April 2006

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Funny Paper Bridges

You know that part in Somewhere Over The Rainbow (music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, ©1938) where Dorothy departs from the main melody and sings "Someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me..."? This is after she has sung the first two verses ("Somewhere over the rainbow...") and before she sings the last verse, about Bluebirds. This satisfyingly different section of the song is commonly called a "bridge." A great percentage of Tin Pan Alley songs, like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, were written with two verses, followed by a bridge, followed by one more verse. (There were often variations; even the Rainbow song has an extra repeated bit at the end, which is called a "tag.") Often in more recent popular music, including quite a few country western songs, the bridge is used in conjunction with a verse-chorus setup. Often this takes the form of: Verse 1 -- Chorus -- Verse 2 -- Chorus -- Bridge -- Chorus.

Musically, the bridge is different from the chorus in that it occurs just once in the song. Also, it usually strikes out in something of a different direction, either going to a new chord progression or even a new rhythm. It differs from a chorus in that it usually doesn't have a real resolution, but leads back to the main melody of the song. The chorus is usually more of a stand-alone package.

Lyrically, the bridge takes on a new perspective of some sort. It takes you away from the main direction of the song, by changing ostensible narrators, by changing tense or supposed point in time, or apparent location, or otherwise bringing in a whole new slant on the issue. This swoops you away to a point from where, upon returning to the main course of the song, you are given a new momentum and a sort of second start. The bridge, all in all, gives pizzaz to the big finish, like those drivers who, when turning left, first make a swing to the right so they can careen left with oomph. Some songs with bridges could exist fairly well without them, but have a sing through Somewhere Over The Rainbow without one and you can see how much the bridge helps give the song a strong shape. Actually, "bridge" is a great name for this thing, in my opinion. It lifts your focus up and over the landscape of the song, and gives you a nice view of the whole shebang in the process, from high atop a good and sturdy arch.

The Comic Epiphany

Now here's my epiphany, such as it is: I was looking at the comic section the other day, and had one of those this-reminds-me-of-something moments. It turns out that comic strips often have what could be seen as a bridge.

Here's a comic example based on an old joke that I heard from the Hogeye Arts folk music folks down in Evanston a couple weeks ago. I've turned it into an imaginary comic strip:

Four frames: The first, second, and fourth frames are all drawn as if from the same vantage point.

Frame one:
Guy standing at a counter, woman on the other side of it. He yells, "ONE SUPERSIZE FRIES, ONE DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER, ONE JAMOCA SHAKE." The woman looks startled.

Frame two:
The woman leans toward the man and says, "Sir! This is a LIBRARY!"

Frame three:
...is a drawing of the library, looking very library-ish, from the outside. A bird's-eye-view. A text balloon is coming out of a window; it's the guy saying, "Oh, sorry..."

Frame four
...is the guy leaning over to the librarian, cupping his hand, and whispering, "One supersize fries, one double cheeseburger, one jamoca shake."

Now, this comic strip would still work without frame three. You could toss the frame away completely. You probably would want to have the guy mumble "Oh, sorry," in frame two. But go back and read through the frames, skipping number three, and you'll see that the joke feels much weaker. Frame three gives the story more force by momentarily changing the perspective of the observer. And this perspective change isn't just arbitrary; it has its own agenda, in a way, in that by showing the outside of the very obvious library, one wonders even more strongly how the guy could POSSIBLY have mistaken it for a burger joint, which reinforces the whole joke.

In the same way, bridges in songs often have an agenda or two. In Dorothy's song, she has been talking about a PLACE ("somewhere"), but -- along with the definite melodic and rhythmic switcheroo of the bridge -- she suddenly sings about "some DAY," and brings her self and her own personal future into the mix.

But back to comic strips. It's little wonder that filmmakers use a "storyboard," which is visually like a long comic strip, to plan out their project. I wonder if making a comic strip/storyboard of a song would help in the process of writing it. Has anyone out there tried this? I'm going to have a go at it myself.

Banjo Break as Bridge

Incidentally, there are not many bridges in traditional folk music, from my experience, at least in the lyrics. You'll find, going through the good ol' Rise Up Singing songbook put out by Sing Out! magazine, that almost all the songs with bridges have come from the popular arena. But in my experience, folk musicians often stick an instrumental break in the song right about where a bridge would be if the song had one. I think this serves exactly the same purpose.

You hear such things as a whole new instrument -- a harmonica, a mouth bow, whatever -- being played just for that break. Or that new rhythm is used suddenly, or those odd jazzy chords. A new musical approach like this takes you up, over, and away from the song, just as surely as a tangential and soaring lyric, with its related melody, would have done. And in my little world of comic strip analogies, an instrumental bridge is like the first, second, and fourth frames having the same view of two characters talking, but the third frame shows them both yawning or hugging or bopping each other on the head, with no conversation. Or has them seen from an ant's eye view, or from above, but still with no text.

So anyway, back I go to the funny papers, to see if there are any other great song structure wisdoms to unearth. If henceforth you see me reading comics day in and day out, rest assured that I'm involved in serious compositional study.