How to Write a Country Song: Structure

Video Transcript

"CODY KIMMEL: Hi. My name is Cody Kimmel. I'm the lead singer of the band Eliot Fitzgerald, and I'm here with Expert Village to teach you how to write a country song. There's nothing fancy about the song structure of a country song 'cause the purpose of country songs for the most part is to tell a story with like a punch line or a clever turn of phrase or something like that. The structure of it is going to be pretty basic and it's going to be pretty similar to a lot of the other genres that we have. A structure that I have right here for the country song that we're writing and which is a common structure from a lot of country songs is verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse two, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge and chorus. You could have a number of different choruses after that if you want to tag them on to there. And this is just a good starting point if you are just learning how to write a country song. This will be a good way to develop your story. You'll have your first verse set up kind of the point of the story, pre-chorus to introduce the punch line that you're kinda--the whole story is leading up to, and the chorus will say it, then you'll have a chance to redo it again. And if you want to add more verses or pre-choruses or whatever you want to do, you can do that but this is a good template to kinda start out with if you're just beginning to write a song. Try to write two verses. Try to write at least one pre-chorus that goes into the chorus. Try to write one bridge. If you can do that, that's going to be a good, strong way to start out writing a country song. And just as long as you remember--and we'll talk about it later, the purposes of each of these different sections, flowing in together, this is a really good, strong song structure to go with. And this is very common within the country genre."