Let's hear it for verses

"When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big, Red Rose" was written in 1914 by Jack Mahoney (words) and Percy Wenrich (music). In those days, it wasn't enough to write just one song - you had to write two and call them one. There was a verse with a melody completely different from, and often as strong as, that of the chorus. That leads to what Freddie King has called "Oh, yeah" songs, because the audience does not recognize it until we drop into the familiar melody of the chorus. I say "drop into" because the entry into the chorus immediately follows the emotional high point of the song, which is not the tag, but that sweet moment when alll the gathered sentiment and harmony of the verse hovers around the transition chord that tells the audience, "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" I particularly like the verse in "Tulip":

I met you in a garden in an old Kentucky town,
The moon was shining down; you wore a gingham gown.
I kissed you as I placed a yellow ribbon in your hair;
Upon my coat you pinned a rose so fair.
Time has not changed your loveliness;
You're just as sweet to me.
I love you, yet I can't forget
The days that used to be.

It's at this point that you can milk the song for all its worth. But, unlike the tag, while you have the audience crying for more, you proceed to provide it by bursting into a melody that lives in their memories.

I have one final argument. Modern barbershop contests have time limits that effectively destroy the second verse in barbershop music, but we're not bound by those rules when we go to woo an audience. To skip the second verse in one of the old classics is to miss a good part of the music that is written into a carefully polished composition. Modern popular music has settled on repetition as endless as that of African drums as one way of creating a mood, but our ears still find pleasure in melodic contrast.

If the melody of the verse sets up that of the chorus, it works more effectively the second time around. Once more, you are setting up the audience for the kill, but this time they know it. Those old songs were written by two people because the words required the same level of genius as the music, and that seldom resided in one person.

The story line really appears in the verse, and usually the wordsmith tries to achieve his most poignant emotions in the second verse. Occasionally, he accomplishes real poetry. Let's take a look at the second verse of "Tulip":

The love you vowed to cherish has not faltered through the years,
You banish all my fears; your voice, like music, cheers.
You are the same sweet girl I knew in happy days of old,
Your hair is silver, but your heart is gold.
Red roses blush no longer in your cheeks so sweet and fair
It seems to me, dear, I can see white roses blooming there.

By now, if you've sung it right, you have a conditioned reaction from the audience. It's no longer an "Oh, yeah" song. They know what's coming up next, and they're ready to come on stage and sing it with you. As you hang onto that last chord of the verse the second time around, let those who don't think this is the high point of the song prove it by going on to top it with the tag.

Suddenly, that old, worn-out standard has taken on all the freshness and vitality it had at the dawn of the century, because we have presented the real thing, in its entirety - not a copy or a fragment. We will have sung barbershop in its purest form and proved we still love the old songs. In the process, we will have discovered why some songs are good enough to survive generations of competition with 40,000 other old songs and countless new ones. If that doesn't please an audience, we ought to be singing for a more congenial group - like judges.

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