Most inane couplet

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Guest: JWB
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 06:02 PM

We missed this lump of coal from Neil Diamond:

"I am," I cried to no one there,
And no one heard at all, not even the chair.

Blechh!

Jerry

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: johnross
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:28 PM

From "The State of Elanoy":

Away up in the northward, right on the borderline
A great commercial city, Chicago, you will find.
Her men are all like Abelard, her women like Heloise
All honest virtuous people, for they live in Illinois.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Nick
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 08:00 PM

>>And what about a rhyme for "month"?

Jutht cos my friends have had lithps for a month
Doeth'nt give you the right to treat them like conth

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 07:45 PM

There see, that shut you up didn't it!

Thanks to Oliver for that, Good Morning Starshine.

LTS

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 11:27 AM

Well if that's your attitude...

Glibby glup gloopy,
Nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba.

LTS

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 11:23 AM

Not a couplet, but well inane

O Shenanikey Da
He play da guitar
Outside da bazaar, bazaar, bazaar
As he play da guitar
He smoke a cigar
And he laugh a da ha ha ha ha ha.

I'll shall procure my hard weather gear . . .

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Gene Burton
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:59 PM

"Ar dee do, ar dee do dar day
Ar dee do, ar dee day dee
He whistled and he sang as the green woods rang
And he won the heart of a lady"

They don't write 'em like that any more- thank f***!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 12:03 PM

Someone's knockin' at the door
Someone's ringing a bell
Someone's knockin' at the door
Open the door, let 'em in.         
            Paul McCartney (on one of his less creative days)

Arlo Guthrie once commented the only rhyme he could find for "orange" was "door hinge."

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Betjemin fan
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 04:22 AM

The Master once wrote:

I rather think that I would like
To be the saddle of a ladies bike.

I reckon that would win a few prizes (and a listing on the Sex Offenders register) these days.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,vieve
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 03:59 AM

Hate to bring attention to a moment of dodginess in someone I love and admire, but Patty Griffin's "One Big Love" (covered by Emmylou Harris) has some shockers from such a good songwriter...

"everybody's gone to the movies
everybody's gone and it's groovy"

"everybody do like a monkey
if you wanna go and be funky"

I just don't know.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: bill kennedy
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 09:00 PM

Gordon was his name, with a Lightfoot he came,
and he sang of seafaring disaster,
and it drives me mad, ya' know, when I hear the radio
while my heads on the antimacasser


this has got to be the winner, start anywhere, it just gets worse and worse

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchigumi
The lady, it's said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
When the wave broke over the whaling
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
'Twas the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind

When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM the main hatchway gave in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have gulfed deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Ole Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
The iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchigumi
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Andy
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 04:54 PM

Hey Netcaster, that must have been after the Great Mail Train robbery!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: theleveller
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 03:16 PM

And she sipped on a julep,
Her shoulders were bare,
And I tried not to stare,
When I looked at her two lips.

Bobby Goldsboro - Summer - The first Time

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Guest AMC
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 02:03 PM

Poor rhyming line in a good song:

And as he died in my arms I cursed God, as I do to this day
So when I'm called to meet him, He damn better pray


From song "Black Cove" on album "Waterbound" by The Slipstream
(Good bluegrass album, though)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 12:17 PM

where the bee sucks, there suck I

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: LeTenebreux
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 09:33 AM

I really hate this line from Billy Joel's Piano Man:

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday, the regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and gin

Who the #$%^^&%*&^%*&^%*&^#%$##^%$3 says "tonic and gin"???
It's gin and tonic!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Splott Man
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 07:43 AM

The craic may be 90 in the Isle of Man,
But in Brideswell the craic was 100.

Ithangyou!

I wrote that.


100!!!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Splott Man
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 07:41 AM

In the marquee, the band played on
The bodhrans and dancing feet thundered...

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jan 08 - 04:01 AM

You could well be right Michael, but then again, we could both be. Dylan revises and improvises lyrics all the time, so we could well both have an authoritative source, which is different. The version I knew best (haven't heard it for ages), was the opening song of the "Renaldo and Claire" fiasco, although that bit of footage was not without charm. (Dylan seemed to be giggling all the way through).
I think I got the lyrics I learned from a songbook.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: michaelr
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 07:17 PM

Alan, is that what Dylan wrote? I have it as

I left Rome and landed in Brussels
On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried
There were clergymen in uniform and young girls pulling mussels
All there to greet me when I stepped inside

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: alanabit
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 07:00 PM

"Didn't Men At Work do that tune with a couple of lines that rhymed "Brussels" and "muscles"? "

I wonder if Little Hawk recalls a song with the lines:

"I left Rome and landed in Brussels
With a picture of a tall oak tree by the side
There was clergymen in uniform and young girls pulling muscles
Everybody was there but nobody tried to hide..."

