Songwriting Read online

  Berklee Press

  Director: Dave Kusek

  Managing Editor: Debbie Cavalier

  Marketing Manager: Ola Frank

  Sr. Writer/Editor: Jonathan Feist

  9781476867557

  Visit Berklee Press Online at

  www.berkleepress.com

  Visit Hal Leonard Online at

  www.halleonard.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

  BERKLEE PRESS, BOSTON 02215.

  COPYRIGHT © 1991 BY BERKLEE COLLEGE OF Music. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Pat Pattison has been teaching lyric writing and poetry at Berklee College of Music since 1975. He played a central role in developing Berklee’s unique songwriting major, the first complete songwriting degree offered anywhere. Doctoral work in philosophy at Indiana University and a Master of Arts in Literary Criticism “... gave me wonderful tools for digging into lyrics to see what makes them work.” In addition to his work for TV and film, as well as numerous clinics and workshops, Pat writes monthly articles for Home and Studio Recording magazine.

  FOREWORD

  This is not a general book in lyric writing. It has a very specific purpose: to help you find better rhymes and use them more effectively.

  If you have written lyrics before, maybe even professionally, and you want to take a new look or gain even greater control and understanding of your craft, this book could be just the thing for you.

  If you have never written lyrics before, this book will help. You won’t have a chance to develop bad habits.

  Rhyme is one of the most crucial areas of lyric writing. The great lyricists have at least this in common: they are skilled rhymers. This book will give you control over rhyming. It gives you the technical information necessary to develop your skills completely; to make rhyme work for rather than against you.

  You can work completely through this book in two or three sittings. If you do the exercises, you will understand it the first time through. After that, use it only for reference.

  You will need a rhyming dictionary. I use The Complete Rhyming Dictionary, edited by Clement Wood (Doubleday) as my source. I suggest you use it too. However, you can easily apply the information in this book to your own rhyming dictionary.

  INTRODUCTION

  DO I HAVE TO RHYME?

  Songs are made for ears, not for eyes. Because people listen to songs, you must learn to write for eyeless ears. So many times rhyme seems like your enemy. Because it is so hard to use rhyme and still sound natural and genuine, most songwriters go through a “trying not to rhyme” phase. Too often, rhyme seems to pull you in a wrong direction, either

  toward something that sounds unnatural, or

  toward something cliché.

  Both drain the blood out of your lyric.

  1. Something Unnatural

  How many appeals have gone “to the stars above” — how many emotions have flown in on “the wings of a dove?” Those countless stars and doves have every right to feel like teenagers who get attention only because they hang out with someone who rhymes with “love.” They aren’t really wanted for themselves.

  The need to rhyme has certainly held the shotgun at many an improbable wedding. You may have been to a few yourself. . .

  Sometimes the search for rhyme is even more destructive. Everyone has been in this situation: trying to find a way to connect words like

  liege

  besiege.

  (No problem with cliché here.) Unless you were writing a comedy version of King Arthur or Robin Hood, you might never face this particular problem, but you have faced it in other ways many times. You will face it again.

  “Besiege” is a transitive verb — you must use a Direct Object like “the castle” to complete its sense. Putting a Transitive Verb at the end of a phrase inverts the natural sentence order:

  He swore an oath unto his liege

  Tomorrow the castle he would besiege

  You can pull your poetic license out of your back pocket all you want to, but you won’t make the phrase sound any more natural. Of course, the natural syntax is

  He swore an oath unto his liege

  Tomorrow he would besiege the castle.

  You might try

  He swore to his liege as a loyal vassal

  Tomorrow he would besiege the castle.

  The first phrase is ambiguous. Is the liege the vassal? Even though “liege/besiege” are in the same internal spot, the meaning is obscured. This is better:

  To his liege he swore as a loyal vassal

  Tomorrow he would besiege the castle.

  This is a lot of twisting in the wind for a rhyme. And you still didn’t get

  liege

  besiege

  in a rhyming position. The problem is familiar to anyone who has worked with rhymes, especially where only a few rhymes are available. For “liege” there is only

  besiege

  siege

  Fortunately, “siege” is a noun.

  He swore an oath unto his liege

  To lay the castle under siege

  A lucky escape.

  2. Something Cliché

  Having only a few rhymes available can cause even worse problems. Too often the available rhymes have been used so much that they are cliché. Have you ever tried to rhyme “love”? Or “desire”? Try for a minute. Make a list for each one.

  love desire

  I thought of “inspire.” Alas, it turns into the Transitive Verb problem. It threatens to sound unnatural:

  You fill me with a strong desire

  Heat like this you can inspire

  Using cliché rhymes is pretty risky business. Most likely your listener will start napping as soon as it is clear that you intend to use one of these old war horses. Unfortunately, English is full of them. Faced with these two problems,

  using something that sounds unnatural, or

  using cliché rhymes

  you might be tempted to chuck rhyme altogether.

