there's the spoken word rock of King Missile
posted by SansPoint at 1:14 PM on April 17, 2019


Dylan does this - Changing of the Guards and All Along the Watchtower come to mind.
posted by toastedcheese at 1:20 PM on April 17, 2019


Stephen Stills The Word Game
posted by scorpia22 at 1:29 PM on April 17, 2019


House of the Rising Sun
Dr. Dooom No Chorus
posted by STFUDonnie at 1:42 PM on April 17, 2019


The Jam, All Mod Cons
Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Razzle in My Pocket
Syd Barrett, Dark Globe (though there is one repeated line at the end of both long verses)
Robyn Hitchcock, I Often Dream of Trains

Most Minutemen songs except those on Project Mersh (it’s probably easier to count the ones that do have choruses)

I haven’t listened to Tom Waits in years but he wanders along without choruses like lots of the folk/neofolk types mentioned above. Off the top of my head: Burma Shave, Just the Right Bullets, Semi Suite…
posted by miles per flower at 1:44 PM on April 17, 2019


One of the best post-1996 Weezer songs, "Pig."
posted by Polycarp at 4:05 PM on April 17, 2019


Camp Cope - The Opener.
posted by trotzdem_kunst at 4:42 PM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


Song of Durin by J.R.R. Tolkien
posted by Phssthpok at 8:13 PM on April 17, 2019


Sometime Around Midnight by The Airborne Toxic Event
posted by heldincontempt at 8:24 PM on April 17, 2019


You could be happy, Snow Patrol.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:55 PM on April 17, 2019


More John Darnielle: Going to Marrakesh
Jim Croce: Operator
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 5:27 AM on April 18, 2019


Stephen Malkmus, The Hook.
posted by quinndexter at 5:49 AM on April 18, 2019


I love this question because I am looking for the same thing! My favorite band, Typhoon, writes pretty much every song without a chorus and it has put me on a search for more like that. Typhoon's song structures are more about reoccurring themes that run through entire albums which i find way more satisfying than the verse, chorus, bridge format.
posted by August Fury at 5:59 AM on April 18, 2019


Middle of the Hill - Josh Pyke.
posted by h00py at 7:50 AM on April 18, 2019


The Velvet Underground: The Gift
posted by soundofsuburbia at 7:52 AM on April 18, 2019


You want The Weakerthans! I can't think of a song of theirs with a chorus. Cat Named Virtute, Everything Must Go, and Civil Twilight are some of my favorites.
posted by esoterrica at 12:44 PM on April 18, 2019 [1 favorite]


The Temptation of Adam - Josh Ritter
The Curse - Josh Ritter
Thin Blue Flame - Josh Ritter
I sense a pattern.
posted by booth at 1:43 PM on April 18, 2019


Losing My Religion - R.E.M.
Pinball Wizard - The Who
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:01 PM on April 18, 2019


Waxahatchee, "Lips and Limbs"

I just discovered it today, so there you go!
posted by limeonaire at 5:07 PM on April 19, 2019


Oh here's another one I discovered just now: Cloud Nothings, "Enter Entirely"
posted by limeonaire at 6:38 PM on April 20, 2019


Neil Young:
Revolution Blues
Ambulance Blues
Last Trip to Tulsa
posted by effluvia at 3:41 PM on May 10, 2019


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