Colin Hay was not the first to use that rhyme!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Canberra Chris
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 06:30 PM

The fruit that the English call 'orange'
They first, from the Spanish, called 'norange'.

I have read that the Spanish 'naranja' was first transferred into English as 'a norange', and like some other words with initial 'n' had elided in oral transmission into 'an orange'. My smallish dictionary doesn't say so, but does give the derivation as from Arabic 'naranj', which would have come through the Spanish, also from the Old French 'norenge', which adds plausibility. After all we didn't go with 'oconuts, 'ananas, 'omatoes or 'otatoes. Why would we go with 'orange?

Doesn't help with the rhyme, except for the above.

There are commoner rhyme traps too, I ended a song line with 'have' ...

From memory, a most unfortunate if not inane couplet from Drink To Me Only (he sends his love a rose - now read on):

'But thou thereon didst only breathe, and and send'st it back to me
Where now I swear it looks and smells not of itself but thee'

Impossible to sing now with a straight face, especially as 'smells' is a melodic highlight.

BTW re Gundagai above, I'll leave confirmation to the more knowledgable Oz tradition keepers, but as with the many collected English folk songs gentrified for publication, I understand that the dog originally 'shat' on the tuckerbox, as only fits properly the 'final straw' sense of the lines, and the humour and language of the times.

Chris

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 03:53 PM

I said, "Pretty fair maid I'm out for my fun!
If to Chelsea you'll follow I'll buy you a bun!"

Traditional folk music...can't be beat!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 09:20 AM

From one of my own:
Napoli should be abandoned,
Get her men all back on land......and

Napoli was heavy laden,
With containers she was weighed down.

And another (song for my Dad!);
Before much longer he became a Branch Manager
And travelled round the winding lanes of sunny East Anglia.

By the way, Robbie W, in Scotland they tend to say "sangwich" instead of sandwich, which does rhyme quite well with "language".

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,No Friend of Dorothy's
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 10:15 AM

"I've measured it from side to side;
'Twas four feet long, and two feet wide"

W Wordsworth, "The Thorn"



"Now, of my three score years and ten
Twenty will not come again;
And take from seventy years a score,
It only leaves me fifty more"

Housman.


As Byron said of the one, and might have done of the other, he

"both by precept and example shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose"

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Mooh
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 08:00 AM

"Sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much" (Dan Hill maybe)

We used to do a parody of it as a breakup sex song,

"Sometimes when we fuck
I feel like such a schmuck",

but audiences didn't always appreciate the humour.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Schantieman
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 02:34 PM

And what about a rhyme for "month"?

I have two.....


How many weeks in a month?
Four, as the swift moon runn'th.

(C Rosetti)



Amongst our many English rhymes
They say there's none for 'month'.
I tried and failed a hundered times

.


.



.



.



But I got it the hundred and oneth!


(Don't blame me.   Blame Johnathan Always.)


Steve

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Schantieman
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 02:30 PM

W S Gilbert made so many of these rhymes they're described as 'Gilbertian' and so did Tom Lehrer. Mostly, however for comic effect, so inanity may be a positive boon.

Ring the merry bells on board-ship,
Rend the air with warbling wild,
For the union of his/my lordship
With a humble captain's child!

Pretty daughter of mine,
                   I insist upon knowing
                   Where you may be going
               With these sons of the brine,
                   For my excellent crew,
               Though foes they could thump any,
               Are scarcely fit company,
                   My daughter, for you.



I'm sorry to be
               Of your pleasure a diminutioner.
                   They'll vow their pact
                         Extremely soon,
                   In point of fact
                         This afternoon.
                         Her honeymoon
                         With that buffoon
               At seven commences, so you shun her


The pluck of Lord Nelson on board of the Victory—
                        Genius of Bismarck devising a plan—
                The humour of Fielding (which sounds contradictory)—
                        Coolness of Paget about to trepan—
                The science of Jullien, the eminent musico—
                        Wit of Macaulay, who wrote of Queen Anne—
                The pathos of Paddy, as rendered by Boucicault—
                        Style of the Bishop of Sodor and Man—
                The dash of a D'Orsay, divested of quackery—
                Narrative powers of Dickens and Thackeray—
                Victor Emmanuel — peak-haunting Peveril—
                Thomas Aquinas, and Doctor Sacheverell—
                        Tupper and Tennyson — Daniel Defoe—
                        Anthony Trollope and Mister Guizot! Ah


...and from the pen of Dr Lehrer, I suggest...

