I talked about organicism in a recent post about the Beatles, but I thought I’d return to the subject again. In the Beatles tune (”With a Little Help From My Friends”), the chorus could be seen as constructed from the chords of the verse simply transposed down a whole step. Of course, there are other ways of achieving organicism within a song.

Take for example the track “Long Time Gone” as recorded by the Dixie Chicks off their album Home from 2002. I should preface the analysis by mentioning that “Long Time Gone” was not written by the Dixie Chicks, however. The song was composed by Darrell Scott, who is a professional songwriter in Nashville. I think the organicism that exists within “Long Time Gone” is a testament to its professional-level quality of songwriting.

Before getting into the analysis, take a listen to both the verse and chorus of “Long Time Gone”:

		Dixie Chicks: “Long Time Gone” (verse)
		Dixie Chicks: “Long Time Gone” (chorus)

Here’s the underlying chord progression for each section if you can’t figure it out by ear:

Notice that I’ve got a black box at the end of the chord progression for the chorus. You would expect to get a tonic chord after that dominant, and you do, but it’s the first tonic of the verse repeating again. Darrell Scott, the songwriter, could have stuck an extra tonic chord in there to keep the four-square hypermeter going, but instead, the beginning of the verse and end of the chorus are the same. The two parts are elided. I think everyone would agree it’s more interesting that way.

The elision in the hypermeter isn’t the most interesting thing about this verse-chorus relationship, though. To me, what is really special is the way the harmonies for the chorus seem to grow out of a little kernel from the verse. The verse basically just alternates between a prolonged tonic chord and a prolonged dominant. But there is that quick IV-I-V— turnaround in the middle that acts as a little hook.

It’s my view that the chorus is basically an expansion of this little hook. The first harmonies are just a slowed down version of the hook from the verse. Notice how the chorus also goes IV-I-V— but at half the speed at which the chords moved in the verse. The real payoff is the second part of the chorus where the progression gets flipped around and now goes backwards, V-I-IV—, to lead to the final dominant before returning to the verse.

I’ve made edits of just those progressions. Listen closely (listening to the bass helps) and see if you can hear the relationship:

		Dixie Chicks: “Long Time Gone” (verse: IV-I-V—)
		Dixie Chicks: “Long Time Gone” (chorus:IV—I—V——-)
		Dixie Chicks: “Long Time Gone” (chorus:V—I—IV——-)

You might hear that the bass line plays a first inversion chord on the tonic when playing the backwards version of the chorus, so it should really be V—I6—IV——-, but I think that just clouds the fundamental issue. The main thing to realize is that the verse and chorus are very closely tied together in an organic way. I think this organicism is partially responsible for making the chorus “sound right” after one hears the verse. The chorus sounds like it’s a natural outgrowth of the verse because of the way its harmonies derive from a pattern already established.

One last thing I think is worth pointing out in this song. The final time the chorus comes around, it gets repeated twice. Since the end of the chorus was previously elided with the beginning of the verse, this could potentially create a question as to how to interlock two choruses back to front. Here’s how Mr. Scott answered the question:

Dixie Chicks: “Long Time Gone” (final chorus)

Basically, another chorus is just pasted after the first. But since there is not the tonic after the first chorus that we probably expect, the second chorus is somewhat jarring. I think this is a good type of jarring, though. It’s kind of like the stretto at the end of a fugue, where the entrances of the voices start coming sooner and sooner in relation to one another. A bit of abruptness, I’d say, is a classic technique at the end of a piece. In this case, the hidden potential in the basic elision of the chorus and verse at the beginning of the song gets developed in a tasteful way at the end.

It’s a pretty tasty song in general. To recap, in “With a Little Help From My Friends,” the organicism can be seen in the way the harmonies from the chorus are a transposition of those from the verse, whereas in “Long Time Gone,” the organic quality of the song derives from the hypermetric expansion and reordering of the harmonies. I guess my point is that there are many ways in which choruses can be natural outgrowths of their verses. But no matter how you do it, organicism is good songwriting.