“The ears expect certain rhymes, so you want to fool them because one of the things you want to do in a song is surprise an audience” —Stephen Sondheim
As a publisher I have often listened to demos by aspiring songwriters and, despite always hoping to discover a fresh new talent, ended up feeling disappointed because I found that I could predict what the rhyme was going to be on almost every line.
Inexperienced writers often weaken potentially good songs by going for the easiest rhyme, or by using the same rhyme sound too many times in a row. This simply makes the lyrics sound boring, monotonous and colorless.
It’s not enough to simply go through the alphabet looking for words that rhyme, irrespective of whether or not the chosen word helps to underpin the meaning of your song and drive the story forward. This lazy approach usually results in clichéd rhymes that we’ve all heard many times before.
These days, you have to be more creatively adventurous.
Historically, many pop songs in the rock era have featured ‘perfect’ rhymes where a one-syllable word is rhymed with another one-syllable word (such as ‘kiss’ and ‘miss’), or where two words have the same spelling in the last syllable (such as ‘love and ‘above’). But hit songwriting is more sophisticated these days, and publishers and A&R reps have much higher expectations of lyricists.
In fact, many established songwriters now try to steer clear of perfect rhymes be- cause, they say, rhymes that are too exact can limit the expression of true emotion. Using ‘false’ rhymes which create word pictures, or convey what you want to say more accurately, can often be much more effective than pure rhymes.
For example, today’s hit writers are more likely to rhyme words that don’t have the same combination of letters but sound similar (such as ‘clown’ and ‘around’, or ‘made’ and ‘late’). This is because sound-alike words can often engage listeners more than words with the same spelling.
As Stephen Sondheim once explained: “One of the uses of rhyme is not only to focus the attention on the word, but to strengthen what you’re saying. So, you don’t make the least important word in the line the rhyme word.”
You can also surprise the listener by having the rhyme fall on the second or third syllable of a multi-syllable word instead of at the end (i.e. put the rhyme on the syllable that is stressed most strongly in normal speech, such as ‘unachievable’ and ‘believable’).
You can also rhyme a multi-syllable word with a word that only has one syllable (such as ‘sublime’ and ‘time’). This device can make a lyric much more interesting. It’s also okay to use a rhyming dictionary. Most top songwriters admit that they always keep a rhyming dictionary and a thesaurus handy. So don’t feel it will make you any less creative. It will actually make you more adventurous and give you many more options—including multi-syllable rhyme words that you might not otherwise have thought of.
Even when you’re using a rhyming dictionary, don’t always go for the most obvious rhyme word.
By digging deeper, and cross-referencing with a book of synonyms, you can often discover rhymes that inspire new themes or fresh ideas that can take your lyrics in a more exciting (and less predictable) direction.
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