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard
And there may be many others but they haven't been discarvard.


Discuss.


Steve

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,acorn4
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 01:48 PM

The of course there's the Rod Stewart classic:-

He took her up to his high rise apartment,
And there he told her exactly what his heart meant.

Accompanied, of course, by that famous "sitting on a French toilet" pose.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,acorn4
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 10:08 AM

What about:-

"There was music there
In the Derry Air."

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 10:06 AM

Not really a couplet but from a song by Devandra Banhart who is not Chinese:
      If I lived in China I'd have Chinese children
      If I lived in Japan I'd still have Chinese children
   Speaking of epitaphs:
                Here lies Lester Moore
                Shot to death with a 44
                No Les
                No Moore
   Or how about almost every Hallmark card ever written.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Splott Man
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 09:37 AM

Robbie...

It was Dean Friedman, he could only sing at one volume setting.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 08:21 AM

Just walking in the rain,
Getting soaking wet.

B'fhea\rr leam fhin gum beireadh an t-e/ile,
Ma\ireach dhe na h-eireagan...
(I wish the other pullet would lay an egg tomorrow.)

What was that about foreign GERMANIUMS? Different isotopes from the usual kind?

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:09 AM

Here comes the Wapiti
Hippity-hoppity

is not by Ogden Nash but by the New Zealand poet Denis Glover. Wapiti were the biggest animal introduced to NZ by the Europeans. I have no idea why.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 06:51 AM

you talk to me in sign language
while I'm eatinga sandwich...
( Sign language sung by eric clapton, mid 70's)


She's always looking as if
she's always wandering off a cliff

(Thank the stars we're not as smart as we like to think we are, forget who sang this in the 70's)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:30 PM

All on the southbound odyssey,
The train pulls out of Kankakee,

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: JennieG
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:14 PM

What about Hallejula by Leonard Cohen....

'Had it coming to ya' rhyming with 'hallejula'

I really dislike that song, I shudder every time I hear it.

Cheers
JennieG....pedant, and proud of it!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 05:56 PM

Do I win then?

:D

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 02:30 PM

What No mention yet of the Turtles?

I really think you're groovy
Let's go out to a movie

Your lips intixciate me
Even though your folks hate me

Surely it doesn't get any better than this!

:D

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Midchuck
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 02:21 PM

Some of Kipling's best (from the Rhyme of the Three Captains).

I turn to them when I'm really mad at someone:

Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm,
I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm;
I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw,
And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw;
I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark,
I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark;
I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil,
And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil;
I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side,
and tasselled his beard i' the mesh,
And spitted his crew on the live bamboo
that grows through the gangrened flesh;
I had hove him down by the mangroves brown,
where the mud-reef sucks and draws,
Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for the land-crab's claws!

Peter

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Peace
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 02:14 PM

I want to enter the competition.

"My heart's beating like a tympani
In a symphony of love"

Took me seven hours to come up with that one and when I got it I put it in a song.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 01:57 PM

... sorry..., that 2nd line should read.... 'peephole'

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 01:56 PM

"Stranger approach this grave with gravity
Charles Grey has filled his last cavity"

Spike Milligan on his show "Muses With Milligan" way back in the '60's devoted part of his programmes to these kind of rhymes.

'A baby Sardine saw his first submarine
He was scared, and watched through a peepholr
"Oh, come, come, come," said the Sardine's mum
"It's only a tinful of people'

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,squeezeme
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:53 AM

Some pretty inane ones on grave stones too....

"Here lies dentist Rafferty
Filling his last cavity"

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 08 - 11:38 PM

Oh, my! He really hits the heights of almost MacGonagalesque glory on the last 2 lines, doesn't he?

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Jan 08 - 07:03 PM

I would like to quote Cumberland Clark[a second rate McGonagle]here he is on:
Spain.
In the south west of Europes the Kingdom of Spain,
where good southern blood permeates every vein.
The people are passionate,loving and warm:
and impromptu affections considered good form.
All the dear pretty girls carry on so
and im sorry theyve turned down Alfonso.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 08 - 01:35 PM

Yeah, you shouldn't criticize a deliberately goofy comedy song for having a goofy lyric...

