Written and Recorded by Elliott Smith
 
The beautiful poetry of this song can probably be interpreted in different ways. I don’t read about the songs’ lyrics before writing these pieces, so this is my take and there’s a lot I’m still not sure about. What I do know is that it’s the song’s bridge that cuts through everything else.
 
Let’s start with the title. Musically, the ¾ time signature qualifies as a waltz and lyrically, the song’s narrative begins with someone who has perhaps “waltzed” in and out of the protagonist’s life. They’re at an open mic night, or perhaps karaoke, and a man and a woman battle out it through performances of The Everly Brothers’ “Cathy’s Clown” and “You’re No Good,” recorded most successfully by Linda Rondstadt. The guy is her husband, but he’s less consequential. She, on the other hand, has a hold on our protagonist:
 
I'm never gonna know you now
But I'm gonna love you anyhow
 
Is this woman, who “stares into space like a dead china doll,” the protagonist’s former lover? A friend? The mom who signs her letters “XO?” I’m not sure. But I do know that the narrator is struggling with her - and with himself. Because when we get to the bridge, his heart, pain and exhaustion are all laid out for us to see:
 
I'm here today
and expected to stay
On and on and on
I'm tired
I'm tired
 
I have no place assuming anything about the tragic end to Smith’s life​. ​A song’s protagonist and composer are not one and the same. But in the case of this song’s bridge, it’s tough not to listen to it now without knowing what we ultimately learned about Elliott Smith. Each writer has their own unique relationship with the distance between themselves and their characters. This song feels like there’s hardly any distance at all. It’s raw and it’s sad. And it’s beautiful. "XO​" to anyone out there suffering. Even if you don’t know me, I’m always available to talk. 

-MJK

Written and Recorded by Bill Withers
 
Ain’t No Sunshine is a classic heartbreak song. His lady has left him once again and each time she’s gone, he never knows if she’s coming back. Sunshine is this song’s metaphor and there ain’t none of it without her, leaving our protagonist cold and alone in the dark.
 
This song is wonderful even without the bridge, but with the bridge, it’s monumental! It’s a “breakdown” bridge where the bass, piano and sugary-sad strings drop out to clear the way for some hard truth represented exclusively by the drums and Bill’s vocals.
 
He knows she’s bad news and that he “ought to leave young thing alone.” In fact, he’s so positive he announces, “I know” twenty-six times! This is how much he knows this relationship is wrong! Yet, he admits that this self-awareness will be thrown right out the window because all that matters is that she’s gone, there ain’t no sunshine, and the only thing that he wants is her back home.
 
The full band returns as he sings “she’s gone,” swaying him back into the familiar heartbreak. We all know she’ll be back and we all know she’ll keep breaking his heart. But from the worst of heartbreak comes the best of songs. 

-MJK

Written by Pete Townshend
Recorded by The Who
 
While it may not be the most definitive Who song, Squeeze Box has a great bridge, and when I first heard the song, the thinly veiled double entendre was music to my fourteen-year-old ears.
 
On the surface, this song is about a child's mom who plays the accordion, also known as a “squeeze box.” One wears the accordion on their chest and, if so inclined, they can play it all night. Right?
 
Mama's got a squeeze box
She wears on her chest
And when Daddy comes home
He never gets no rest.
 
But the song is clearly about the kid's parents going at it all night and every night. So much and so often, that the children aren't being fed, and nobody, including the dog, can get any sleep. And while it's true that this song illustrates the mechanics of an accordion, it does get a little graphic when describing that she "goes in and out, and in and out." This is the kid’s mom!
 
But it’s not just about the sex, because something special happens in the bridge. The innuendo is left behind and the bridge focuses on the love between two people:
 
She goes, "Squeeze me.
Come on and squeeze me.
Come on and tease me like you do,
I'm so in love with you."
 
-which is quickly followed by a reminder that, "Momma's got a squeeze box, Daddy never sleeps at night" While his mother's verbal expression of love was beautiful, it's the physical act his parents like most. Because after a banjo break, we're back to going in and out again!
 
The Who's Who By Numbers is an otherwise, less remarkable record. The band was struggling with their demons and each other, and it shows. I’ll be back with another Pete song soon. Until then, go squeeze the one you love. 
 
-MJK
​

Written and Recorded by Aimee Mann
 
Many of us were first introduced to Aimee Mann as the lead singer of new wave band ‘Til Tuesday. And while many one-video-wonders from MTV’s heyday faded, Aimee’s “voice carried” into the nineties and beyond, blessing us with some amazing songs. Many of these songs are about bad love and feature great bridges.
 
