One disappointment I had with ADTOE was that several songs was kinda just normal vers/chorus/vers2/chorus/bridge/chorus but in a long format.
Actually, only This is the Life and Beneath The Surface would fit that song structure.. So is 2 out of 9 songs.. I don't think that can be considered as "several"..
Let's dissect that a bit. I don't think he literally meant that structure, but you can see that they're very close. And I consider an an instrumental break as a bridge.
OTBOA - Verse1/Verse2/Chorus/DifferentVerse/Chorus/InstrumentalBreak/Chorus
BMUBMD - Verse1/Chorus/Verse2/Chorus/InstrumentalBreak/Chorus
LNF - Verse1/Chorus/DifferentVerse/Chorus/InstrumentalBreak/Chorus
TitL - What you mentioned
BitS - Verse1/Chorus/DifferentVerse/Chorus/Bridge/InstrumentalBreak/Chorus
Outcry - Verse1/Chorus/DifferentVerse/InstrumentalBreak/Bridge/Chorus
FFH - Verse1/Verse2/FinalSection
BAI - Verse1/"Live in the moment..."/"Endless thoughts..."/Chorus/InstrumentalBreak/Chorus
BTS - What you mentioned
By my count, that's 5/9 songs that have the "traditional" Verse/chorus/verse (even if it's not the same style as the first verse)/chorus/somethingdifferent/chorus.
I think Pettor was wanting more songs structured like BAI, or Metropolis where we had Verse1/Verse2/"As a child.....the third arrives"/InstrumentalBreak/"Before the leaves...Dance of eternity"
Well, that's technically accurate (the best kind), but imo talking about most DT songs that aren't Wither or TALW in terms of lyrical VCVCBCC forms isn't the best way to go about describing their song structures. Most of the instrumental parts are written first, with the vocals being added later. TMoLS, for example, could technically be broken down to a VC structure, but that long middle section has about as much weight as the vocal sections and just labeling it as a "bridge" diminishes its importance. If you're going to do a structural analysis of a DT song (or most prog songs), you're better off thinking in terms of raw music. Honest, I find that using A/B/C labels to be much more efficient and accurate for describing their song structures.
Let's take OTBoA for example. While lyrically it has a Verse/Chorus structure, if you listen to it it doesn't really
sound like it. If we break it down and label each section individually:
[Introduction - material doesn't appear anywhere else in the song]
A - Choral Theme/Chorus
Ba - Chunky Guitar Riff/Verse
Bb - "We spiral towards disaster"/Synth arpeggios #2
Ba - CHUNK/Verse
B-Codetta - Guitar Theme (this is mostly transitional material, honestly)
A - Choral Theme/Chorus
Ba - HEFTYCHUNK
Bb - "Blurring lines drawn in-between"/Synth arps #2, but now it's shorter than before
Ba - MEGACHUNK/O LAWD HE CHUNKIN
B-Codetta - Guitar Theme
A - Choral Theme/Chorus
Ca - Piano Solo
Cb - Guitar Solo
C-Codetta - Like the guitar theme, but different
A - Choral Theme/Chorus (with repeat)
Coda - GIMME DAT SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SUPERCHUNK WITH AN OVERLAY OF A VARIATION OF THE A THEME IN A REALLY CLEVER WAY TO COMBINE THE TWO THEMES AT ONCE TO TAKE US HOME
So the overall structure would look more like this:
[Intro] ABABACA [CODA] OR [Intro] A||:BA:||CA [Coda]
With all the individual subsections bringing it out to:
[Intro] A - BaBbBa Codetta - A - BaBbBa Codetta - A - CaCb Codetta2:ElectricBoogaloo - A - Coda
Which has more similarities to a 5-part Rondo form than a typical Verse/Chorus structure.
All this mumbo jumbo is me basically trying to say that trying to describe the song structure in terms of the lyrics (for a band that doesn't put as much emphasis on the lyrics as, say, Taylor Swift) will make you miss out on a lot of details and imo give you an inaccurate picture of how the song is layed out. In reality, DT songs kind of function as both the overarching musical structure (which is more dominant) and the lyrical structure (which is more subservient). It's a weird and unique form of what I would call a "double-function form" that comes about from prog's original classical and jazz influences mixing with pop/rock music.