Switched on Pop - Justice for the verse

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Everybody sings the chorus, but superfans quote the verse. On this episode of Switched on Pop, Charlie and Nate trace the verse from Shakespeare through opera to TikTok, and songwriter Audrey Hobert shares her philosophy of specific verses and anthemic choruses: you can't have the payoff without the setup. CREDITS Reanna Cruz: Producer Iris Gottlieb: Illustrator Charlie Harding: Host, Executive Producer Dion Lee: Art Director Brandon McFarland: Audio Engineer Nick Ripps: Video Editor Nate Sloan: Host Lissa Soep: Editor Zach Tenorio & Jocie Adams: Theme Composers Switched On Pop is a co-production of Vox Media Podcast Network, Vulture, and Rock Ridge Productions. Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠ Songs discussed: Aretha Franklin, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" Edward Meeker, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" Third Eye Blind, "Semi-Charmed Life" Zara Larsson, "Lush Life" John Denver, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" Rick Astley, "Never Gonna Give You Up" William Smith, Choir of New College, Oxford, Edward Higginbottom, "Opening Versicles and Responses" Georges Bizet, Michel Plasson, Angela Gheorghiu, Les Éléments, Orchestre National Du Capitole De Toulouse, "Bizet: Carmen, WD 31, Act 1: Habanera. "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Carmen, Chœur)" Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" Built to Spill, "Joyride" The Killers, "Mr. Brightside" Gracie Abrams, "That's So True" Audrey Hobert, "Sue me" Lizzo, "About Damn Time" Audrey Hobert, "Drive" Audrey Hobert, "Bowling alley" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and her hopes for the 27. As the U.S. Women's National Team captain, I'm also weighing, in on the biggest moments and controversies from the World Cup quarterfinals. Check out the latest episode of A Touchmore, The Beautiful Game, wherever you get podcasts, and on YouTube. Okay, Charlie, in our last episode, you subjected me to a quiz, a k.a. a humiliation ritual. And, you know, I wasn't very happy with my performance, but today, if I may quote the bard, if you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Ooh. Oh, no. That's right, Charlie. Welcome to Switched-on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.

And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And for those listening or watching on Netflix, we are in the second part of our series on The Art of the Song. Last week, we covered the intro. today it's the verse. And did you see what I did there, Charlie, with the verse? Because the Shakespeare quotation was in verse. You know, it had pentameter. That's like the classical version of verse. I caught that you were quoting William Shakespeare. Yes. Who wrote really great verses,

but I'm not sure I fully understand what you just told me. Okay, we'll get into it because we are going to have a little history lesson here. But the verse that, as we know it today in the modern pop song, it might be the most underrated part of a song. You know, I think the chorus gets a lot of the attention, maybe even the introduction, like we were talking about last week. There's some super memorable ones that we discussed. But the verse doesn't get a lot of love. I feel like the super fans are going to quote verse lyrics,

but most people are singing in the chorus. Okay, but before we go any further, we need to define this term, like what is a verse? And I think one way to describe it is it's the first lyrical section of a song. It sets up the narrative of the song. It sets up the chorus of the song. And usually it reoccurs throughout the song with the same music and new lyrics. It's like the exposition of a song, if you want to think about it in cinematic terms.

Yeah, it's the plot that gets you to the really fun climactic wellness. Yeah. It's the voiceover that explains, you know, how to. the protagonist got where they are. And there are literally millions of examples of verses we could choose. Yeah. And yet I find myself undeniably drawn to one example in particular. As a young father, I'm guessing like baby beluga. I mean, that is a Rafi banger, but I'm going to play you this instead. On the morning, I used to feel so uninspired.

I had to face another day so tired. One of the best voices of all time, Rita Franklin, full orchestra supporting it. There's nothing better. And the song is, you make me feel like a natural woman. Indeed. And you do, Charlie. You always have. Thank you.

This is like a paradigmatic verse to me. You know, it immediately puts us in the world. of our narrator. Looking out on the morning rain, I used to feel so uninspired. And when I knew I had to face another day, Lord, it made me feel so tired. Oh, this person is weary and pondering, like looking out for answers. It gives the song a great place to start, because where are we going to go from here? We're going to ascend through a pre-chorus until we arrive at the iconic chorus. I thought you were trying to bring justice to the verse. I mean, you just played the best part.

