Some good things to know when writing songs

[Richland123]

Some good things to know when writing songs

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. No, Nurple does not count!

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous

[jlane72t]

Orange can be creatively rhymed with "door hinge" depending on your accent.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

I'm not a native speaker, but even I could come up with creative "rhymes" for the words You mentioned.

It's all in pronounciation, not in the writing form.

Regards
Sam

[viper4000]

Personally, I have always appreciated the rhymes that were phonetic, rather than direct. Use of phrasing, pronunciation, diction all lend to different rhyming patterns/schemes. YMMV

[macaroni tony]

Eminem rhymed "oranges" with "syringes"

[jlane72t]

wordsmithing is a art

[ThudThudThud]

Ian Gillan will forever be a hero for rhyming "Ultrasonic" with "Gin and tonic."

Nice.

[hrodbert696]

I guess I'll be pedantic here, but songwriters should know that there is precise vocabulary to use here. There are three different ways to match sounds at the end of a line;

A true rhyme means the vowel and consonant of the last syllable (only) match. "Intense" rhymes with "Nonsense."

An identity means the vowels and consonants match back to the last accented syllable. "Station" identifies with "nation."

An assonance means the vowels match but not the consonants. "Heart" makes an assonance (I guess it "assonates") with "bar" or "farm," and even (more weakly) with "palm."

So, "orange" does indeed rhyme with "syringe," but it doesn't identify with it. "Tonic" does identify with "Supersonic" (is that the song you meant, Thud?). With tough words like "orange," you can make lyrics work with assonances though there aren't many rhymes, words like "foreign," for example. The effect is less pleasing but you can get away with it.

[Bassmickeyd]

For me it's the word TONIGHT.
I never have used it while writing a song.

Because once you hear the word TONIGHT is a song, you know, right, slight, plight, kright, shureright, pollylingeright, and oserferangleright is just around the corner.

[Richland123]

I always thought that Neil Diamond must have been having a hard time coming up with the right word to rhyme with the word "there" when he wrote this line in the song, "I Am, I Said".

I am, I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair

[Demon_Hunter]

Originally Posted by jlane72t

wordsmithing is a art

wordsmithing is an art

[Bassdirty]

Originally Posted by jlane72t

Orange can be creatively rhymed with "door hinge" depending on your accent.

Beat me to it.

[duff beer]

Originally Posted by jlane72t

Orange can be creatively rhymed with "door hinge" depending on your accent.

I prefer to use "whore binge"...

[groooooove]

Originally Posted by T-Bird

Hi.

I'm not a native speaker, but even I could come up with creative "rhymes" for the words You mentioned.

It's all in pronounciation, not in the writing form.

Regards
Sam

yeah. ive heard some great mc's rhyme words that on paper, dont make sense together. thats what makes one guy better than the other- stretching pronunciation to make it work.

[jlane72t]

Originally Posted by Demon_Hunter

wordsmithing is an art

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by viper4000

Personally, I have always appreciated the rhymes that were phonetic, rather than direct. Use of phrasing, pronunciation, diction all lend to different rhyming patterns/schemes. YMMV

+1. I was at a songwriting workshop with Stephen Sondheim where he proclaimed "The only valid rhymes are perfect rhymes." To which I replied -- in my head, at least -- "that's why your lyrics are so cloying and predictable."

I'm much more impressed with a lyricist who can create the aural sense of closure & resolution that rhymes generate without resorting to an actual rhyme.

[Richland123]

There are different types of written and spoken poetry as well. Free Verse and Blank Verse poetry do not rhyme but song lyrics are considered a type of singing or spoken rhyming poetry in another sense. The rhythm or cadence of free verse and blank verse varies throughout the poem. Though the words don't rhyme, they flow along their own uneven pattern. Song lyrics "normally" follow a specific rhythm or cadence and having words in the lines rhyme makes that more appealing to the listener and usually easier to remember the lyrics. Sometimes, words in songs rhyme from line to line, every other line, or at the end of each entire stanza (a grouping of lines). Of course, there are songs that have lyrics that do not rhyme. There is no set rule to writing song lyics but most songs do follow some type of rhyming no matter what language they are written in.