SongwritingHooks

"Cross My Heart and Hope to Die," Marianas Trench: Hook-y Summer Jam

If I were younger, I could see "Cross My Heart and Hope to Die" being a favorite summer jam. Wicked fun tune, with some beautiful hooks.

(Image swiped from MuchMusic; I hope they don't mind too much.)

The hook device used most dominantly, and it's used a lot, is the breakdown, by which I mean: the song is clicking along until a particular spot where some or most of the instruments drop out (except drums, which usually stick around in a breakdown).There are a lot of breakdowns in "Cross My Heart," though somehow it doesn't feel over used. Here's a selection:

"If U Seek Amy," recorded by Britney Spears; So Many Hooks!

Whatcha think about Britney Spears? Like her or not, her songwriters (listed as Shellback, Alexander Kronlund, Max Martin & Savan Kotecha) know their hooks, and in many ways, Brit's latest hit, "If U Seek Amy," is a master class in hook usage.

The hooks literally start with the first note. Have a listen:

Hear the hook: If U Seek Amy MP3, intro hook             Copyright info

The bass-type riff would have been hook-y enough to get stuck in your head on first listen. But check out what they do: here in the intro, Britney sings along with the riff (after the intro, the riff generally runs without a vocal over it). So what was already a good, catchy hook adds the dimension of the  "la-la-la" hook that begs for you to sing along with it. (See "Hey Jude" for more thoughts on that.) Genius! Two hooks in one.

Immediately following that, the very first lines of the song have their own set of hooks.
Have a listen:

Hear the hook: If U Seek Amy MP3, "oh baby, baby" hook             Copyright info

The verse starts with "Oh baby, baby," which does two things:
a) It's Britney's brand! All the way back to "Hit Me Baby One More Time," Britney's most famous utterances have been "Oh baby, baby" in her unique drawl. So with these words, at the very start of the song, we immediately have a branded throwback to Britney in her prime, before K-Fed/Fed-Ex, before the kids, before the crazy head shaving and public meltdown.
AND
b) you have something that you remember immediately and can instantly sing along with. If that's not a hook, I don't know what is. Most of the verses start with "Oh baby, baby" (repetition is hook-y, too), and you can just feel it coming, so even when you can't sing any of the other words, you still know when to chime in with "oh baby, baby."

Also note the "oh!" at the end of this audio clip. Another hook. I haven't yet learned the words to this song, and probably never will, but I can sing , "oh baby, baby, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah / Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah smokin' up outside OH!"  Hook hook hook! I love that she gets three distinct, big, juicy hooks into the first 27 seconds of the song. 

More Hooks in "If U Seek Amy"

- shock value : this is one of the devices that I consider a subcategory of novelty songs. "F-U-C-K Me" is about as unsubtle an attempt at shock value as you can imagine, but it works in a world that's numb to sex in music. I call shock value a hook because you remember it, right?

- there's a degree of patter to the lyrics

- "ha ha hee hee ha ha oh" at 0:42 (and elsewhere): like a "la la la" lyric, it's the bit that you can sing even if you can't remember other words. Hook.

What other hooks do you hear in "If U Seek Amy"? Please join the conversation!

We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel: Patter Lyrics as a Songwriting Hook

On the Storm Front album, Billy Joel (IMHO) used up the last of his songwriting genius. Everything after has been crap. (When the River of Dreams album came out a few years later, I kicked Billy to the curb just like Christie Brinkley had done.) On Storm Front, the biggest hit was "We Didn't Start the Fire," and the hook that made the song work is that is was so damned hard to learn. So many words! So fast! What did he say? Hey, I think I have the first three lines figured out...

Hear the hook: We Didn't Start the Fire MP3             Copyright info

Clearly there's a Patter hook happening here -- learning the patter was a challenge, and for some people (especially music geeks and aspiring singers) that's fun. In the grand theme of things, the speed of the patter here isn't so fast. Contemporary mainstream pop has much faster (Jason Mraz comes to mind), and rap is almost without exception much faster and more verbose. But in its time, this was pretty out there for play-it-safe mainstream pop.

As with many patter songs, the verses beat you up and leave your head reeling, and then the choruses are much simpler to give you a bit of a breather.

I'd argue that the thing that makes the lyrics harder to memorize is that there's no narrative. There are no complete thoughts, just a bunch of events that took place over time. That probably identifies this devce more clearly as an example of Tantalizing Complexity.

Songwriters, it's your turn: Add links to online versions of your own songs, which feature patter or particularly difficult lyrics to master.

And as always, please comment below with your thoughts, and your suggestions for the best patter of all time.