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If melodies are pitch and time
a lyric finds its strength in rhyme
By Mark Fishlock
T
he Victorian essayist Thomas Carlyle
once wrote,“The building of the
lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or
bricklaying”. The construction metaphor
was echoed by the great lyricist Sammy
Cahn, who often referred to the lyrical
“architecture” of a song. If the words
themselves are the bricks, a significant
ingredient of the mortar is rhyme.
Found in the toolbox of every
wordsmith, rhymes create form and
enhance meaning. They can amuse,
surprise and comfort, while the way
rhymes are employed can bind
together the various ideas within a lyric.
There is particular satisfaction in
coming up with a rhyme that works on
all these levels, while at the same time
being neither predictable nor contrived.
often a source of great
irritation to me,” he says.
“The way some vocalists
treat the word ‘again’ which is a truly great
word for lyricists
because it can be
pronounced two ways
and both are correct.
Yet you’d be surprised
how often singers (and
their producers) fail to
spot the lyricist’s
obvious intention for
the word to be
pronounced ‘again’
One question that could cause a fight
in a bar of lyricists concerns the use of
so-called perfect and imperfect, true
and false, or as Sammy Cahn describes
like fingernails on a
blackboard to me when
they get it wrong ... and when the guy
who wrote it himself STILL gets it
them, pure and impure rhymes.
To give an example, rhyming ‘line’ with
‘mine’ is perfect, whereas rhyming ‘line’
wrong, I’m just baffled.”
Barry Mason, who wrote the words for
Delilah and The Last Waltz, feels there
are no real dos or don’ts. “When you’re
they seldom take joy in the pleasures of
technique such as rhyme or wordplay’.”
“My own lyrics tend to be pretty
conversational,” says Mason,“I only use
starting out, rules are a good discipline,”
he says,“then as you progress you break
them when you have to. A near rhyme
is supposed to be such a no-no, but I’ve
heard songs when a near rhyme sounds
comfortable and a proper rhyme might
be just that … too proper.”
It’s certainly true that in the modern
(rock ‘n’ roll) era, imperfect rhymes are no
longer regarded as a cardinal sin. There
also appears to be a different approach to
rhyming depending on the type of song.
“There is a vast difference in writing
rhymes for pop songs as opposed to
words the average person would know
… probably because that’s all I know.”
However, Black points out that this
would meet the approval of the man
who provided the words for
Summertime and Embraceable You.
“I agree with Ira Gershwin when he
said a great lyric should sound like a
rhymed conversation. I don’t believe
that a rhyme in a song should jump out
at you. Sondheim has a way of coming
up with graceful solutions. His rhymes
are perfect, but they sing by unnoticed.”
As well as finding good rhymes, lyricists
derive great satisfaction from devising
unusual rhyme schemes and particularly
with ‘time’ is imperfect. Given that
lyricists tend to be dedicated students
of their craft, choosing and putting
together words with the same care and
attention that composers give to their
melodies, it would be wrong to dismiss
those who only use perfect rhymes as
rigid, old-fashioned purists.
“Speaking personally,” says Don Black,
who wrote the lyrics for such classics as
Born Free, Ben and Diamonds Are Forever,
“I feel happier when all the rhymes in a
song are true. They seem to be an aid to
the ear and when you come across a
bad rhyme it feels like nails on a
blackboard, or to a musician, the
equivalent of a wrong and ugly chord.”
Gary Osborne (Amoreuse, Forever
Autumn) reaches for the same analogy
in the case of John Denver rhyming
“rain” with “again” in Annie’s Song although his pain is caused by the
performance rather than the writing.
“You’ve brought up something that is
20
Don Black
Gary Osborne
Barry Mason
Sir Tim Rice
when it is rhymed with
‘pain’, or ‘agen’ when it’s
rhymed with ‘when’. It’s
theatrical ones,” says Black. “Mark Steyn,
who is an expert on these matters, put it
brilliantly when he said,‘Rhyme is crucial
in theatre lyrics. It emphasises key words,
it clarifies, it focuses, it reinforces - it
spurs compression, the essence of the
lyricist’s craft.’ However, when it comes to
writing pop songs today, approximate
rhyming seems to be the order of the
day. As Stephen Sondheim said,‘Pop
lyrics rarely have a desire to be clear …
from constructing a network of internal
rhymes. “I remember the thrill of finding
four internal rhymes for the final verse
of Thunderchild, a song about a brave
little warship’s battle with three Martian
fighting machines in The War of the
Worlds,” says Gary Osborne.
Lashing ropes and smashing timbers,
flashing heat rays pierced the deck
dashing hopes for our deliverance
as we watched the sinking wreck.
With the smoke of battle clearing
overwaves in graves defiled,
slowly disappearing ...
