What's the best "bridge" you've heard in a song?

"I saw her standing there"
"I want to hold your hand"

I get tired of reading the Beatles did everything first and best, but in this case is an exception for me.
I think the bridges were perfect for these two songs and it couldn't have happened a better time for the Beatles.

 

A lot of people don't (probably because of the incredibly mopey lyrics) but you're right that it's a really well written song.

 

Careless whisper

 

I hate to be that guy, but this is a modern and revisionist view of what a bridge is. It is also for example the B part in a 32-bar AABA form (hence the term "middle eight", since it's eight contrasting bars in the middle), where the whole form, which gets repeated throughout the song, is called "chorus" (so the bridge is "inside" the chorus and gets repeated along with it). Many early Beatles songs are in this traditional form (which then would have been a bit old fashioned and on it's way out as a main songwriting format) and therefore the bridge often appears at least twice in them. A song can also have several different types of bridges, a song like "Every Breath You Take" has an AABA AABA C AABA form (you could then say the whole song is AABA on a larger scale). In all these cases in doesn't really make sense to talk about "verse" and "chorus" (the "verse" in older songs can, if it exists, for example be an introduction before all this other stuff happens). Best to just call the bridge a "contrasting section".

Ok, now back your schedueld program....

 

As if the song itself wasn't enough, the bridge in Bruce Springsteen's `She's The
One' just slays me - `oh and just one kiss/she'd fill those long summer nights
with her tenderness....'.

 

Downbound Train, Bruce Springsteen

A super story advancer and great song climax all in one.

 

Supertramp - Gone Hollywood

“If we only had time.. only had time.. for you”

 

Lots'a of great choices but i have a question...can a "bridge" be the instrumental part of the song if, musically, it completely strays from the main body of the song? I'm thinking it can be...on those terms, one of my all-time favorites has been the trumpet solo break in Dionne Warwick's version of Do You Know The Way To San Jose. Both melody and chords go in a beautifully different direction from the song (as bridges do) and it definitely breaks up the song both effectively and very natural sounding (not just thrown in there as many bridges are).

 

I think there's a lot of different ways to approach whether a song section is a bridge or not. I don't really care too much, as you say it's just a convenient word for a contrasting section. Sometimes it's in the traditional/formal style of an 8 bar section which may or may not be repeated - sometimes it's something else entirely. I have no issue whatsoever in calling a contrasting musical section a "bridge."

I do think "Every breath you take" has an obvious traditional bridge ("since you've been gone I've been lost without a trace..etc) and no real chorus. Overall there's a lot of fun and interesting structures to the songs on "Synchronicity."

 

I'd say sure. The example you cite is a good one.

 

Stevie Wonder - Please Don't Go (I hope this is a bridge) :

I'll do anything you want me to
If you promise that you won't leave tonight
Cause I'll break down and cry a river of tears at just the thought of you not here in my life

 

It's hard to name a Pete Townshend song that doesn't have a bridge!

Don't cry, don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland.

Look into the face of a child
Measure how long you smiled
Before the mem'ry claimed
How long would children remain

I sit looking 'round
I look at my face in the mirror
I know I'm worth nothing without you
And like one and one don't make two
One and one make one
And I'm looking for that free ride to me
I'm looking for you

She goes, squeeze me, come on and squeeze me
Come on and tease me like you do
I'm so in love with you
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night

 

"Life is very short and there's no ti__________me for fussing and fighting my friends..
I have_________________

as sung by the greatest singer of all time

 

forgive my ignorance ... i know what a bridge is, but is the bridge what some people refer to as the "middle eight" ?

 

That was exactly my point, that it is a "contrasting musical section", I think that's the most succinct way to describe it. But I objected to it having to be a section that, to paraphrase the OP, "appears only once and happens before the last chorus". I actually don't like the words "verse", "chorus" and "bridge", because they can mean different things in different song forms, and even in the exact same song mean different things to different people. When being formal (as in when discussing songs with other musicians or when teaching) I prefer to call sections A, B, C, etc., it has less room for misinterpretation.

I disagree there, I think the traditional bridge is the "Oh can't you see" part, which is the "middle eight" in a 32-bar form, very old fashined. There is then a more "modern" bridge (the one you mention) that contrasts against the 32-bar sections. I'd also argue that it has a chorus (the whole 32-bar part) and no verse. Se there how you'd easlily get in an argument when using these terms... (The song is a quite unusual and interesting mix of traditional and modern Pop songwriting.)

Glad you asked! The "middle eight" comes from the eight bars (bars 17-24) that are the B section in the AABA 32-bar form I am going on about (like in "Get Rhythm" and all those standards that are used as basis in Jazz for example). The sections can be of other bar lenghts sometimes, but the general format is like this. The phrase then stuck around as a synonym for bridge even when this form was not used (and when the bridge was of course not necessarlily eight bars), but I guess it is outdated now.

 

For GH Something is an obvious choice, but how about......best bit in the song IMO
Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

 

Yep.... or a melodic part that links other melodic parts.. I don't see it as too technical of a thing.

 

no, that's cool. middle eight is a relatively new term to me. i never approached my songwriting from a sectional mindset. i remember in a studio one time, the guy said to me this is a great song, but you have two bridges, you need to lose one (i guess because they were different from one another, and one was near the end) oh well.
cheers mate

 

Maybe not truly a bridge, but it's rhymically different and phrased different from the other verses.
Rage against the machine version----

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

 

My favorite part of "Say Goodbye To Hollywood".

 

New thread idea: songs without bridges.

 

I'll throw another Herman's Hermits song into the mix: the B-side What Is Right, What Is Wrong. Total magic harmonies that sounds like Simon and Garfunkel with the Beatles.

Another favorite bridge is Justin Hayward's great '66 single 'I Can't Face The World Without You' which has a very clever ending: the last note of the bridge is the first note of the last verse. Very Brian Wilson-esque

 

I've always thought that Cheap Trick does "middle eights" as well as just about any songwriters in rock. Mandocello is a very fine example. Just to throw out another favorite from them (bridge at 2:49). It just transitions so seamlessly . . .

 

Interestingly, IMO, U2 is a major act where I often think that their breaks into bridges are somewhat awkward or clunky, although to their credit, they often find a fine way of returning to the song. An example would be Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own (bridge at 2:59) . . .

 

For me it's "No Reply".