In “Save Me,” we meet a lonely narrator ​who feels incapable of loving anyone and unworthy of anyone else’s love. But maybe this new guy is different:
 
You look like a perfect fit
For a girl in need of a tourniquet.
 
Can he stop the bleeding? Can he save her from “the ranks of the freaks who suspect they could never love anyone?” The bridge may have the answer! The Beatles-esque instrumentation and production come to full fruition with the rip of guitar leading the way from chorus to bridge and throughout the reveal of her feelings for him:
 
You struck me dumb
Like radium.
 
The guitar steps aside to allow a more playful, fairytale-like piano part to accompany her ambitious request:
 
Like Peter Pan
Or Superman
You will come
…to save me
 
I love it when a bridge directly connects to another part of the song through a line of lyric. In this case, the return to the chorus signifies the fleeting moment of fairytale love.
 
We never find out if he will save her. In fact, we never hear much from him at all. But that’s ok because instead, we are gifted with a verse shared between a melodica and a guitar, that while sad, offers the listener a sense of peace and hopefulness. And then she asks again, “Come on save me, why don’t you save me, if you can save me…”
 
-MJK

Written and Recorded by Lou Reed

Satellite of Love was originally written for the Velvet Underground but that version didn’t make the band’s swan song LP, the aptly named Loaded. Two years later, Lou reimagined the song with help from friends like David Bowie and Mick Ronson, and it was included in his superb collection, Transformer. 
 
Inspired by the excitement of the space age and the satellites launched in the late ‘60s, this song introduces a narrator who likes watching satellites on TV. But this song is about a satellite of love, and love, like a satellite, has a way of orbiting around our hearts and often, never landing – but it is not until the bridge that this becomes clear.
 
I've been told that you've been bold
With Harry, Mark and John
Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday through Thursday
With Harry, Mark and John
 
It’s heartbreaking. Just a moment ago we were watching TV and contemplating parking lots on Mars, but the focus quickly goes from heavenly bodies to the earthly bodies being explored by our narrator’s lover.
 
While the three chords used in the bridge are all played in the verse and chorus, it’s all about the arrangement and execution here. The music becomes simpler, more playful, and theatrical, even childlike. The phrasing is staccato compared to the more patient vocal delivery in the verses and chorus. The bridge’s tonal change seems to mock the narrator’s discovery of his lover’s infidelity. It’s uncomfortable, and a little weird, but this is how someone feels when a lover steps out: isolated and anxious while everyone else is having the time of their life. From here, the narrator can only accept this fate and goes back to watching those satellites on TV.
 
Lou Reed is one of my heroes. A fellow “Coney Island Baby,” we were born in the same Brooklyn hospital and raised two Long Island towns apart. While I grew up a few decades after Lou, I’ve always felt connected to his worldview and musical approach to expressing it. Long Island is right next to “the city” but there is enough of a distance where even the coolest of us Nassau and Suffolk kids still felt like outsiders. And that was Lou, a definitive figure in late 60s and 70s coolness, but always the voice of an outsider.

-MJK

Written by James Brown, Bobby Byrd and Ron Lenhoff
Recorded by James Brown and the J.B.'s

This is undoubtedly an outstanding piece of music from Soul Brother Number 1, but since I'm here to focus on bridges, let's be clear - this is the song! As far as I know, it's the first time a singer discusses the bridge with his band before they get there. This is the original "Take me to the bridge" song! It's a tremendous part of musical history and endlessly meaningful to this blog.

It's also a rare song that includes parenthesis in the middle of the title. I've borrowed this parentheses application technique from Mr. Brown for a song's title, but enough about me - we're here to discuss the Godfather of Soul, and I'm the consigliere of soul at best. 

This song was one of the first collaborations with the recently formed J.B.'s, a band with a much funkier and more contemporary approach to the music than Brown's previous groups. This is funk at its grooviest and most inviting. If you can't dance to this song, you shouldn't be dancing at all. The groove is wonderfully relentless and no backup singer has ever been as supportive as Bobby Byrd. So when we get to that midpoint part of the song, Bobby and the band are ready for James:

Brown: Bobby? Can I take 'em to the bridge?
Byrd: Go Ahead!
Brown: Take 'em on to the bridge?
Byrd: Take 'em to the bridge!
Brown: Can I take 'em to the bridge?
JBs: Yeah! Go ahead!
Brown: Take 'em to the bridge?
JBs: Yeah! Go ahead!
Brown: Hit me now!