That's all I wanted to hear. Well, we have to, I have to provide the counter argument first. You know, I have to help you understand why the verse is so neglected, unfairly, perhaps. Okay. Because you're right. You know, the chorus of this song is like, oh, it's everything. It's perfect. And the verse is just kind of like doing the work to get you there.

It feels more like the road you take than the destination, perhaps. And I got to say it really is a great chorus because you have this repeated line, which is so common, right, where you just get the same thing over and over repeated. Yeah. But here it's like, you make me feel. You're like, oh, how do you feel? You make me feel. I really want to know how you make me feel. You make me feel like a natural woman.

So they're actually delaying the gratification of the chorus line, the title of the song until the very end, even though there's a high degree of repetition. Yeah, it's very suspenseful. But we're not here to talk about the chorus, Charlie. We're doing that next week. week, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're inadvertently, you know, making the point I want to initially offer here, which is the verse is largely forgotten. In fact, it's time for my quiz. I'm going to put you under the gun this time, Charlie. I'm going to get my Merchant of Venice style revenge. Oh, no. I want to play some pretty famous songs for you, but I'm not going to play you the chorus. I'm just going to play you a little bit of a verse instead. and you tell me if you can recognize them, okay? This is so not fair. You know that we launched our Netflix series the day after our peer,

Unexplanable, launched their series where I was a guest on their show specifically talking about how I am not able to remember lyrics. It's like I have this long issue where lyrics don't stick with me. I know you have that same problem. So I am very worried about how I'm going to perform today. Well, Just listen to the melody then, Charlie, if you're so good at melodies and music, you know, just pay attention to the melody and it'll give you a clue. All right, here's your first mystery verse.

I'm out through every zoo, Katie Blue, on a Saturday, her young foe called to see if she'd like you go to see a show. But Miss Kate said no, I'll tell you what you can do. I, amongst the two of us, am not a scholar of early American popular music. This is going to be like the unwritten verse to Yankee Doodle Dandy or something. I have no idea. You're not far off in that this is a super famous song that presumably everyone knows. And if I hit play, you'll probably recognize it instantly. That's just cruel. I've never heard that verse in my life.

Yeah, it is cruel. That's the whole point of this exercise is for me to exact my revenge, my pound of flesh. Okay. Okay, so you're up for one. Let's try another one. We'll jump forward in time a bit. That's semi-charmer life by third eye blind. He got it against all odds. But to be clear, I had to go forward in time in my brain and hear the melody of the chorus before I was certain. All right, one for two. Here's another mystery verse for you. I kept saying I'm staying in touch.

But that thing went bust. So I gave it up. I have absolutely no idea what song that is. I mean, it's like from 2017. No, earlier. This is like 2013. I have no. What is this? Can I give you a hint? Yeah. You interviewed this artist very recently on our podcast.

Is this Sarah Larson? This is Zara Lush Life. That was a toughie. Oh, I'm sorry, Zara. I am so sorry. I mean, it's wonderful, but I am a midnight sun fan all the way through and through. And that's why I couldn't give you one of those tracks because it would have been too easy. But you know, you hear that chorus. You instantly know it. You might not know the verse. All right.

Where are we at now? One for three. Where we're at is I'm realizing that Nate Sloan is musically completely out of touch and playing music that is, you know, nearly a decade old or older. Play me the hits. I'm trying to keep you on your toes. This is not a recent hit, but it is a hit. Gather around her.

Mine is ladies, stranger to blue water. I know this one. This is Country Roads. to the play. Thank you for giving me an easy one. I did a whole story on Country Roads interviewing in Fitchick. And recently in the World Cup, the whole stadium broke out after a win where everyone started singing Country Roads, take me home. People think.

Yeah. Again, these are tailored for you. They're to give you maximum shame if you miss them. All right. One more. I think we're like half and half at this point. This is so annoying. This is Rick Astley, so we're going to give you that because I, Rick rolled you last time,

except for this time you played me the verse, which is not the meme moment that everybody knows, which you can give to us now. What have I learned about the verses other than just being mildly embarrassed? We've learned that the verse has kind of a prosaic function, you know? Even when you know it, it's not maybe the first part of the song you think of. This is a harder quiz than the one I gave you. Maybe not. I mean, I played you tiny snippets of the shortest introduction of a song. But yeah, the verse is not meant for memorability in the same way that the chorus is where there is a high degree of repetition, often a melody, which is, you know, incredibly inviting to sing along to. Yeah. The verse is almost like glue. It's not the sexiest part of the song, but it holds everything together.

