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CODY KIMMEL: Hi. My name is Cody Kimmel, and I'm the lead singer of the band Eliot Fitzgerald,
and I'm here with the Expert Village to teach you how to write a folk song. We have talked
about the chord structure for a bridge, we've talked about the purpose overall, as it fits
into the rest of the song of a bridge. So, let's talk about the lyrical structure of
the bridge. Like I said before, what's cool about bridges within folk music is it is a
chance for you as a songwriter to step out as your role as the narrator for the song,
and speak directly to the audience from your own perspective and as yourself. Oftentimes,
you will never mention yourself within any of the rest of the song, but in the bridge
you will come to, and say, "And I can't do this, and I want to do this", or something
like that. So, as far as the content and the lyrical structure of the bridge, you want
to change it up. If you are telling the story, whether it's your own story, or whether it's
somebody else's from the different perspective, you're going to want to change the voice and
the perspective up for the bridge to set it apart. Now, like the verse and the chorus
of a folk song, folk music is still structured very strongly about around the ballad format
for poetry and it is--gonna be AB or CB format. Now, obviously that can change; however, if
this is your first folk song to write or this is something that you're just getting into,
I would strongly suggest sticking to that poetic structure in your bridge, in your chorus,
and your verse just for the sake of being able to get the hang of it. So, for example,
in this song, in this bridge, we've been talking about the boy brings the picture to his dad,
dad loves it even though it's not very good and the boy feels loved, and feels valued
as result of the dad loving his picture. So, for the bridge, I'm going to assert myself
into it. I'm going to say, "I can't draw any better than I can live, in perfect love at
my best is all I can give." Now, as far as the lyrical content goes, like I just showed
you, it is--for one, it is a way for you to step outside of the main narrative of the
story, and it's a way for you to restate your thesis, which is your chorus, which is your
moral in a different more personal and more direct way.