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Jan 08 - 12:52 PM

Someone at least impliedly criticized

I don't want a pickle, just wanna ride my motor-sickle'
'And I don't wanna die! Just wanna ride my motorcy------cle

It's a comic song, fergoonessake! In that context, that "die"-rhyming line is pure genius! I keep listening to the song, impatiently listening for that wonderful line!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: cptsnapper
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:25 PM

I've just been listening to an album called Tuesday, April 19th recorded by a group called The Unspoken Word & in my opinion the whole thing is inane. I feel that it's a shame that the people concerned didn't think about the inherent implication of the their chosen name. But that's only my opinion - feel free to disagree, I won't take it personally!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:23 PM

Jazus Bonnie, how's it goin'?
Lerner & Loewe... leenia's is from 'My Fair Lady', I think.
A rhyme is a rhyme, I suppose, if you get away with it... :-)

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:15 PM

Wooops, cross-posted: Mine was in response to Brendy

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:14 PM

I think he's the one who rhymed Bother me and Rather be in Leeneia's post above -

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:12 PM

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed

William McGonigle

Excellent Poetry!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:09 PM

I know it's the respected Mr Loewe..., and I know it's not a couplet, but after the first verse:

Away out here they got a name
For rain and wind and fire
The rain is Tess, the fire Joe,
And they call the wind Maria

..., not a whisper about Tess and Joe...
I wonder what ever happened to them?

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 02:31 PM

Yes - in "Down Under".

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 02:19 PM

Didn't Men At Work do that tune with a couple of lines that rhymed "Brussels" and "muscles"?

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: DannyC
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 02:08 PM

The opening couplet from the whimsical 'In Praise of Mullingar':

"You can strain your muscles to brag of Brussels
Vienna, Naples or Timbuktu..."

... or something like that.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: john f weldon
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 02:03 PM

Oh my. I once wrote...

I would like to purchase an orange
Do you have one of diameter four-inch?

...but I wish I hadn't, or even mentioned it here.

But this is from a quite serious poem on the Death of Queen Victoria...

Dust to dust and ashes to ashes..
Into the tomb the great Queen dashes!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 01:02 PM

Yes...well..ummmmmmm?....My God! is it REALLY that time? I really DO have to run....

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 11:48 AM

They took the last train for the coast, Bonnie.
The day the music died!

G

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 11:44 AM

Another Scots one:
Humpty Dumpty sat on his erse
Writing verses exceedingly terse

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 08:52 AM

So "both" can actually indicate more than two? Fair enough... never get too old to learn something new every day :-)

OK, so - you want naff?

Juices you pour range
From apple to orange

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 07:22 AM

"Both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ..."

Not ungrammatical or illogical when indicating two or more - merely "archaic, used only in old-fashioned (or religious or legal) speech or writing" (Concise Oxford Dictionary).

It's rather hard to see why the usage has been abandoned generally - there is no convenient way of conveying the same meaning.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 07:09 AM

ubject: RE: BS: Difficult rhymes
From: Amos - PM
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 12:02 PM

I have pale pansies on my plot,
And roses, red and orange.
Nasturtiums I will not have
And likewise ugly foreign ge-
Rmaniums to clutter up the view
How about you?

---

ubject: RE: BS: Difficult rhymes
From: Amos - PM
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 11:15 AM

My love's as full as any orange
Except when I am feeling poor; Ang-
ina also chills the storm,
Making it difficult to perform.

But there is always hope for me;
A visit to a pharmacy!
Cialis will for sure restore ang-
Elic wholeness to my orange!

(c) 2004 "Mad Amos" Jessup

Twice in eight lines!! I haven't done that sort of thing in years!!

---

It's all in the wrist, folks...



A

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 07:03 AM

I have rhymed "orange" hear at Mudcat perfectly well a couple of times. I believe one was with "more ang-
elic...."

You could look it up.


A

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,es&l
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 06:31 AM

"..... poetry at it's beat "

grammar AND spelling at its (sic) worst ! :-)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: s&r
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 06:25 AM

Leisure
by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I had to learn this at school and still find the every couplet in whole thing inane and insufferably twee. But my English teacher loved it.

