Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 07:01 AM

Am I alone in thinking that the verb "to perfume" (used in the intransitive, as has been suggested here, "the bowers are perfuming") is just about as grating as "to medal" or, worse, "to podium?" It won't be long at this rate before we start to hear such horrors as "she was such a great athlete that for many years she was regularly podiuming..."

'Perfuming" might rhyme, but it don't chime... (See what I did there...?)

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 01:24 PM

I’ve said this before, but there are rhymes in songs like Dirty Old Town, America, etc, but they are not perfect clean rhymes. Assonance and consonance are rhyme types where the sound of the vowels or the sound of the consonants rhyme, even though the whole word does not. “Empty and aching and I don’t know why, counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike” “Dreamed a dream by the old canal, kissed my girl by the factory wall”. Sometimes the rhymes are internal, rather than at the end of lines, and sometimes are just repeated initial letters (alliteration) “in a deep and dark December”.

And the leaves that are green (assonance) turn to brown (consonance)
And they whither the wind (alliteration)
and they crumble in your hand (assonance).

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 01:27 PM

Sorry, last one is consonance.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 07:05 PM

assonance, consonance, alliteration - part of the toolbox of the poet

Choosing these tools instead of the rhyme is an indication of the poet's skill, surely? That's why I cited these two examples. They are substitutes for rhymes, not rhymes.

It's interesting also that the song 'Nothing Rhymed' by Gilbert O'Sullivan, does rhyme!

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 10:40 PM

Wild Mountain Thyme,
Why doesn't it rhyme?

Is the writer's life ended,
Poetic licence suspended?

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 22 Oct 21 - 04:46 AM

Sorry, can’t agree that the only kind of rhyme is the perfect rhyme of vowel sounds and following consonant letters (moon and June). There are many other types of rhyme, and to suggest those are not rhymes is misinformation.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 23 Oct 21 - 04:10 AM

The first time I heard ‘purple heather’ being sung was in Rod Stewart’s version however, it may have been a variant before that.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: PHJim
Date: 23 Oct 21 - 10:14 AM

My dad didn't like the verse:

The other night Dear as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke Dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and cried.

He always sang i as:

The other night Dear as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you by my side
When I awoke Dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and cried.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: meself
Date: 23 Oct 21 - 11:56 AM

Now there's another one I never noticed doesn't rhyme. I mean, it never occurred to me to think about it.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Oct 21 - 04:25 PM

I've been singing Wild Mountain Thyme and Dirty Old Town for over 50 years like many many others, and not once have I had recourse to think about any rhyming. They're songs for chrissake and they work very well. Don't sing em or listen to em if they upset you that much! I can think of many perfectly rhymed songs that are absolute crap!

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 24 Oct 21 - 06:14 AM

I consider the ability to write a great song without using perfect rhymes as a sign of a great songwriter, even more so when we don't notice the lack of rhymes.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Vic Smith
Date: 24 Oct 21 - 08:56 AM

Things that are meant to rhyme are sometimes better when they don't; even in Limericks. Here is an example :_

There was a young lady from Bude
Who went for a swim in the lake
Where a man in a punt
Stuck his pole in her ear
And said, "You can't swim here, it's private!"

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Oct 21 - 10:42 AM

And the well-known

There was a young man from Tralee
Who was stung on the bum by a wasp
When asked if it hurt
He said 'Not very Much,
It can do it again if it likes.'

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Vic Smith
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 07:34 AM

Steve Gardham's post 

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 10:49 AM

Vic's post??

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 11:53 AM

Steve:
I'm seeing Vic's post as "Steve Gardham's post" followed by a 'thumbs up' picture. But not all obscure symbols are viewable on all browsers.
Cheers

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 03:17 PM

Members of our creative writing group have been submitting '50 word' pieces to The Scottish Book Trust monthly challenge (they sugggest a title/subject, you interpret it how you will.)
Some people succeed in producing neat sentences......but mine nearly always consist of broken phrases as I try to express the pictures in my mind (and I find 50 words extremely restrictive!!)
A friend, who is a retired teacher of English, commented on my creations, calling them 'poems' - to my amazement, they didn't actually rhyme..... but apparently nowadays they needn't?

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: meself
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 03:51 PM

Poems, in general, never 'needed' to rhyme. There has been non-rhyming poetry in English as long as there has been something called English. However, in the 20th century, non-rhyming poetry became particularly popular - among serious poets, anyway.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 04:40 PM

Thanks, Nigel. Those 2 question marks represent a thumbs up.

Subject: RE: Wild Mountain Thyme - Why doesn't it rhyme
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 24 - 08:38 AM

In the days of playing with braveheart the band i was with. when my friend sang the songs like the bonny lass o fivee-o and others including wild mountain thyme it is hard to know if they did rhyme. i did most of the playing but i did sing harmony on the wild mountainn thyme song. thanks for all of what you said from all of you folks from joe.