Farewell Thunderchild
“Lashing, smashing, flashing, dashing
… a very satisfying moment.”
One of Sir Tim Rice’s favourite
examples is You Did It by Alan Jay
Lerner, from My Fair Lady.
Every time we looked around, there he
was that hairy hound from Budapest
Never leaving us alone, never have I ever
known a ruder pest
books
…
books …
“It’s funny, has superb internal rhymes
and advances the plot,” says Sir Tim.
Barry Mason chooses a line from The
Folks Who Live on the Hill, which has
lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. “A rhyme
that always makes me smile,” he says,“is,
‘our veranda will command a …’”
Don Black’s favourite is in Put on a
Happy Face, written by the American
lyricist Lee Adams. “It’s so clever, that I
think it may have been accidental.”
Take off that gloomy mask of tragedy
It’s not your style
You’ll look so good that you’ll be gladyerde
Cided to smile
“Tragedy and glad-yer-dee. You
won’t find that in a rhyming dictionary,”
says Black.
The use of rhyming dictionaries is a
question that divides lyricists. Mason
says he has never used one, whereas
Tim Rice describes them as “invaluable”.
“I think a rhyming dictionary is a
wonderful thing and I’ve always used
one,” says Don Black. “It saves you a
tremendous amount of thinking time.
If you need a rhyme for dog, you can
look at all the ‘og’ rhymes quickly and
if nothing is appropriate, you can
move on.”
“I still use the Castle Rhyming
Dictionary given by my Uncle Bob to my
father (Tony Osborne) in 1956,” says
Gary, who also treasures a copy of
Sammy Cahn’s own rhyming dictionary.
“The great man inscribed it to me ... in
rhyme of course. The books are
invaluable ... although paradoxically I
very seldom use any of the rhymes I
find in them. I only ever go to the
dictionary as a last resort and what I
almost always discover is that although
there might be rhymes I hadn’t thought
of, the reason I hadn’t thought of them is
that none of them are really appropriate.”
Like rhymes themselves, rhyming
dictionaries are tools in the lyricist’s
locker. However, the skill still lies with
the writer, as Don Black points out in
this recollection.
“I remember the great Johnny Mercer
telling me that he was walking down a
street in New York carrying his rhyming
dictionary and a woman stopped him
and said,‘Oh, that’s how you do it!’ I’m
afraid there’s a little more to it than that.”
Schirmer’s Complete Rhyming Dictionary
By Paul Zollo
Omnibus Press £19.95 ISBN-13: 978-0-8256-7332-0
THERE are a number of rhyming dictionaries on the market and
many have their own way of organising the words. This book is
songwriting, having dedicated much of his life to interviewing
everyone from Tom Lehrer to Brian Wilson to Bob Dylan. His
divided into three parts, for one, two and three syllable rhymes.
A one syllable, or masculine rhyme, is “meant” and “content”. A
two syllable, feminine rhyme, is “greater” and “navigator”, while an
example of a three syllable, or triple rhyme, is “clerical” and
“hysterical”.
Within each section, the words are organised alphabetically
according to their rhyming sound. So in the last example, you
can find a list of rhymes that end ER-I-KL.
It sounds more complicated than it is. Once you’ve spent a
bit of time with the book, it quickly becomes
clear how best to use it. Although Bob Dylan
sometimes began with a pair of rhymes that he
liked and went on from there, most people will
have chosen a word and then look for a rhyme.
Of course, a rhyming dictionary can offer
book Songwriters on Songwriting is a must-have for anyone
interested in learning from the masters.
Zollo draws on many of these interviews and discusses rhyme
schemes, usages of rhyme, and the difference between song
lyrics and poetry. In relatively few pages, the reader is given a
comprehensive and enlightening guide to both the art and the
craft of rhyming.
alternatives for both perfect and imperfect
rhymes, once you understand your way around it.
This is a large, hardback volume, with some
878 pages and as such, lyricists may find it more
handy as a reference volume at home, rather
than being thrown into a bag for a writing trip.
The real bonus with this particular rhyming
dictionary is the introductory chapter by Paul
Zollo. If the name is unfamiliar, Zollo is one of
the world’s leading authorities on the craft of
We have three copies of Schirmer’s Complete Rhyming
Dictionary to give away. To win a copy of Paul Zollo’s
excellent book just answer the following question.
In the first verse of Gee, Officer Krupke from West Side
Story, what word does Stephen Sondheim choose to
rhyme with ‘drunks’?
a. flunks
b. punks c. monks
Email your answer to [email protected] or
send it to Rhyming Competition, British Academy of
Composers and Songwriters, British Music House,
26 Berners Street, London W1T 3LR. The first three correct
entrants selected at random after the closing date of
1 March 2008 will each receive a copy of the book.