Stu

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 05:40 AM

...best even (if I could type)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 05:38 AM

"Now the worst part is over
That trip down to Dover"
..... poetry at it's beat

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,passer-by
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:44 AM

There was a little old lady who was walking down the road, struggling with bags from Tesco There were people from the city having lunch in the park, I believe that it is called al fresco

Brilliant!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:04 AM

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like satin and silk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a pail of milk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, rattle and shake,
Wiggle like a big fat snake.

Never heard of this song before, and if you'd asked me who wrote it, Dylan is the last person I'd have thought of.

Want more? http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/wiggle.html

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 01:55 AM

Your problem with the line "how many ears must one man have", john f, is this: you are being too literal in your interpretation of it. It's a poetic metaphor for a person's overall moral and ethical awareness of other people's suffering, not his ability to hear out of one, two, or more physical ears.

There is nothing wrong with that lyric or the song it's in. It's one of those rare songs that is just about perfect.

If you want to pick on Bob, look up the words to "Wiggle, Wiggle". Really quite unusual. ;-)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Celtaddict
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:29 PM

The line about Glenmorangie/too orangey is from the song "Leave Us Our Glens" by George Donald and Buff Hardy; it is a comic song, saying basically, you could take away everything else from Scotland, just leave us our glens, sounding very patriotic about the land, then lists a great number of single malts with names starting in 'Glen.' It is in the DT.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:33 PM

This isn't an inane lyric, just logic-defying. From the refrain of The Seven Joys of Mary:

... and blesséd may he be
Both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ...

"Both"? When citing the Trinity?

But there it is, in black-&-white, right there in the Oxford Book of Carols. Think June & Maddy sang it that way too though I can't remember. (Have to confess, I've changed it to "praise".) Lovely song, though -

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:00 PM

Agreed, Greg B, the melody & performance of "Your Song" ARE lovely - I have no disagreement with you over EJ's talent. But even his gorgeous singing cannot carry me past those naff, truly barfworthy words. They damage the credibility - and the spell - of the whole song for me, I'm afraid. How can the mind relate any image or feeling to "But then again, no" or "Got me quite cross (with that irrelevant roof/moss line that screams RHYME ME). These add nothing to a musically-great number.   

You're quite right, Sir Elton IS a damned good tune-writer and performer - and it's not him I'm criticising. But those lyrics let him down. They sound EXACTLY like something that dropped through the letterbox.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:47 PM

.... looks like 'Gorringe' gets the prize.... Somebody should inform the good Ms. Price, by the looks of it...

On another tack, Trad songs are full of forced syllables/rhymes, in that way.
I always grated at terms like '... convenient to the town.', and '... has plenty of cause for to spleen.', for instance.

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Marie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:47 PM

And then there's this one from Steve Miller's "Take the Money and Run"

Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:45 PM

"Gorringe" is/are a company that make jodhpurs for the horse-riding fraternity (I have a pair)

And I love the song about "Nine Miles From Gundagai"....I have seen a picture of a statue just outside Gundagai, of a dog "sitting" on the tuckerbox...he certainly is not shitting or shatting, but we know what the singer meant

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:34 PM

From a link within the Wiki page that McGrath linked to:

"Dan Warner, of Fraser, Mich., writes, "Can you supply me with a word that rhymes with 'orange'?"


To answer your question, I got in touch with Hilary B. Price. As the cartoonist who draws the strip "Rhymes With Orange," she may be the world's expert on this subject. Price told me, "Marilyn vos Savant, who writes 'Ask Marilyn' for Parade magazine, claims there is a word 'sporange.' But the word is not in my dictionary."

"Sporange" isn't in most dictionaries. It does appear in Webster's Third Unabridged and in the enormous Oxford English Dictionary, both of which say it's a variant of "sporangium," a botanical term. Webster's Third gives two pronunciations for "sporange": the one you'd expect and "spuh-randj," with the accent on the second syllable. "Spuh-randj" is the only pronunciation given in Oxford. So although "sporange" looks as if it rhymes with "orange," whether it really does is debatable.

There is a hill in Wales called the Blorenge—but that's a proper name, not an ordinary word. Hilary Price told me she didn't know of any single rhyming word, either. "As far as I'm concerned," she said, "the closest rhyme is 'door hinge.'""

Curiouser and curiouser....

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: john f weldon
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:09 PM

I hate to be critical of the mighty Bob...
And it's not really a couplet but...

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?

How many ears???

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:07 PM

...where does that come from?

