А – А – А [ – А ] [...]
В простой куплетной форме используется повторение музыкального материала для каждой из строф текста. «Заглавная» строка обычно появляется в самом начале или в конце куплета (в Sunny – и в начале, и в конце). Такая форма хорошо подходит для песни-рассказа, сюжет которой разворачивается от куплета к куплету. Она часто используется в народных песнях, в композициях в стиле кантри, у таких исполнителей как Боб Дилан и Джони Митчелл.
Количество куплетов может быть разным – два, три или больше. Например, в песне Джимми Уэбба «By the Time I Get to Phoenix» всего три куплета. В каждом из них речь идет о новом месте, в которое попадает герой (Феникс, Альбукерк и Оклахома) и том, что в этот момент делает оставленная им в Калифорнии девушка:
By the Time I Get to Phoenix
By the time I get to Phoenix
She'll be rising
She'll find the note I left hanging on her door
She'll laugh, when she reads the part that says I'm leaving
Cause I've left that girl, so many times before
By the time I make Albuquerque
She'll be working
She'll probably stop at lunch,
And give me a call
But she'll just hear that phone keep on ringing
Off the wall, that's all
By the time I make Oklahoma
She'll be sleeping
She'll turn softly and call my name out low
And she'll cry, just to think, I'd really leave her
Though time and time I've tried to tell her so
She just didn't know,
I would really go
Другой пример: в песне «Ruby, dont take your love to town» прикованный к инвалидному креслу ветеран вьетнамской войны обращается к своей неверной возлюбленной.
Ruby, dont take your love to town
You've painted up your lips
And rolled and curled your tinted hair
Ruby are you contemplating
Going out somewhere
The shadow on the wall
Tells me the sun is going down
Oh Ruby, Don't take your love to town
It wasn't me
That started that crazy Asian war
But I was proud to go
And do my patriotic chore
And yes, it's true that
I'm not the man I used to be
Oh, Ruby I still need some company
It's hard to love a man
Whose legs are bent and paralyzed
and I won't serve the needs of a woman of your age
Ruby, I realized
but it won't be long i've heard them say
until i'm not around
Oh Ruby, Don't take your love to town
She's leaving now cause
I just heard the slamming of the door
The way I know I've heard it
Slam one hundred times before
And if I could move I'd get my gun
And put her in the ground
Oh Ruby, Don't take your love to town
Oh Ruby for God's sake turn around
В «Sunny» текст соответствует форме A – B – A – B (verse-chorus form), однако характерные черты single-verse form (повторяющиеся строки в начале и в конце каждого куплета) оказываются более значимыми:
Sunny
Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain
Sunny, you smiled at me and then it eased my pain
Now the dark days are gone and bright days are here
My Sunny once shined so sincere,
Sunny once so true, I love you
Sunny thank you for the sunshine you gave to me
Sunny thank you for the love you brought my way
You gave to me your all and all
And now I feel that I'm 10 feet tall
Sunny once so true, I love you
Sunny thank you for the truth that you let me see
Sunny thank you for the facts from A to Z
Somehow I was torn like a wind blown sail
Then our love was borned when you held my hand
Sunny once so true, I love you
Sunny thank you for the sunshine you gave to me
Sunny thank you for the love you brought my way
You gave to me your all and all
And now I feel that I'm 10 feet tall
Sunny once so true, I love you
«All Along the Watchtower» Боба Дилана - пример «песни-рассказа» без явных «крючков» (hooks):
All Along the Watchtower
"There must be some kind of way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Business men – they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None will level on the wine
Nobody of it is worth."
"No reason to get excited,"
The thief – he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late."
All along the watchtower
Princess kept the view
While all the women came
And went bare-foot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl, hey.