With A Little Help From My Friends

I was trying to work out whether the following two lines were a bridge or formed part of the actual chorus itself. It is not always that clear, when you are trying to define it for someone else. I would be interested in people's feedback on whether they consider the first two lines of this section a bridge, or part of the chorus. Let me know what you think as I know you have an opinion.

Written as follows it looks like a chorus:

Sometimes I feel overcome and lost in emotion
And when I lay awake at night
Shine That Light, Shine That Light on me

Written like this, it looks like a bridge:

Sometimes I feel overcome and lost in emotion

And when I lay awake at night

Shine That Light, Shine That Light on me

I'l think I'll go with the former as the 'Mother I love......" lines form a more natural bridge. Then again I am no Shakespeare. Wherefore art thou Shakespeare to shed some light on this?

Now it is always good to have feedback, and so I am heavily dependent upon Mark Hall, who you would be very familiar with now. Not only is he the most gifted musician I have had the personal privilege to work with, but he is also my vocal teacher, and producer so he tells it as it is, and doesn't pull any punches.

I had originally doubled up the first line as follows:

Sometimes I feel overcome 

Sometimes I feel lost in emotion

When I originally played this to Mark, he pointed out that with the structure the song currently had it would run for about 7 minutes and therefore he suggested I drop the second 'Sometimes I feel' and just bring the 'lost in emotion' linked with the 'and'. 

It's funny as I hadn't even contemplated the length of the song whilst working it on the piano. I tend to play things over and over again until I am happy with the structure and the melodies. Obviously with the arrival of the iPhone (sorry Bill), I started to record my ideas rather than having to remember them. I still go by the adage that if the song and the lyrics are any good, I would remember them, although ironically I forget to record them sometimes when I am writing and playing new material.

We all have our little foibles and idiosynchracies, so I know I am not the only one.

That brings us to the end of the first half of the song.

Join me for the next instalment.

I am a songwriter.

Guy Simons