One thing I can't do is create verse melodies that sound 'loose' rhythmically. Mine are too regimented, too 'straight'. Classic verse melodies like Elton John's 'Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word', 'Your Song', The Beatles 'Another Girl', 'Something', etc. They don't sound syncopated to me, just that the rhythm is 'loose' in some way. It's not simple and straightforward as chorus melodies often are.
EDIT: Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel is another example. But, many songs have verses like that. Mine seem to come out too 'normal'.
Erm, I hope I've described what I mean well enough. So, how does one create melodies like that?
Having posted, and now in editing hindsight mode, maybe I need to be buying sheet music and analysing.
EDIT: Now that I've posted I'm working out what I should say (see username for explanation). Verses in a lot of great songs don't seem to 'get anywhere', they sound unresolved. I just naturally seem to resolve every phrase. How can I avoid this? Unstable tones at the end of melodic phrases?
EDIT (yet again): I just tried playing really inconsequential widdling notes on a keyboard, and then recorded them into my DAW. I then put a simple diatonic chord sequence behind them. Hey presto! they sound like a verse. ... There has to be a more consciously controlled way of doing it than this.