And with that, we are into it! It's always a delightful bonus when the bridge offers us new or conflicting information. At first listen, one might think that Brown is reiterating his thoughts in the bridge: he wants to get up and stay on the scene like a sex machine. In other words, James is feeling it, he wants to get his groove on, and he wants everyone to know that it's going to be non-stop, hot action. But this is not just about being a sex machine, once we get to the bridge, James Brown has become a loving machine. 

After the bridge, James and company keep the love going and stay on the scene until they get to the end. As with the beginning of the song and throughout the bridge, this band does things by committee. So when Brown asks the band to hit it, or count off the beats, the band responds with "one more time" and when he asks to "hit it and quit it," he is supported with "go ahead" and "yeah!" What an awesome band! I don't think Tony Orlando was getting that support from Dawn. Where were the Waves when Katrina wanted to hit and quit it? They probably just kept playing and the engineer had to fade the song. Nothing was hit, and nothing was legitimately quit. 

Musically, this song finds its home grounded mostly in the "1" chord, jumping up to the "4" for the bridge, and intro/outro "hits." But within those chords, there are numerous voicings and every which way one can funk.  

Everything about "Get Up" is awesome, from beginning to end, and it wouldn't be anything without that historic bridge at the center of it all. Unrelated, I sometimes think about James Brown, Al Green and Barry White as part of a soulful collection of crayons. 

​- Matthew J. Kaplan

Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King
Recorded by The Cookies

There are endless wonderful songs from this period, and the majority of them have outstanding bridges, but bridges that do not fall into the definition I use for this blog. More details can be found here, but one defining rule is that the bridge must only happen once. In The Cookies' "Don't Say Nothin' Bad," we have one bridge, and an absolutely lovely one at that! 

Written by heroes of the 20th Century, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, the story follows a narrator assaulted by the trash talk of her peers, who insist that her man is no good.

As The Cookies, this was their biggest hit. The group found their first success as The Raelettes, providing the legendary backup vocals to Ray Charles in songs such as "Night Time Is the Right Time," "What'd I Say" and "Hit the Road Jack". As session musicians, they were responsible for harmonies on popular songs like "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" and "The Loco-Motion." After some line-up changes, at the time of this recording, The Cookies were Dorothy Jones, Margaret Ross and Earl-Jean McCrea, three talented singers prepared to fill any role in the vocal mix.

While the band didn't have a traditional lead singer, like many girl groups of the time, for "Don't Say Nothin' Bad," Earl-Jean is most highlighted in this song.

In the first verse, our narrator remains patient while explaining that her man's good and that's all she cares about. But after the gossipers persist that he's a playboy, she's had enough, declaring, "He's true to me, so girl you better shut your mouth!" I like it!

And this takes us to the bridge, and another chance to set the record straight. When everybody says he's lazy, she explains, "but not when he's kissin' me." And when they say he's crazy, she retorts, "Sure he's crazy,
​crazy about me." I buy that. He seems ok. Why's everyone talking such smack? 

Musically, the song is a straightforward "1-4-5" progression with the bridge starting at the 4-chord. I love the signature piano riff but I can't find any information about the pianist. If it hasn't yet been sampled, I'd love to hear someone grab those 8 bars and add it to some beats and rhymes. And of course, we have the marvelous sax solo, recorded by King Curtis, who in his tragically short life contributed to the history of rock n' roll as much as anyone else. And like many songs of the era, there are handclaps! 

One final note about that great line, "He's true to me, so girl you better shut your mouth!" Sixteen years after the release of this song, Holly and the Italians released "Tell That Girl to Shut Up." Covered with more success nine years later by Transvision Vamp, this song's narrator focuses her anger at a girl who has stolen her man - and oh yeah, this song also contains a great bridge! Maybe we'll get to it in greater depth, but until then, keep your lip zipped and Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby!

Say It Ain't So
Written by Rivers Cuomo
Recorded by Weezer

Weezer's self-titled debut album (aka The Blue Album) is outstanding and it's one of my favorite records from the 90s. After being treated with two whimsical singles, "Buddy Holly" and "Undone" (The Sweater Song), we got hit with the heavy-duty "Say It Ain't So," a song that addresses addiction and the emotional toll it takes on a family. Specifically, in this case, how a father's (or step-father's) alcoholism remains traumatic to a son, years after the last bottle is emptied. Not your everyday pop song!

