I really hate clunky similes in songs. When they say something is like something else just because it rhymes. Is that a simile? The best example I can think of (which to be fair is actually quite good) is Snaps I'm serious as cancer when I say that rhythm is a dancer. Which I enjoy even though it's obviously overkill. How serious are you about the premise that rhythm is a dancer (whatever that even means)? CANCER. Ok dude, I mean - chill out a bit. If you want rhythm to be a dancer it can be a dancer. No need to invoke such a potentially serious condition. You don't get...... Janet Jackson rhyming rhythm nation with decapitation. Or Jamiroqui rhyming emergency on planet earth with I'm sorry to tell you there's been a problem with the birth.
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@TheBreadmonkey
Chris de Burgh comes in for a lot of stick but nobody mentions the way "That cold north wind they call 'la Bize' / Is swirling gently round my knees"
@TheBreadmonkey firstly, "cancer" and "dancer" don't even rhyme properly!
They could have had "lancer"! "Chancer"! "Glancer!" Even "answer"!!!
Second, the rhyme makes me think of this Bob Dylan lyric... "You speak to me in sign language... As I'm eating a sandwich". (Though to be fair, language and sandwich *do* rhyme. But only if you use a Bob Dylan voice.)
I'm serious as Geoffrey Chaucer
@TheBreadmonkey Snap! rhymes like a wanker, and it makes his words danker.
Ms. Jackson if you're nasty.
@TheBreadmonkey on the flip side, I got hooked on early Interpol because they said "you need something for which to care" in "Evil" and I was blown away by the fancy grammar
@TheBreadmonkey “a poem is a song that no one cares about, except the writers of the songs that we’re all singing, and a song is a commercial for a self important asshole, who wants the love and the money and the other good stuff you’re bringing. And if you don’t give it to them they’ll die…” — AJJ
@TheBreadmonkey “a poem is a song that no one cares about, except the writers of the songs that we’re all singing, and a song is a commercial for a self important asshole, who wants the love and the money and the other good stuff you’re bringing. And if you don’t give it to them they’ll die…” — AJJ
@TheBreadmonkey Looked for it but couldn't find it.
Like, 15 years ago Gladstone (formerly of Cracked) did a "Hate By Numbers" where he roasts one of Kid Rock's songs. One of the points he makes is how he rhymes "things" with "things".
Let's you and me be besties, just like torsion of the testes
Slightly off topic, but something that doesn't rhyme properly, in Inner Smile by Texas, they rhyme the word wild with smile, and it makes my brain itch.
You make me feel wild,
You touch my inner smile...
I'm convinced the original lyric was inner child, but they thought it sounded weird and changed it. Nobody had ever said inner smile before, they made it up.
I'm not sure this is fixing the rhyming problem.
Maybe,
You make me feel wild,
Like 15 pints of mild...
(Do they even still sell mild these days?)
I've never had a pint of mild. I don't even know what it is. It feels mysterious and exotic to me. Like Babycham.
@TheBreadmonkey "I used to be so careless. As if I couldn't care less" from Mary's Prayer by Danny Wilson. That's not even a rhyme, it's just the same words.
@TheBreadmonkey "nurse, there is bad news I have to deliver in obstetrics. Please prepare my conveyor belt room, I deliver my most important messages while being unexpectedly moved on different directions. I will also need you to drop a little beat on the synthesizer." --Jamiroquai
The perfect time to mention my favourite musical pet peeve (favourite as in it makes me inexplicably annoyed).
From the song Crystal by New Order:
Here comes love
It's like honey
You can't buy it with money
Love is like honey, ok not the best comparison but there's something there.
Because you can't buy it with money. What. Of course you can buy honey with money. Every supermarket in the land sells honey. It's stupid.
@TheBreadmonkey “Love Hurts” by Nazareth:
I really learned a lot
I really learned a lot
Love is like a flame
It burns you when it’s hot
Flames that are cold are no problem. But, yeah, HOT flames you need to be careful.
@TheBreadmonkey still not as bad as Sting’s all-time clanger in Don’t Stand So Close To Me, in which he rhymes “cough” with “Nabokov”.
