The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #172425   Message #4173199
Posted By: Tunesmith
26-May-23 - 10:01 AM
Thread Name: To Rhyme or not to rhyme...perfectly.
Subject: To Rhyme or not to rhyme...perfectly.
I was reading - again - Jim Webb’s wonderful book on songwriting “Tunesmith”, and he pushes the point that lyricists, in his opinion, should always use “perfect rhymes” ( as was the norm for Cole Porter and his contemporaries ); indeed, he says even if listeners don’t seem to recognise a “false rhyme”, it would still register on a subliminal level and weaken the power of the lyrics. Now, it so happens, that in the first verse of “Blowin’ in the Wind”, Bob rhymes “man and sand”. What do we think?