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What options are there when writing a Song Bridge when you already have a Chorus?

All great bridges in these early Beatles songs:
  • And I Love Her
  • You're Going To Lose That Girl
  • We Can Work It Out
  • Ticket To Ride
  • Please Please Me
  • I Should Have Known Better
  • From Me To You
  • Do You Want To Know A Secret
...and many more.

It's true most of these songs don't feature a formal chorus in their structure, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be learned about the harmonic shifts and melodic techniques used in the bridges.
 
Sure, but my point is that the bridge, as a formal unit, functions somewhat differently when it ‘only’ has to contrast a verse(/refrain).

To the OP: a bridge is a bridge in that its function is to connect two points at its beginning and end. It can go pretty much anywhere in the middle, and, indeed, often features the most harmonically/melodically/thematically different structures to the rest of the song—this is to make the final verse (or chorus), which we have already heard about twice before, more potent on its return through the contrast. Lyrically, a bridge often offers a twist, or a new perspective, from which to consider the otherwise familiar material that is about to return. Common starting points are subdominant (starting on IV or ii) or relative minor (vi of I) or major (III of i). Often it ends on a dominant-functioning chord (I6/4, V, V7, vii°, etc.), perhaps two or four times longer than it “should,” to ramp up the tension into the retransition (think the arpeggio in “Twist and Shout”)

But bridges, especially modern bridges, can basically do anything, including nothing. You don’t need a bridge, the bridge doesn’t have to be distinguishable from the rest of the song, and if you are too clever with your harmonies you might even ruin the overall effect. There are no rules but what the song itself demands.
 
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