Take it to your favorite Bridges

Posted by Mark Caro:

Our book’s title is a James Brown reference (or Justin Timberlake if you prefer) to that part of a song that veers from the established verse-chorus pattern. (Actually, I think Brown says, “Take ‘em to the bridge,” but we’ll live with “it.”)

I’m a big fan of bridges, and I often feel a song is incomplete unless I write one, yet not all songs need bridges. As we write in the book, the Beatles were bridge masters and regularly incorporated them into what we call “Beatles Form”:

Verse 1 + refrain

Verse 2 + refrain

Bridge

Verse 3 + refrain Repeat

Bridge

Repeat Verse 3 or 1

Many Beatles songs follow this pattern, from “I Saw Her Standing There” to “The Long and Winding Road.”

Other bands excel at bridges as well, such as XTC...

...and R.E.M. 

Which are your favorite bridges? Which are the weirdest? Here’s one of my favorite weird ones: