Alliteration—the repetition of a particular sound in the stressed syllables at the beginning of adjacent words or phrases (such as “Mary, marry me in the morning”)—is a highly effective device that can make a lyric line stand out as a memorable hook in its own right.
Other tools which can help to catch the listener’s attention include: assonance—the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phras- es (e.g. “without you I’m blue”)—and consonance, the repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession (such as “pitter patter”).
These devices can add interest to your lyrics when used sparingly. But new writers sometimes make the mistake of over-doing such clever wordplay—resulting in lyrics that may be hard to sing because they contain too many ‘tongue-twisters’. If you intend to sprinkle some clever alliteration, assonance and consonance into your songs, always consider your choice of words from the singer’s perspective.
There are several key points to remember if you want artists to be able to sing your songs comfortably:
—Single syllable words make a song much easier to sing.
—Accented syllables should fall on the accented notes of the melody.
—Vowels are far easier to sing and hold than consonants.
—Too many sibilants (e.g. ‘s’, ‘z’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’) can cause problems, especially at the end of a word.
—Some word sounds are harder to sing at the upper or lower end of a singer’s vocal range.
—Words should ideally end with sounds that open the singer’s mouth, not close it.
Of course, some songs are intended to twist singers’ tongues—such as the 1908 classic ‘She Sells Sea-shells on the Sea-shore’ (words by British songwriter Terry Sullivan and music by Harry Gifford), or Sylvia Fine’s ‘Tongue Twisters’ recorded by Danny Kaye in 1951. More recently, Ed Sheeran had a go with his song ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’.
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