I have to stick my hand up for that. There actually was a department store called Gorringe's, near Victoria in London. It closed a few years ago,

The name Gorringe isn't that unusual - google it and a fair number turn up, including a Major-General in the Great War. And there was a British military in the Boer War called "Gorringe's Flying Column" (I never knew the British went in for Flying Columns".)

For the plural "oranges" there's an acceptable enough rhyme in "porringers", a kind of dish.

Here's a wikipedia list of words without rhymes. (It suggests that "door hinge" could serve as a rhyme for orange.)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:16 PM

These dance hall girls sure know how to make a man feel alone.
Is this the way it always is in Baltimore?

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:20 PM

'I don't want a pickle, just wanna ride my motor-sickle'

'And I don't wanna die! Just wanna ride my motorcy------cle

There was an American comedian (Rich Someone) on UK TV tonight - he rhymed 'orange' with 'dorringe' and when asked what it meant he said it was Southern States/Cajun for 'door-hinge' LOL

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Anne Lister
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:19 PM

There was a singer visiting from the US I remember seeing once in action in Aberdeen and he may even be a Mudcatter, for all I know - don't remember his name, unfortunately, but what stuck was the following verse, which was but one moment out of many:

"He took out his fiddle and played a mournful tune
He made a cup of coffee and stirred it with his spoon."

Mostly what I remember of the night was what a nice man he was, but how awful his lyrics, and how Mary McLaughlin and I sat stifling our giggles out of courtesy ... and how difficult that was ...
And I'm sorry if you are indeed a Mudcatter and I've mortally insulted your lyrics, or if you are a friend of his and have encouraged his songwriting over the years!

Anne

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:02 PM

Oh well done, Kevin. I stand corrected, and happy to be so!!!
Nice one... where does that come from?

Well brought up too, Murray.
Would "... Glenglassoch, Glen Lossie, Glendullan Glenmorangie
I prefer them to Cointreau which I find too orangey...." be described as an inane couplet, MacCalman's notwithstanding?

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Greg B
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:59 PM

Then again, maybe the fact that he could get the lyrics to
"Your Song" in the mail, and write a nice melody to it, and
then sing it convincingly proves that Sir Elton really is a
damned good tune-writer and performer.

I mean, if you listen to what he does with that material---
he does really make it work. He delivers musically what Hugh
Grant does to dialog.

These guys didn't, if I recall correctly, ever sit in the
same room with a piano and build a song. Taupin wrote lyrics,
and Elton finished it off with a melody and performance.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:48 PM

People stop and stare; they don't bother me
for there's no where else on earth that I would rather be.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:28 PM

I want down to the famous store
Set up by Frederick Gorringe,
And bought myself a dressing gown
In a lovely shade of orange.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:05 PM

" Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me "




Neil Diamond Finally Agrees That 'Brang' Is not a Word
Singer Capitulates after Years of Lobbying by Grammarians

A watchdog group that lobbies for the correct usage of English announced a coup of sorts over the weekend: singer and songwriter Neil Diamond admitted he was wrong to use the word "brang" in lyrics for a popular 1970s song.

The National Association of Sticklers for the Precise Use of English said that after years of pressing Diamond to renounce his use of "brang" in the lyrics of "Play Me" the recording artist finally did so on Saturday.

The renunciation came when Edwin LeFevre, NASPUA president, encountered Diamond in a bookstore on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

"There he was, no mistaking him. No security or anything. So I just walked up to him and popped the question," LeFevre said. "I just point blank said, 'Weren't you wrong to use a word like brang in Play Me?'"

LeFevre said Diamond, who is estimated to have sold 120 million records worldwide, stared at him for a moment, smiled wanly and mumbled, "Yeah you might be right." Then he turned and walked away.

LeFevre said it was one his sweetest moments in more than a decade at the helm of NASPUA.

"Neil's use of 'brang' has grated on me for years," he said. "Just the other day I was out in Jersey at a Home Depot and there it was, playing up in the ceiling."

He began singing in a thin tenor, a bit out of tune.

Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me
Words that Rang in Me
Rhymes that Sprang from Me
Warmed the night

LeFevre said that NASPUA had contacted Diamond through intermediaries for years trying to get him to renounce use of "brang."

"Whenever they deigned to respond, they would cite artistic license," he said. "But you have to weigh that against millions of people who listened to that song and thought it was okay to say 'brang.' Not even the worst hillbilly naturally says 'brang.'"

