Should You Write the Chorus First?

When I was a teenager learning to write songs, just about everything on the radio went verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. So when I sat down to write my own, it made sense to start at the top.

Verse first. Obviously.

And I’d get stuck. Every time.

Why starting with the verse leaves you stuck

You see, a verse written first tends to be a little vague. It sets a scene, drops a feeling, maybe tells part of a story. Then you finish it and have to answer the big question: okay, so what’s the chorus about?

It could be about anything. That’s the trap.

With a verse and no chorus you have no guide. There are endless directions the song could go, and endless options feel like freedom right up until you have to pick one. Most people don’t pick. They stall, they start another song, and the first one joins the pile of half-finished ideas on their phone.

I did that for years.

The North Star principle

A few years ago it finally clicked for me. If I write the chorus first, the whole process gets easier and faster.

I call it the North Star principle. Think about going for a drive. Even if you’re just driving to clear your head, you usually have some kind of destination in mind, even if it’s only a general area. Without one you’ll drive around until you run out of gas, and now you’re stuck on the side of the road with a whole new set of problems.

Songwriting works the same way. The chorus is the destination.

Once it exists, your verses don’t have to be about anything. They have to be about one thing: getting the listener to that chorus. Everything points at it. It can even guide the production, because now you know what moment the whole track is building toward.

Why fewer options make you faster

Here’s the problem with starting from a blank verse. You’re choosing from millions of possible ideas, and every one of them is technically fine.

Write the chorus first and most of those options disappear. The list gets short. A short list means fewer decisions, fewer decisions mean you move faster, and moving faster means you actually finish.

Finishing matters more than most songwriters admit. You can’t pitch a half-written song. You can’t release one. And you learn far more from ten finished songs than from fifty abandoned first verses.

How to try it on your next song

This is the simplest version of the process, and you can do it tonight:

1. Pick who the song is for. A specific listener, before a single word.
2. Write the chorus and nothing else. Stay on it until it sticks in your own head. (If you’re not sure it’s there yet, here’s how I test whether a chorus is strong enough.)
3. Ask what the listener needs to know to feel that chorus. That’s your first verse.
4. Ask what changes by the second time the chorus hits. That’s your second verse.
5. Only then think about a bridge, and only if the song needs one.

That’s it. You’ll notice the verses come quicker than they ever did when you started with them. They finally have somewhere to go.

One honest warning

Writing the chorus first doesn’t guarantee a hit. I’ve written plenty of songs this way that never went anywhere, and that’s normal. Not every song is the one.

What it does is make you finish more songs, and each one gives you a better shot at the one that matters. That’s a trade I’ll take every time.

So next time you sit down to write, skip the verse. Go straight for the destination.