Okay. And this function of the verse is actually buried in the meaning of the word itself. Charlie, it's time for a little bit of classical masters. Oh, fun. The word verse comes from the proto-Indian European route, W-E-R, originally. That's like, you know, millennia ago. Wur becomes ver, ver, becomes verse. All right.

And were means to turn. That's weird. What does that have to do with writing or music or anything? Turn the page? I don't know. Close. it's actually the idea of turning a plow. And stick with me here.

Like you are plowing lines of words. They're laying seeds for some kind of refrain. Yeah, exactly. And you turn from one to the next. And that's kind of the idea of the verse. You go from one to the other. The verse is the plow of the song form, Charlie. It's doing the hard work.

It's tilling up the soil so that the chorus can blossom. Okay. And then we have this other kind of offshoot from these early days. And that's the kind of verse that I recited to you at the beginning, Shakespearean verse, you know, metered rhyming couplets that you'd find in sonnets or plays. Yeah. Verse has this kind of crazy wandering history. In 16th century religious choral music, the verse refers to the line sung by a soloist before the whole

choir response. Let me give you an example. Verse. Response. Oh, verse and then chorus. I've got it. Verse, chorus. Even in the 1500s, the verse was, you know, not getting a lot of love. What were we listening to? That was opening versicles and responses by composer William Smith, performed by the choir of New College Oxford. It was very nice thinking. If we fast forward to the 19th century, opera composers take this same idea and they translate it to the dramatic world of opera. Like most operas work in this way moving from verse to chorus, except they call it recitative and aria. Take a famous opera like Bézé's Carmen.

Here's the equivalent of the verse. It's kind of setting up the action. High drama. And we probably don't recognize that all. It's not super memorable. It's not even trying to be. It's just trying to move the plot forward. Yeah.

But you probably know what comes next. That's the arivedozy, and it's the same idea, one of the great idea. One of the great opera melodies. Moving to the 20th century, composers of early American pop music took this idea and extended it to their songs. They would write a verse that was kind of a little slower, a little freer, really setting up the world of the song. And then the chorus kicks in, and that's the part of these songs that we typically remember.

One of the myriad examples that I happen to love is a tune by Richard Rogers and Lawrence Hart called Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered. indulge me if I play this one on my tiny little keyboard, Charlie. All right. Here's the verse. It's a classic heart verse. It's really witty and a little bit dark. He's a fool and don't I know it.

But a fool can have his charms. I'm in love and don't I show it like a babe in arms. Well, a little bit more. I mean, it's great stuff, but it's not like super hooky necessarily. Loves the same old sad sensation Lately I've not slept a wink Since this half pint imitation put me on the blink

That's such a good line Half pint imitation And now we get to the chorus I'm wild again Beguiled again A simpering whimpering child again Bewitched Bothered and bewildered

am I? Like, who, that is a hook right there. Now I feel serenated. That was very nice. Song form has evolved since then, but it's kind of the same playbook. The verse does the hard work. It plows the field. It sets up the exposition.

And then the chorus hogs all the glory. And I'd argue you can have a massive hit song with a relatively forgettable verse. Oh yeah, I mean, I don't want to name names here, but there's a lot of songs. And to be clear, that's not a bad thing, right? It's not like the verse has to be great. It just has to get you where you need to go. Some songwriters even acknowledge this in their music. Here's a really fun example from the indie band Built to Spill.

Check out the second verse of their 90s song Joyride. I feel like describing what you're doing in the second verse is almost like a magician being like, okay, so here are the cards. You're going to take this card. I'm going to tell you what card that is. I'm going to describe my entire trick as I'm doing it to you. It's a rewarding thing. I like that they told me the chords that they were playing as they were playing them.

And frankly, I think it's significantly more creative than the second verse of Mr. Brightside. Wait, nay, Nate, Nate, Nate, Nate. So I played the second verse. That was the second verse, but I see what you're doing. The second verse, same as the first verse. Word for word, almost note for note. Yeah, I think we had a little drop out there that wasn't in the first verse, I think, when he says it was only a kiss.

So far in this episode, we have made the case for why the verse doesn't deserve our admiration and respect. But at the beginning, I made a claim that the verse is underrated. And I think it's time we back that up now. There's a civil war happening in the Democratic Party. And if there's one place that that's playing out most clearly, it's in Michigan. A crucial Senate primary battle in Michigan that could determine control of Congress in November. Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Abdul Al-Sayed. A progressive Democrat and a moderate Democrat.

