What dermod said.Another lasting pop hit that does not rhyme, and doesn't need to, is "At This Moment." Unlike "Moonlight In Vermont," this one does not even rely heavily on a repeated phrase ("hook"), although, IIRC, the title phrase may be used at least twice in the song.
The musical versions of "The Lord's Prayer" and "Ave Maria" don't rhyme or use the repeated hook, either.That said, much of the beauty and appeal of the lyrics of many classic songs does lie in the use of well crafted rhymes, especially internal rhymes. As Daylia and Don Firth pointed out, these also make the lyrics much easier to remember. Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In" is an example. I even memorized Poe's "The Raven" in high school and remembered it for years, largely because Poe's meter and rhyme schemes were so tight.
I think what makes a string of words a good song lyric is the musicality of the sounds, where those words also convey the intended meaning (if any). A line can be very musical without rhyming. As adavis pointed out, rhyme is only one kind of sound patterning. The lyrics to "Moonlight In Vermont" are very picturesque and their sounds fit beautifully with the melody.
Nevertheless, when I try to sing "Moonlight In Vermont" from memory, I keep mixing up the lines of one verse with those of others, partly because there are no rhymes (and partly because there's no logical progression, as in a story ballad).
Khandu, I know what you mean about distantly spaced rhymes. Here's the rhyme pattern for one of my best songs:
Verse 1:
1- A - A
2- B
3 - C
4 -D
5 -CChorus: E F E F
Verse 2:
1- G - G
2 - H
3 - C
4 - I
5- CThe rhymes do contribute a lot to the cohesiveness and symmetry of the song, but they don't hit you in the face, because they're not the usual patterns like AABB, ABAB, or AABBA.
No, rhyming isn't a requirement for art. That said, there are a lot of songs I've heard (many on the top 40 of pop and rock) that sound like the writer just threw words together with no attempt at craftsmanship, ending up with badly chosen rhymes or half-rhymes or no rhymes at all.
One example of a good song that, to me, begs to have one line altered to produce an internal 'rhyme' is "The Strangest Dream." I always want to sing "...While guns and swords and uniforms lay scattered..." instead of the way it's written: "...swords and guns and uniforms...".
So glad you folks acknowledged the importance of meter, too. We've all heard, I'm sure very amateur 'poet' recite stuff that they think meets the criterion of "poetic" because the last line of each rambling, random-length, random-meter sentence rhymes with one other.
JennyO, are you sure that man wasn't Hungarian? *G*
Genie