A Diamond spokesperson reached today for comment was unaware of the encounter between the singer and the grammarian.

"When Neil goes out in public, he often encounters fans and often has warm, engaging exchanges with them," she said. "Otherwise, we don't discuss the precise nature of the encounters."

Buoyed by the unexpected success with Diamond, LeFevre said he planned to ask NASPUA's board to authorize the group to take steps to get hip-hop performers to use better English.

"That's a vast uncharted country and it's time to get it under control," he said.

This was posted by Bill Stockton on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 4:21 am.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:32 PM

I couldn't make a pot of tea nor get my trousers dry
And the dog shat in the tucker box nine miles from Gundagai.
not inane,but oneI would like to share.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:04 PM

the Master was Ogden Nash

"There goes the Wapiti
Hippiti-Hoppiti"


"If called by a panther,
Don't anther."

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Lindsay in Wales
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 04:40 PM

Down in Nagasaki where the women chew tobaccy
And the women wicky wacky woo!


(the mind boggles!)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 04:33 PM

orange has actually been successfully rhymed, ( well sort of ....)


Glenturret, Glen Scotia and last week Glen Fyne
Was rare at communion when we ran out of wine
Glenglassoch, Glen Lossie, Glendullan Glenmorangie
I prefer them to Cointreau which I find too orangey.

as sung by the incomparable McCalmans

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 01:28 PM

I suppose there are a finite number of rhymes available, Kevin, and it is the clever songwriter that can avoid all those pitfalls of cliché.

The word 'Orange' has never successfully been rhymed, oddly enough.

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 01:15 PM

"The rhyme of "California" with "warn ya" was probably funny once..."

Funny or not, it's a perfectly matching rhyme, not in any way strained.

Not that "accuracy" in rhymes is ever the determining factor in this kind of thing. In fact, the more "accurate" the rhyme, the greater the sense of bathos when it becomes clear that the verse has been pulled out of shape to achieve it. (Though of course that can be perfectly acceptable when a humorous effect is intended.)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Mr Happy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:12 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Mail




http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmq6mFAEqNQ

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:04 AM

From "Rough and Rocky"............

"One more kiss before I leave you
One more kiss before we part.
You have caused me lots of trouble
Darling, you have broke my heart"

Those last two lines just ruin an otherwise nice song!

Gag!!!!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:01 AM

>i>"Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin'
I'm sitting here just contemplatin'..."

P.F. Sloan in 'The Eve Of Destruction"

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:48 AM

Having my baby!
What a wonderful way of showing how much you love me!

I still have to control the barf impulse when I think of that song.

A

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:44 AM

Those verses got HIM quite cross ...?!!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Splott Man
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:41 AM

Bonnie...

same song:

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss
Well a few of the verses well they've got me quite cross...

The extra "well" just makes the scansion worse!

GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin...

Slade were probably referencing a popular saying of the time - "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life."

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:07 AM

Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair,
Fuzzy wuzn't fuzzy, wuz 'e?

Maybe a triplet rather than a couplet, sorry!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Net-Caster
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:01 AM

Since there's no requirement that these couplets be in songs, how's about this weak and clumsy opening:

"This is the Night Mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order..."

and indeed much of the rest of it.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:50 AM

The rest of Teddy O'Neill ISN'T whimsical or awful though, that's just the point - it's actually a sensitive & sympathetic - and sad - song. (But I know exactly what you mean: All 897 verses of Sweet Glanlee get my vote in W&A category, fortunately for everyone it's too long to post here).

I do think McCartney's line is better, more interesting - makes you want to know what's going to happen next because usually it's the pretty girls who catch the attention in pop songs.

"More moronic than oxy" - love it!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:21 AM

With regard to alanabit's nomination of I Saw Her Standing There, the original lines by Paul McCartney were to have been -

Well, she was just seventeen.
She'd never be a beauty queen,
But . . . etc.

It was Mr Lennon who suggested the more vague (and suggestive) You know what I mean?

I also thought that Bonnie is a bit hard on Teddie O'Neill. It's surely just the style of song, more would-be whimsical than plain awful, more pathos than pathetic.

Unfortunately, I was beaten to the Bernie Taupin lines, which I've always thought poor. However, with the 12 days still upon us, I think we ought to thank Slade for the wonderful thought,

Look to the future now,
It's only just begun.

More moronic than oxy, I fancy.