In the end, it all comes down to the dreaded e-word, electability. But in Michigan, one candidate is trying to turn the electability concept on its head. If we think that voters walk around asking, where do I sit on some theoretical left-right spectrum. Then in theory, the bulk of the voters are somewhere in the middle. The problem, though, is that that model hasn't really accurately predicted our politics for a very long time. If Michiganders wanted moderate, why would they have elected Donald Trump twice? Dr. Abdul-El-Sayette is making the progressive case for America first, and he's trying to settle the Democrats' ideological battle in the process. This is about the many versus the money.

I'm Instead, Herndon, and this is America Actually. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. There is a new generation of artists who are putting just as much work into their verses as into any other part of the song. And one of the poster children for this movement is one of our favorite songwriters right now, Audrey Hobert. Oh, yes. I asked Audrey to make the case for the verse. Verses, it's funny because everyone talks about bridges, everyone talks about choruses. But I just also think, like, in this day and age where oftentimes a song can be known for, like, one single line, which is thanks to, like, it's a viral TikTok sound.

And I only know this one single line. That doesn't have to be the chorus. That doesn't have to be the britt. That can be the verse. I love that. When I last book with Audrey, she talked about how she would sit at a cafe and, like, grind on her verses. Not just for, like, one coffee. We're talking about going back to that cafe every single day, day after day, for 10.

two weeks to get that verse right. She's such a good writer. Many people became acquainted with Audrey Hobert through her collaboration with Gracie Abrams. She co-wrote Gracie's hit, That's So True. And then without having very much experience in music at all, she went on to release one of our favorite recent albums called Who's the Clown, which has some of the most intricate, surprising, and funny, lyrical turns that we've encountered in a while.

When she was talking about, you know, how different parts of a song can have their own afterlife in our digital world, it made me think of a song of hers that is having a moment right now. It's Sumi. There's a phrase used in playwriting that I love. learned from one of my professors in college, the incredible Jonathan Seneseros, who is now my next door neighbor. Incredible how the world works like that.

Wow. And he said, you want to enter late and leave early when you're writing a play. Yep. And I feel like Audrey Hovert does that. The verse starts, I knew you'd be at the party. It's like, who is this? What party we don't need to know? It's more important that we just dive into it and we try and kind of pick it up as

as we go. Audrey did go to school for screenwriting. Makes sense. And if we skip to the second verse of Sumi, unlike what we heard built to spill sing about the second verse, same as the first verse, it's not. It builds our story.

Just me or does he look amazing when he's all in his Amazon basics? That is such funny writing, such economy of words. Boy, does he look amazing all in his Amazon basics? Let's rip them off top to bot. Let's rock. We're like coining new phrases here. And you can see what she was saying.

Like, potentially any of these lines could be their own little universe of meaning for a listener that they could hold on to and reconstitute in different ways. Definitely. When she said that, it actually got me thinking about another song that became a hit maybe more because of its verse than its chorus because of the sort of memeability of the verse. It was About Damn Time by Lizzo. It's about damn time. In a minute, I'm a need a sentimental man, a woman to pump me up. Feeling fussy, walking in my belisiasi, trying to bring out the fabulous. Kind of an interesting track because my sense is that people remember the verses of it better than the chorus.

Like we just listened to the second verse, which became a viral trend. And the song starts with a really memorable line as well. of course it's bad bitch a clock yeah it's thick 30 it's bad bitch a clock yeah it's thick 30 I've been through a lot but I'm still so you know that is more memorable than the chorus of the song in many ways and I think it's a testament to something Audrey

identified for me like the verses allow you to have a specificity that you can't always get from the chorus My philosophy is specific versus more if, you know, I'm feeling lucky that day, anthemic chorus, just so that like, I think it's like set up payoff, but you can't have payoff without the setup. Verses that I love are in my song, Drive, which is like a sleeper hit, in my opinion, like I specifically love that song. And I just think the rhyming of those verses are really fun. I don't know how, or I don't remember why or how I was able to. It's just flow.

Like, it can only be described as flow I was flowing. Another disappointing night. Don't even want to see it in a nice light. What's a girl to do? Like play it cool, but I'm playing it cool. And it's got me no way. That's the problem. Get my shoes off at the bottom. I'm feeling awesome. That's a lie. Another disappointing night. Don't even want to see it in a nice light. What's a girl to do? Like play it cool, but I'm playing it cool and it's got me nowhere. It arrives late. Like you're already in the scene. And beyond just the vulnerability of this lyric of just constant disappointment, she even talks to herself and you can hear the internal narrative of like, no, I'm doing cool.

