La verdad es que soy enemigo acérrimo de los estribillos. He entrado en el hilo por eso.
No es que me niegue a escuchar canciones que los tengan, pero sí que valoro como un plus el que te desarrollen una historia, el que las progresiones sean largas y no 3 acordes tópicos, y que una cosa es meter un puente, o un cambio de la armonía periódico, y otra que haya que repetir las mismas 4 frases hasta el aburrimiento.
Es cierto que una canción sin estribillo raramente será un éxito en las radiofórmulas, pero hay muchas variantes, puedes cambiar algo las frases (y la entonación al frasear9 cuando llegas a las estrofas que serían el "estribillo2, con lo cual ya es un estribillo pero menos. Y es que hay gente que hace muy buenas canciones, aunque no se las incluyan en las radiofórmulas. Ya estamos los fans para escucharles y comprar sus discos. No se harán multimillonarios, pero tendrán el favor persistente de los fans que valoramos su individualidad.
Los grandes escritores de canciones, posteriores a los mencionados estándares, lo practican a menudo, Dylan, Waits... también escriben canciones con estribillo, pero generalmente el gancho de esos estribillos es una frase, o un par de frases, con muchísima fuerza.
En el rock progresivo hay ejemplos magistrales de cómo hacer un tema sin repetirse a base de estribillos reiterativos.
Un ejemplo que raya en la maravilla es The letters", un tema de King Crimson, incluido en su álbum "Islands", pilotando las letras estaba todavía Peter Sinfield, letrista de historias previas como "Epitaph". Es un escritor muy apreciado para mi, pero creo que su cima es, precisamente esta, donde ya no es que no ponga estribillo, sino que apenas se dan repetidas palabras (salvo wife, la protagonista), ni siquiera las conjunciones.
Luego está Fripp, que tiene unos fundamentos musicales infinitos, y mete un interludio brutal en mitad del dramatismo de la balada, un solo de Mel Collins...
With quill and silver knife
She carved a poison pen
Wrote to her lover's wife
"Your husband's seed has fed my flesh"
As if a leper's face
That tainted letter graced
The wife with choke-stone throat
Ran to the day with tear-blind eyes
Impaled on nails of ice
And raked with emerald fire
The wife with soul of snow
With steady hands begins to write
"I'm still, I need no life
To serve on boys and men
What's mine was yours is dead
I take my leave of mortal flesh"
...............
Otro tipo muy capaz para estas cosas es Peter Hammill, líder de Van der Graaf Generator, un grupo prog de los '70 con algunas reencarnaciones posteriores. Y con una extensa carrera en solitario. Muy proclives a las historias largas (típico del prog), el uso de estribillos en sus canciones es más excepción que norma. Y a veces ni siquiera repite esquemas armónicos, sino que la música se va desarrollando en torno a la letra, evolucionando.
PETER HAMMILL - THIS SIDE OF THE LOOKING GLASS
The stars in the heavens still shine
Up above me:
How lovely they'd seem
If you were with me
But you're gone through the looking-glass
And I am left to pass these nights alone.
I'm lost, I'm dumb, I'm blind,
I am drunk with sadness,
Sunk by madness,
The wave overwhelms me,
The mirror repels me,
The echo of your laugh
Drifts through the looking-glass
And I am alone.
No friendship, no comfort, no future, no home,
The past lingers with me:
You're all the love I've ever known
And without you I'm nothing
But empty and silent,
Reflecting on all that I've lost.
I let you slip away so soon.
I am dying; you are gone.
These words are not enough to save my soul,
They just mock me from the mirror.
I'm cold and I'm yearning,
I've told you I'm burning,
My eyes can't stand the light...
Like a stray dog in the night
I'll shuffle off alone.
We all make our futures
But I have lost mine;
I'm hoping for a miracle
But finding no sign...
The stars in their constellations,
Each one just sadly flickers and falls...
Without you they mean nothing at all.
Van der Graaf Generator - La Rossa.
Lacking sleep and food and vision
Here I am again, encamped upon your floor,
Craving sanctuary and nourishment,
Encouragement and sanctity and more.
The streets seemed very crowded,
I put on my bravest guise
I know you know that I am acting,
I can see it in your eyes.
In the harsh light of freedom I know
That I cannot deny that I have wasted time,
Have frittered it away in idle boasts
Of my freedom and fidelity,
When simpler words would have profited me
Most
It isn't enough in the end, when I'm looking
For hope.
Though the organ-monkey screams
As the pipes begin to spit
Still he'll go through the dance routines
Just as long as he thinks they'll fit,
Just as long as he knows that it's dance, smile-
Or quit.
Like the monkey I dance to a strange tune
When all of these years I've longed to lie with you,
I've bogged myself down in the web of talk,
Quack philosophy and sophistry
At physicality I've always balked,
Like the man in the chair who believes it's
Beyond him to walk.
I've been hiding behind words,
Fearing a deeper flame exists,
Faintly aware of the passage
Of opportunities I have missed.
But the nearness and the smell of you,
La Rossa from head to toe
I don't know what I'm telling you,
But I think you ought to know
Soon the dam wall will break, soon the water
Will flow.
Though the organ-monkey groans
As the organ-grinder plays
He's hoping, at the most,
For an end to his dancing days;
Still he hops up and down on his perch
In the usual jerky way.
Though it might mean an end to all friendship
There's something I'm working up to say.
Think of me what you will;
I know that you think you feel my pain
No matter if that's just the surface.
If we made love now would that change all
That ahs gone before?
Of course it would, there's no way it could ever
Be the same
One more line crossed,
One more mystery explained.
Now I need more than just words, though
The options are plain that lead from all
Momentary action.
If we make love now it will change all
That is yet to be
Never could we agree in the same way again.
One more world lost,
One more heaven gained.
La Rossa, you know me, you read me as though
I am glass;
Though I know it there's no no way in which I can
Pass
Though it means that you'll finish my story
At last I'd trade all the clever talk,
The joking, the smoking and the quips,
All the midnight conversations, all the friendship,
All the words and all the trips
For the warmth of your body,
The more vivid touch of your lips.
All bridges burning behind me,
All safety beyond reach,
The monkey feels his chains out blindly,
Only to find himself released.
Take me, take me now and hold me deep
Inside your ocean body,
Wash me as some flotsam to the shore,
There leave me lying evermore!
Drown me, drown me now and hold me down
Before your naked hunger,
Burn me at the altar of the night-
Give me life!
