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I know it rhymes, but do you really......

1K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Drew 
#1 ·
I'm definitely not by any means knowledgeable on the art of songwriting or crafting lyrics, but there are some stinkers out there. We've all heard them, particularly in the rock/metal genre.

You know when you hear a song, it may be a great song, but if you listen really well you are transported back to room where the lyric was written and the conversation goes something like this:

Singer: "Dudes, I've got this cool love song, but I'm stuck on the 3rd verse, anyone got anything that ryhmes with 'I'll still love you when your beauty fades'?
Guitarist: "Dunno man!"
Bassist: "I'm out"
Drummer: "I know, now stick with me! How about 'I'd still love you if you gave me AIDS'?
After 2 days of the band calling the drummer a total tool, he gets his writing credit on a hit.

Here are 2 less extreme examples where you can feel the desperation of the songwriter:

Des'ree hit "Life"
'I don't want to see a ghost
It's a sight that I fear most
I'd rather have a piece of toast'

Toto hit "Africa" - you can even hear the singer struggling to squeeze in the extra syllables.
'The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti'

I love hearing stuff like this, it shows that even a massive hit can have lyrics that sound like a first attempt.

I would love to hear ones you guys have noticed...
 
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#3 ·
Sort of a pet peeve of mine, too, that a lot of music sounds like it was written trying to fit a rhyme scheme more than trying to say something.

I tend to like stuff with a lot of half rhymes or internal rhyming, but I think relaxing end rhymes a little bit would help a LOT of songwriters.

I write instrumentals though, so what the heck do I know. :)
 
#4 ·
i'm also hating peotry where rhymes are sort of mandatory (at least the crappy french peotry I had to study when I was 7-8-9 years old).

The singer of my band still sticks on rhymes but I trly don't care, I'm not listening to music as poetry, neither the music nor the lyrics, so nevermind: it does rhyme: cool, it doesn't, as cool!!!
 
#5 ·
You know, the big moment for me with poetry was in college, when a professor was lecturing on Elliot, and read a couple stanzas from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" but DIDN'T pause at the end of each line or inflect each line in that rhymed, sing-song-y way that people tend to read poetry, but instead just read it, in sort of a normal spoken english inflection.

The difference between this:

Let us go, then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question…. Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit.

...and this:

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…. 10
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.


...is HUGE.

Rest of the poem, if you want it:
http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
 
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