[T Hoho]

I feel like one of the first major roadblocks I hit when writing a song is what to do once I've gotten through the first verse and chorus. I come to the end of the chorus, do some sort of turnaround, and then come to that second verse, and it always feels stale by the time I get there, so I want to find some way to vary it up from the last verse. Of course, I want to keep the same melody, chords, rhythm, etc, but I always wonder about adding or subtracting the instruments or finding other ways to vary the dynamic.

Anyone else run into this problem? How do you deal with it?

[Skeeter]

Do you mean musically or lyrically?

Musically, there's a lot of different things you can do. The basics include adding a new instrument (guitar playing a new riff, drums if they were missing from the first verse, etc), bumping the vocal melody up an octave, adding a vocal harmony, or even changing up the rhythm.

That said, I usually don't see any issues with keeping the first couple verses around the same level and then changing the dynamic for the third verse. If your verse and chorus already have a decent amount of separation, then the second verse shouldn't come off as stale. Of course, it's all up to individual taste and style.

Lyrically, I often hit a wall after writing the first verse and the chorus. The main ideas that I have in mind for a song are usually encapsulated in that first verse and chorus. Sometimes, the best way to get out of this problem is to make the first verse the second verse and write a new first verse that is thematically an introduction to the ideas of the chorus and the (now) second verse. That's what I did with my song "My Evil Twin Has a Moustache" (which you can hear by clicking the Hooray for Gooba! link in my signature). The main joke of the song is found in the second verse, which I wrote before the first verse. I went back and wrote the first verse to set the scene for the chorus and second verse.

[T Hoho]

Thanks for the advice!

I was thinking more musically, but I do run into the same issue with the lyrics. I'd never tried making the first verse the second, but that sounds like a great idea...like you, I tend to say the bulk of what I want to say once I get from verse to chorus.

[tmlfan123]

I was going to say something... but Skeeter nailed it all.

I don't see a problem with keeping the first two verses nearly identical - most listeners don't care if it's really different.