6. Make the First Verse the Introduction of the Chorus
If you have characters in your song, introduce them instantly. If you are drawing a picture of a scene, locate it in your first line. If your song is written in the first person—the "you and I" kind—you must still establish your location and your "you and I" characters at once. If you keep in mind all the time you are writing that your first verse is merely an introduction, you will not be likely to drag it out.
(a) Write in impersonal mood—that is, make your song such that it does not matter whether a man or a woman sings it. Thus you will not restrict the wide use of your song. Anyone and everyone can sing it on the stage. Furthermore, it will be apt to sell more readily.
(b) "Tell a complete story" is a rule that is sometimes laid down for popular song-writers. But it depends entirely upon what kind of song you are writing whether it is necessary to tell a story or not. "A story is not necessary," Berlin says, and an examination of the lyrics in the preceding chapter, and all the lyrics on your piano, will bear him out in this assertion.
All you need remember is that your song must express emotion in a catchy way. If you can do this best by telling a story, compress your narrative into your verses, making your chorus entirely emotional.
(c) "Make your verses short" seems to be the law of the popular song today. In other years it was the custom to write long verses and short choruses. Today the reverse seems to be the fashion. But whether you decide on a short verse or a long verse—and reference to the latest songs will show you what is best for you to write—you must use as few words as possible to begin your story and—with all the information necessary to carry over the points of your chorus—to lead it up to the joining lines.
7. Make Your Second Verse Round Out the Story
You have introduced your chorus in your first verse, and the chorus has conveyed the emotion to which the first verse gave the setting. Now in your second verse round out the story so that the repetition of the chorus may complete the total effect of your song.
More than upon either the first verse or the chorus, unity of effect depends upon the second verse. In it you must keep to the key of emotion expressed in the chorus and to the general trend of feeling of the first verse. If your first verse tells a love-story of two characters, it is sometimes well to change the relations of the characters in the second verse and make the repetition of the chorus come as an answer. But, whatever you make of your second verse, you must not give it a different story. Don't attempt to do more than round out your first-verse story to a satisfying conclusion, of which the chorus is the completing end.
And now we have come to