Lhiuish,

Bobby Bob

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:30 AM

Aaaaugh, Splott, don't even get me STARTED on Bernie Taupin! What's that awful lyric from Elton John's (?first) big selling album that ends "got me quite cross"? If anyone remembers, post it please. Deserves to be permanently enshrined in the Mudcat Hall of Shame.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Old Nic Kilby
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:22 AM

How about this one from S B G (thats Sabine Baring Gould not Silver Backed Gorilla)
"Hare wasnt hisn
Now in prison"
From
Old Adam was a Poacher
The tune is a stunner,the words are S B Gs

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:12 AM

Where ever you go,
There you are.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Splott Man
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:27 AM

If I were a sculptor,
But then again, no... - Bernie Taupin

I liked the Marc Riley list.
In some respects, pop lyrics are an easy target, as a a song will become a hit on its overall sound, or because the artiste is already successful, rather than its content.

The train leaves at half past ten,
It'll be back tomorrow, same time again. - His Bobness

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Newport Boy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:52 AM

In my rogues gallery, I have a copy of a sol-fa setting for male voices of 'Myfanwy' by Joseph Parry. An old-fashioned, but beautiful tune, published in 1875. I'm fairly sure that words and music were by Parry, although this copy attributes them to Mynyddog (Richard Davies 1833-77).

To come to the point, this copy has English words, attributed to Cubelyn (who I've failed to identify) which start:

Why shoots wrath's lightning, Arabella,
from those jet eyes? What clouds thy brow?

Even my (English) male choir found these impossible to sing. The more common translation is:

Why is it anger, O Myfanwy,
That fills your eyes so dark and clear?

Much better, although still not up to the Welsh.

Phil

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:43 AM

"She was just seventeen/You know what I mean".... ("I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles") That second line is horrilble in all songs, in which it appears.

The rhyme of "California" with "warn ya" was probably funny once...

I have always wondered whether the atrocious rhyme: "The city's clamour could never spoil/The dreams of a boy and goil" (Hart/Rogers "Manhattan") was a spoof of a New York dialect or the result of a very bad hangover for Lorenz Hart.

I fear this is going to be a very long thread!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Nick
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:19 AM

I can see them they can't see me
I feel out of sight
I can see them they can't see me
Much to my delight

Moody Blues - Nice to be Here

Drivel

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:17 AM

"British singer Des'ree has gained the dubious distinction of being responsible for the worst lyric in pop history.

In a fiercely fought BBC Radio poll in London, she took the prize for: "I don't want to see a ghost, it's the sight that I fear most, I'd rather have a piece of toast, watch the evening news."

She secured almost 30 per cent of the vote in the listener poll conducted by BBC DJ Marc Riley.

The runner-up prize went to Snap for "I'm as serious as cancer, when I say rhythm is a dancer."

Third place went to Razorlight for the lyric "And I met a girl, she asked me my name, I told her what it was."

Michael Fry, lead singer of ABC, had been hoping to land the prize with his lyric "Can't complain, mustn't grumble, help yourself to another piece of apple crumble."

"I have been waiting for this kind of accolade for years," Fry told BBC Radio before the result dashed his hopes of dubious immortality.

"I would say to anyone writing songs that you shouldn't really put food in song lyrics," he said before finishing in a disappointing fourth place.

"Foodstuffs and rock 'n' roll just don't go together."

Immortality is such a fickle jade ;)

Giok

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 04:41 AM

A quatrain, not a couplet, but no "inane" category is complete without it. The song (Teddy O'Neill) is an otherwise poignant and sorrowful lament of a young Irish colleen when her lover departs on an emigration ship. And THIS is the opening verse! (Dolores Keane very sensibly sings the second verse first and doctors these lines up a bit, so you don't tend to see them now in the lyrics sites - an excellent argument for the oral tradition if ever there was one.) You won't find this in the DigiTrad:

I've seen the old cabin he danced his wild jigs in
As neat a mud cabin as ever was seen
Considering 'twas used to keep poultry and pigs in
I'm sure it was always most elegant clean

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: cptsnapper
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 02:39 AM

Kissed her once again at Wapping. After that there was no stopping.

Ewan McColl Sweet Thames Flow Softly

Subject: Most inane couplet
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 12:11 AM

I nominate this gem:

Sure don't know what I'm going for
But I'm gonna go for it, for sure

(Grateful Dead, "Saint of Circumstance" by Weir/Barlow)

Your turn!

Cheers,
Michael