No, I'm not. I'm not awesome. Yeah. Very stream of consciousness. Very James Joyce Ulysses of her, perhaps. You know, I don't. Leo Bloom, Stephen Death. Lettales. Come on, Charlie, you got to keep up with me. The chorus, by contrast, is super simple.

It's funny, we're putting it in a drive, we're speeding forward, but a certain way, these lines in the chorus almost slow us down. She's singing slower, longer notes. It's almost like a moment of just reprieve of letting the thoughts no longer take over. This song is a great example of the verse kind of containing a lot of the emotional payoff of the song, actually. Like you said, the chorus is almost on cruise control in a way. The verse is where we get our conflict and our turmoil, and it might really be what draws us in. And I think for songwriters like Audrey, you know, this is really conscious now. When you're writing a song, we talked about the intro last week. That's the first thing you hear musically.

But lyrically, the first thing you hear is typically a verse. So Audrey really deliberately tries to grab. your attention with her opening verse, like tries to kind of grab you by the collar and say, pay attention. And this is actually something she learned from maybe a surprising place. I actually remember feeling that way a lot in school, like not even college, but like my public school, like, because we'd have to write essays all the time and they had to be in a certain academic voice. And I remember thinking of my English teachers and going, I know that they are reading like hundreds of essays a day. Like I want to, uh, subvert this academic voice of mine.

Um, and just infuse some kind of personality or hook my teacher, you know, with that first line to kind of like brighten their day. I want them to like, be like, huh, this essay stood out in this stack of hundreds of essays. Um, and that's kind of how I, I've always felt that way about like, even in college when I was writing in college, like first lines and last lines. It's like, you want to grab them and then you want to leave them breath. I guess. As an educator, I thought you would appreciate this, Charlie, right? You know, this is someone who as a student was thinking about her teachers,

reading all these essays and being like, I want to give them something that's going to kind of perk up their attention, let them escape the monotony of a bunch of homogenous papers. And it's a powerful analogy to songwriting, right? There's so many songs being churned out constantly. You have to make yours stand out. And that's something Audrey is good at. Take her song Bowling Alley. So it went like this.

I finished work. And then I drove home pissed. Oh, God, what's worse than when your shits all twisted? Everything's off. Immediately relatable, uh, feeling bummed out after work. And also some really abrasive language. Like, feeling pissed. The pissed is not a beautiful word to put into a song.

Right. Yes. Almost don't want it there, but you've got my attention. It's the kind of verse where you press play and you can't press stop because you need to know what happens next. It's really smart songwriting. And I think it's one of the reasons why Audrey is kind of making the case for the verse being an integral part of the pop song in the 21st century. There are songs that I put on when I'm doing other things. Audrey's music is like watching a movie.

I have to be fully attentive because the lyrics. are sending me on these journeys. Totally. And I'm so grateful that Audrey took time from her tour to check in with us from her hotel room in El Paso and break down some of the mystique of the verse with us. Thanks, Audrey. Yes, I love you guys. Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right, Charles. Have I made my case for why the verse is perhaps one of the most underrated parts of the classic pop song structure? You did. cite some Shakespeare to me. I did. You played me some great jazz old standards. You're welcome. You brought me one of my favorite contemporary songwriters with some hard evidence. You've appealed

to my nature as an educator. And I think you have done a decent job of making that case. Decent because you did try to also offend me with your quiz. So I just can't. Oh, yeah. I can't give you too much. No, you'll recall it was revenge, Charlie. It was revenge. Okay. So, okay, so we are equal. Something that has changed in my life where as a young musician, first I loved solos. You know, I'm a guitar player first. I would plow right past the chorus, past the bridge, find the solo section. That was my spot. But then like solos kind of died out in the 80s, so there was no more solos to pay attention to.

And I got attached to melody and hooks in production. But recently, call it middle age, I love a good story. And the verse is the story. And it has to set all the expectations, has to take me on a journey, and I want to arrive somewhere on the other end transformed. Viva la verse, Charlie. Viva la verse. What's coming up next in our series on the art of the song, Charles? Intro verse chorus.

Chorus. We're going to be the biggest part of the song. We're going to make you sing. And we have some very special guests. Oh. Wait, let me do my vocal warmups. Outrageous Alice. Mama, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.