Going for the Cheap Rhyme
The other day, a friend and I were discussing the relative merits of Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield, of which I think there are many and he, evidently, thinks there are few. I said I thought Springfield at least deserved credit for being a rock star who knew what a moot point was. My friend's answer to that was "Cheap rhyme." (This may be true, although I still think ol' Rick deserves a point or two for knowing the phrase is "moot" point rather than "mute" point.)
Anyway, this got me thinking about lyrics and other instances of artists who have obviously gone for the cheap rhyme. A songwriter doesn't have to be in the running for next poet laureate to impress me, by any means, but I do pay at least as much attention to lyrics as to music most of the time, so words that don't seem to fit tend to stick in my mind.
I recently listened to a few Alan Jackson songs. The song Where I Come From offers this gem: "Well I answered him and he asked me/Aren't you from out in Tulsa/No, but you mighta seen me there/I just dropped a load of salsa." The song is about long-distance trucking, and no doubt many a load of salsa rolls into Tulsa from...somewhere else. Still, the line -- especially with the weight it's given by being the last line of the verse -- seems out of place. The cheap rhyme.
I'm a big fan of Bruce Springsteen, which is probably no secret to anyone who has looked at my playlist, but even I must admit that he has written some outstandingly poor lyrics. He's also written some great ones, in my opinion. Just this morning, I listened to Better Days on Greatest Hits. I like the song overall, but lyrically, it seems like two different people wrote it. Actually, it seems like Springsteen wrote the good lines first, then said, "Crap, what's gonna rhyme with *that*?" and threw in the first line he thought of that sort of worked. (I write the occasional poem; I know this scenario all too well.) For instance, there's the line "Tonight I'm layin' in your arms carvin' lucky charms/Out of these hard luck bones," which I happen to think is a beautiful image and a good fit with the overall "making good stuff out of the bad stuff" theme of the song. Unfortunately, those lines are immediately preceded by "Now my as* was draggin' when from a passin' gypsy wagon/Your heart like a diamond shone." The gypsy wagon seems like an odd enough choice by itself, but "my ass was dragging" so totally fails to convey the existential angst that it seems the song is about. That line sounds more like he's whining because he stayed up too late watching bad reruns and had to be at work at 6am. The cheap rhyme.
I'm not saying I could have done better than Alan Jackson or Bruce Springsteen or, heck, even Rick Springfield. I'm just saying another 20 minutes or so at the drawing board might have made for lyrics that didn't go "clunk."
