So, has everyone heard this lettering system before for songs A, BA, B or A, A B, A? Okay.  Okay. for those who don’t, some have and some haven’t,  all it means is  a a BA form is known as classic song form.
It’s the old school song form. A good example of this two good examples are Yesterday by the Beatles  yesterday, okay? It’s a verse based song form the title’s in the verse. If you wanted to sing that song to somebody, you can go like, oh, what’s that song that yesterday? How does that go? You would probably go, it goes yesterday.
Oh my drama. See so far away you wouldn’t probably go, it goes Why she had to go. I don’t know. It’s like the, the focus of the song is on the verses.  The bit I’ve just sung is the Middle A or Bridge. Those names are kind of confused either side of the Atlantic. American writers often refer to that as the bridge, but the bridge sometimes people call the pre chorus. So  for the sake of today we’re talking about the bridge in pre chorus, sorry, the bridge in Middle eight being the,  the bit we’re talking about the the bit a after two of something that breaks the song up.
I hope that’s clear. Now,  another example of a song that’s in verse form is Somewhere Over The Rainbow. If you wanted to sing that song to somebody, you’re probably sing, oh, it goes like this Somewhere, the Rainbow. It’s that song you wouldn’t necessarily sing. That  isn’t the memorable bit of the song.
It’s a beautiful bit the song, but it isn’t where the focus of the song lies. I hope that makes some sense to people because some songs are memorable all the way through and it, it, it’s not, it’s a rule of thumb. Basically the most memorable bit  in an A, a BA form is the verse. That’s why you’re doing it three times. You’ve got three A’s ’cause that’s the memorable bit and an a BAB form,  which is a chorus based song form.  Even though you might have two verses, you’ve often got three choruses ’cause you’ll tag one on at the end or even two because it’s a pop song and people like the choruses or you’ll start with a chorus if you are, really wanting to hammer that chorus home.
 Okay, so  that, I just wanted to make that clear because  people sometimes write a really good a b aab BA song like an old school song, but they don’t kind of know they’ve written it. So ha if you are not sure about where the spotlight falls on your song that you really love your song, like which bit is the best bit  and make sure that you’re writing on writing the right form for your song.
 So  if you’ve written a chorus based pop song,  many of these statements will be true. Your chorus is the most memorable section. Your title is in the chorus. You have more chorus than verse real estate. As, as you know, you’ve got more choruses than verses  and you often sum up the idea of the song in the chorus.
There are obviously exceptions to this. Â If you’ve written a verse based song, Â the verse is the most memorable section. So well, the rainbow melodically, it’s gorgeous. It sums up the song in the verse. Your title’s often in the verse. You have two verses before a new section. And you sum up the idea of a song in the verse. Â A lot of early Beatles songs are in this classic song form, not only yesterday, but some of their fastest songs.
Like I’ve written a few down here. well, so many, so many actually. Â okay, I mean this, many of their early songs were all in a a, BA form. So ticket to Ride back in the USSR, from Me to You, I saw her standing there. Please, please, please, there’s kind of interesting, if you’ve grown up playing Beatles songs, I mean, it, Â it is all good. It’s all those sections are really memorable.
But I think when we’re talking about a middle eight and a pop song, we’re talking about a chorus based pop song. So  if you’re writing a  classic song form like Gershwin and  Ella Fitzgerald and those beautiful old songs, I love that. But they don’t often trouble the charts, if I’m being brutally honest. something like Dunno Why by Nora Jones is an A a BA song. And that was a big hit.  And the Plain White Tease had an a a BA song, called Hey There Delilah, which is a big hit, but they’re kind of the exceptions to the rule.
People are very used on radio to playing songs that have a chorus. It seems popular. it doesn’t stop me writing A-A-B-A-A-B-A songs verse based songs, but I kind of have to know that they’re mostly for me and probably won’t trouble the charts.  So  just thought I’d point that out. \]@\)next slide please.
 Okay,  these distinctions are important because a BA songs only generally have two sections,  verse and a bridge section. Think of a lot of Franks sin Ra tunes, for example. fly Me to the Moon, stuff like that. I love listening to these tunes and I love working out how they are put together. but basically that song form was dominant in the early part of the 20th century and then everything kind of went out the window in the sixties and late fifties and sixties and seventies.
And that verse, that classic song form, kind of went out favor.  But that’s not to say that some of those beautiful songs ever written have been in that haven’t been in that form. A lot of those great Christmas songs written in that form. but  we’re not talking about song form. We’re talk about middle eights. Get back on track, right? So,  So middle eight or bridge is placed after the second verse in an a, a BA song or after the second chorus, normally in an a,  BAB song.
And it’s normally called  the the letter C because that you don’t really do a letter for the pre-chorus.  There needs to be an international meeting about this. What are all the bits called pre-chorus, ramp, channel, bridge, middle Lake, can we all get together and have a pint and work it all out?
I was gonna mention, from Andy, this is really interesting and I actually wrote this and I didn’t say it, but every breath you take by the police is an amazing example of an a, a b, a song that also has a c-section. They’re very unusual, but there are a few. but it’s, it’s, Â it’s, they’re few and far between. That’s not to say if it’s a brilliant, if it’s a brilliant song, it’s not gonna connect. It will and it’d be fantastic.
so for those people who are a little bit confused over what the sections of the song mean, you are not the only one. Â I sometimes get confused too. All you need to think about is where the spotlight of your song is meant to be shining. Is it meant to be shining on the verse or the verses the thing that people want to hear the most Or is it on the chorus? Is that what you people want to hear the most? Are you writing a song that’s, that’s verse based or chorus based?
But today in terms of middle age, we’re talking more about chorus based middle age. So a song like traditional pop songs. okay, Â and just so we can remind ourselves, I’ve written it on a slide so I know as well we’re focusing on A B, a BC structure. Â So you’re writing a song, Â you don’t write the middle eight first, do you, does anyone write the middle eight first?
