What is a Coda?

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]A coda is a new section that occurs at the very end of the song. Koda is the Italian word for tales. It tags on to the end of the song. You could also call it a extended outro perhaps, but of course outro is quite a modern slang term because it's a shortening of a word that doesn't exist, outtroduction. A textbook example of a coder is Hey Jude by the Beatles. For the first 3 minutes of Hey Jude, the song is in traditional binary form, verse chorus. But then we enter the famous coder section, a new section that we haven't heard before.

[00:00:31]And the Beatles really get their money's worth out of this coder, winding up spending far more time on the coder than any other section of the song. [music] Another famous example of a coder is Leila by Derek and the Dominoes. Once again, we have the bulk of the song with the verse and chorus, but then we enter this extended coder section at the end.

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