Illustration from an advertisement for Black & White Scotch Whiskey, November 1949
Sometimes I feel that the thinking behind my organizing and publishing this blog is not always clear to the (hypothetical) reader, but I also have doubts about any benefit that would come from increased clarity. Regardless, I'm going to do some explaining for a minute. My intention with the "We Love..." feature was always to go through some songs that were clearly influenced by one of the great rock groups (i.e. "We Love the Beatles", "We Love the Velvet Underground") and then to move on to other "We Love..." series for songs that showed love for specific musical elements. But then I forgot to do that second part.
So I'm bringing it back. I was going to start with "We Love Handclaps" (because I love songs with handclaps, obvs!), but it seemed too obvious - I decided to challenge myself to find at least ten songs with great GREAT bridges. It can be any kind of middle-eight or connector between the first verse-chorus portion of the song and the climactic final repeated chorus section or other big ending. No pre-choruses (they're really a different animal), and no straight-up guitar solos. So those are my ground rules.
I'm going to start with my all-time favorite bridge in a pop song. "Chester the Molester" is kind of lightweight compared to some of the other songs on Sloan's 1998 album Navy Blues (my secret favorite Sloan record), but it has its charm. Built around a banana-fingers/Elton-John piano figure, it has a silly vibe to it that belies its lyric about a pervy but suave barfly. Then, at the 2-minute mark (well, 1:52), you get your pay-off with a perfect bridge that elevates the song into "all-time favorite" status. Chris Murphy and Patrick Pentland harmonize on a couple brief lines, singing, "Don't give in - say you're gonna turn around and leave!" But there's something in the casual almost-sloppiness of those tossed-off harmonies that matches the phrasing perfectly. The guitar drops out of the mix, leaving just the low-end piano part with shaker and some punctuating snare hits. For me, that's exactly how a middle-eight should work. I dare you not to sing along with that bridge after you've heard it a few times.
"Chester the Molester" by Sloan
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