Dolly Parton, “The Company You Keep”
SHORT TAKES
These Short Takes will be very brief discussions of songs that effectively use a particular songwriting device. I tend to get long-winded, especially when I’m talking about songwriting, so these posts will quickly give you a device you can use, and then I’m out.
Dolly wrote this song with Bill Owens, and it’s on her first album, 1967’s “Hello, I’m Dolly.”
The device is the verse-refrain, popular in folk music (Blowin’ In The Wind) and country music. In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, country songwriters took a much-derided genre and showed (again and again) how a simple song with a basic chord progression could use lyrical wit and invention to connect with an audience.
Dolly is known today for her voice, and for a couple other items, but at my house she’s a great songwriter. That was how she broke into the business, and that’s the way I think about her.
The verse-refrain is an old-fashioned structure where instead of a long verse alternating with a long chorus, you have a very short chorus that “grows out of the verse.” This chorus can be as short as one line, as it is here.
Choruses are always payoffs for the listener, but the verse-refrain structure gives you an immediate and very satisfying payoff. It’s where the song’s been going, lyrically, and setting it up with a rhyme makes it more effective.
Each setup, in this case, is a little different. Here’s my favorite:
“Cause I think you're an angel
But folks think that you're cheap
Cause you're known by the company you keep”
🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️
Notice how it opens with the refrain, to get that hook in your mind right away.
Also: this whole album is good. It’s got her early single “Dumb Blonde,” a great (and catchy!) skewering of that stupid prejudice.
If you know any songwriters, or people that just like songs, please share. Liking and commenting helps get The Song Factory into people’s hot little hands, too.
I enjoy reading these bits of knowledge about song writing. When you look at it, it's very similar to writing and poetry, I feel...The verse refrain - I actually know so little about song writing that I was no wiser even with your very clear explanation! I like your short takes idea though, nice and brief way for someone to get one takeaway or learn one thing from your article. Have you found more people engage with the shorter pieces? I wouldn't mind a bit more geeky detail but that's just me. This format probably works for the short attention span crowd.