В простой куплетной форме используется повторение музыкального материала для каждой из строф текста. «Заглавная» строка обычно появляется в самом начале или в конце куплета. Такая форма хорошо подходит для песни-рассказа, сюжет которой разворачивается от куплета к куплету. Она использована во множестве народных песен, а также во многие композициях Боба Дилана, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez и Judy Collins.
Glen Campbell - By the Time I Get to Phoenix1
By the time I get to Phoenix
She'll be rising
She'll find the note I left hanging on her door
She'll laugh, when she reads the part that says I'm leaving
Cause I've left that girl, so many times before
By the time I make Albuquerque
She'll be working
She'll probably stop at lunch,
And give me a call
But she'll just hear that phone keep on ringing
Off the wall, that's all
By the time I make Oklahoma
She'll be sleeping
She'll turn softly and call my name out low
And she'll cry, just to think, I'd really leave her
Though time and time I've tried to tell her so
She just didn't know,
I would really go
Kenny Rogers – Ruby, dont take your love to town
You've painted up your lips
And rolled and curled your tinted hair
Ruby are you contemplating
Going out somewhere
The shadow on the wall
Tells me the sun is going down
Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town
It wasn't me
That started that crazy Asian war
But I was proud to go
And do my patriotic chore
And yes, it's true that
I'm not the man I used to be
Oh, Ruby I still need some company
It's hard to love a man
Whose legs are bent and paralyzed
and I won't serve the needs of a woman of your age
Ruby, I realized
but it won't be long i've heard them say
until i'm not around
Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town
She's leaving now cause
I just heard the slamming of the door
The way I know I've heard it
Slam one hundred times before
And if I could move I'd get my gun
And put her in the ground
Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town
Oh Ruby for God's sake turn around
В такой композиции особенно важно, чтобы музыкальная основа куплета была достаточно интересна для постоянного повторения.
Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower2
"There must be some kind of way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Business men – they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None will level on the wine
Nobody of it is worth."
"No reason to get excited,"
The thief – he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late."
All along the watchtower
Princess kept the view
While all the women came
And went bare-foot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl, hey.
Sher – Sunny
Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain
Sunny, you smiled at me and then it eased my pain
Now the dark days are gone and bright days are here
My Sunny once shined so sincere, Sunny once so true
I love you I love you
Sunny thank you for the sunshine you gave to me
Sunny thank you for the love you brought my way
You gave to me your all and all
And now I feel that I'm 10 feet tall
Sunny once so true, I love you
Sunny thank you for the truth that you let me see
Sunny thank you for the facts from A to Z
Somehow I was torn like a wind blown sail
Then our love was borned when you held my hand
Sunny once so true, I love you
Sunny thank you for the sunshine you gave to me
Sunny thank you for the love you brought my way
You gave to me your all and all
And now I feel that I'm 10 feet tall
Sunny once so true, I love you
Vaya con dios – Nah Neh Nah
I got on the phone and called the girls, said
Meet me down at Curly Pearls, for a
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
In my high-heeled shoes and fancy fads
I ran down the stairs hailed me a cab, going
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Nah Neh Nah
When I pushed the door, I saw Eleanor
And Mary-Lou swinging on the floor, going
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Sue came in, in a silk sarong
She walzed across as they played that song,
going
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Nah Neh Nah
Annie was a littlie late
She had to get out of a date, with a
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Curly fixed another drink
As the piano man began to sing, that song
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Nah Neh Nah
It was already half past three
But the night was young and so were we,
dancing
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Oh Lord, did we have a ball
Still singing, walking down that hall, that
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Ney, Nah Neh Nah
Nah Neh Nah
- 1. The number of verses in a song written in the single-verse form varies widely. Jimmy Webb’s song “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” (Glen Campbell’s breakthrough hit) takes only three verses to tell the story. Each well-crafted verse presents a location that the singer is thinking about as he embarks upon his journey away from his former lover in California. The song is about what she’ll be doing when the singer arrives at each of three destinations: Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Oklahoma. The title of the song is mentioned only once, in the first line of the first verse. That’s because each verse describes a different location, which Webb has cleverly shown in his first lines. Webb cleverly uses lyrics elsewhere in the song — for example, “She’ll just hear that phone keep on ringin’ off the wall” is followed by a simple “That’s all.” True to the verse form, the song tells a story that progresses from verse to verse.
- 2. For another example of the single-verse form, check out “All Along the Watchtower,” by Bob Dylan, made famous by Jimi Hendrix. It consists of three verses and is a good example of the style of lyric writing Bob Dylan introduced during the 1960s.
If you listen carefully to these well-crafted words, you’ll be hard pressed to find a hook (see Chapter 4 for more on hooks) in the song at all — until you realize that the entire song is one big hook. The title, “All Along the Watchtower,” is introduced in one place only, as the first line of verse 3. Notice, however, that it’s probably the best candidate in the song for a title. Dylan could have called the song “Two Riders Were Approaching” or “There Must Be Some Way Out of Here,” but neither of these phrases comes close to “All Along the Watchtower” as its great title.