Our narrator is disturbed to find a Heineken in his icebox, spiraling him back into the childhood pain long ago swept under the rug. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore it, but it keeps "bubbling" and the "bottle is ready to blow." Great metaphors. 

Despite his pain and awareness that his parent's "drug is a heartbreaker," he is unable to confront this addict, and remains cool - that is until the bridge, and the raw, explosive letter he finally writes:

Dear Daddy, I write you in spite of years of silence.
You've cleaned up, found Jesus, things are good, or so I hear.

But while his letter is kind and loving, he does not end it before letting his father know that a bottle of alcohol has awoken "ancient feelings," the trauma is always present, and "the son is drowning in the flood." The flood of constant pain? The flood of drinks ushered in by the inherited alcoholism? Whether the son has followed in his father's footsteps or not, the damage has been done and this child is far from any sort of emotional peace or well-being.

Musically, the majority of the song is four chords, orchestrated and syncopated differently, depending on whether we are in the intro/break, verse or chorus (the chorus has those lovely, iconic, Cobainesque guitar exclamations). At the bridge, the song drops down a whole step and moves from minor to major - symbolic of the narrator's final breakdown and his strong, clear message.

As the letter ends, the wound opens, and the guitar solo cries our narrator's pain. But like the mimicry of the guitar's call-and-response parts at the end of the solo, his plea to his father goes unanswered and it is only his own emotions bouncing back to him. 

After the bridge, there are no new verses and no lyrical resolution. The best the narrator can hope for is denial, the pain is too much to handle - all he can ask, again and again, is to "say it ain't so." 

While there is a rich history of drinking songs expressing the damage it can do to one's romantic and financial situation (see the complete blues and country music catalogs), rarely have we heard one that so honestly and openly explores the family trauma caused by alcoholism. 

The song, and the entire record, were produced by the late, oh-so-great, Ric Ocasek. We might get into some of Ocasek's other productions with great bridges, and we most certainly will check out a Cars song or two along the way. Buckle up!

Written by Prince
Performed by The Bangles

Manic Monday was a big hit in the 80s, at least in my circles. And while I didn't have to go to work (outside of a pleasurable paper route), I had to go to school, and each week started with a dreaded Monday. I imagined that someday when I have a full-time job, my Mondays would be Manic too. But why? Let's dive into our narrator's day.

She's late for work, and at this terrible job, you don't get paid if you're late! She blames her tardiness on dream interruption, bed-making responsibilities, wardrobe indecision, and transit issues - all good reasons, but what's really happening? 

The narrator wishes it was Sunday, but is that just because it rhymes with "Monday," "fun day" and "I-don't-have-to-run-day?" Or, did something out of the ordinary happen yesterday? Well, that's where the bridge comes in:

                   Of all of my nights, why did my lover have to pick last night to get down?... 
                   He tells me in his bedroom voice, "C'mon, honey, let's go make some noise...

So that explains it! She was up late last night boinking! That's all good with us over here at Best Bridges Blog, and it's nice to know that Prince was keeping things sexy, even when he was writing for others. 

We also learn in the bridge that employment is down and she's the sole breadwinner in this relationship. Did he lose his job? Is he a bum? He should at least make the bed! 

Musically, the verse and chorus are three major chords, mostly played in a common "1-4-5" pattern, suggesting a recognizable, ordinary life. But in the bridge, we shift to the relative minor and a less-familiar chord progression, illustrating the beauty and uniqueness of life beyond the workplace. 

The feel and rhythm change in the bridge and things get funky, thanks in part to Michael Steele's crafty bass lines. Every member of The Bangles sang and I love the call-and-response vocals that eventually bring us to a sweet little breakdown where we're reminded that "time, it moves so fast (when you're having fun)." It sure does, Bangles, it sure does. 

This is a very successful bridge. The lyrics provide further insight into the narrator's life, and musically we're taken far from her work day -  until, we're right back into that darn catchy chorus! This a pop song, but one crafted with love for story and character development, and it's chock full of wonderful hooks and melodies. 

Prince's demo of Manic Monday is an enjoyable novelty, but it's The Bangles' version that makes my playlist. While this may be the only Bangles appearance on this blog, I'm confident that we'll hear from Prince again soon - until then, may all your Mondays be manic!

- Matthew J. Kaplan