A strophe, a chorus, and a bridge walk into a bar…

Abstract

Abstract Building up on Paul Cobley’s work on narrativity in film and literature, the present article aims at exploring how pop songs convey narrative elements via their own structure (or “format,” as it shall be called here), and their single components (intro, outro, bridge, refrain, etc.). Some of the most recurrent formats (particularly Strophe–Refrain and Chorus–Bridge) as well as some of the most unusual ones (e.g. the suite) are discussed within the framework of the three main narrative movements analyzed by Cobley (realism, modernism, and postmodernism), and additional parallels with literature and cinema will be proposed in the area of what here will be called “conceptual space” (diegesis, non-diegesis, fourth wall, etc.).