  The problem is, refusing to rhyme hurts a lyric more than it helps it. This is not true in poetry, but remember, poetry is for the eye too. Rhymes in a lyric are the ear’s roadsigns just like lines in poetry are the eye’s roadsigns. In the time of the troubadour when poetry was oral, it always rhymed. It was made for the ear, not the eye.

  There is a big difference between these two systems.

  I’ve got a COLD SPOT in my heart Just for you

  Just for you

  It doesn’t matter what you try

  Ain’t no fire getting in

  I’ve got a COLD SPOT in my heart

  Just for you

  I’ve got a COLD SPOT in my heart Just for you

  Just for you

  It doesn’t matter what you do

  Ain’t no fire getting through

  I’ve got a COLD SPOT in my heart

  Just for you

  You can feel the difference. The rhymed version has punch and sarcasm. The unrhymed version doesn’t. Yet both versions have approximately (maybe even exactly) the same meaning.

  The decision is not between rhyming and not rhyming. The only decision is to learn how to rhyme more effectively.

  Rhyme can be your best friend, your biggest help in leading all those eyeless ears through your lyrics. Or it can be your enemy. I want to show you how to make rhyme your friend. That is why you should work your way through this book. Carefully.

  CHAPTER ONE
>
  RHYME Is YOUR FRIEND

  SHAKING HANDS

  Rhyme is a connection between the sounds of syllables, not words. Only the last syllables rhyme in

  underwear

  repair

  The other syllables,

  under

  re

  do not figure in at all.

  When two syllables rhyme, it means three things:

  1.The syllables’ vowel sounds are the same wear

  pair

  Even though these syllables’ vowels have different letters, they make the same sound in these words. Only your ears count, not your eyes.

  2.The sounds after the vowels (if any) are the same, ear

  air

  (As you can see by the “ea” in “wear” and “ear,” sometimes the same letters sound different in different contexts.)

  “(If any)” is important because syllables don’t always have consonants after their vowel sounds, as in

  disagree

  referee.

  3.The sounds before the vowels are different. wear

  pair

  This third characteristic is important. It shows that rhyme works by the basic musical principle of tension /resolution: difference moving into sameness. When you hear a rhyme,

  wear gree

  pair ree

  your ear notices that, in spite of the difference at the beginnings of the syllables, they end up sounding alike!

  Beginnings of rhymed syllables have to be different so your ear will notice the similar sounds at the end. Otherwise, your ear will pick up only repetition, not rhyme. When you hear a cheerleader yell

  go! go! go! go! go!

  you pay attention to the repetition, not to the sounds of the syllables. No one in the stadium thinks “Hey! Those syllables sound the same!”

  When the beginnings of syllables are the same, the syllables cannot rhyme. This is called an IDENTITY:

  fuse

  confuse

  It is not a rhyme. Your ear does not pay attention to the sounds of the syllables. There is no tension, no “difference” to be resolved by sameness.

  peace lease

  piece police

  These words do not call attention to their sounds either, because their syllables do not resolve difference into sameness. The same sounds are repeated, just like a cheerleader’s yell. But try

  peace piece

  lease police

  These are a big difference from the Identities above them. There is also a big difference between these two lists:

  birthplace, commonplace, misplace, place, replace

  ace, brace, chase, erase, face, disgrace, resting place

  Say them aloud. Your ear does not focus on the sounds in the first list, but is drawn like a magnet to the sounds in the second list. In the first list you hear simple repetition. In the second list you hear the sound of music — or, rather, of tension /resolution.

  Look at the three conditions again.

  The syllables’ vowel sounds are the same

  The sounds after the vowels (if any) are the same,

  The sounds before the vowels are different.

  When syllables meet all three of these conditions, call it PERFECT RHYME. Later I will show you other kinds of rhyme besides PERFECT RHYME.

  MASCULINE RHYMES/FEMININE RHYMES

  Most rhymes, including PERFECT RHYMES, belong to one of two categories. Never to both. Every rhyme is either MASCULINE or FEMININE. (We will conveniently ignore three-syllable rhymes, at least for now.)

  Here are some MASCULINE RHYMES:

  command

  land

  understand

  expand

  strand

  Here are some FEMININE RHYMES:

  commanding

  landing

  understanding

  expanding

  stranding

  As you can see, the difference is in the way they end.

  MASCULINE RHYMES are either one-syllable words, or words that end on a stressed syllable:

  FEMININE RHYMES always end on an unstressed syllable. They are always two-syllable rhymes. (Masculine rhymes are one-syllable rhymes.)

  Look at the stressed syllables in the FEMININE RHYMES above and you will see that they are all PERFECT RHYMES:

  Stressed syllables, whether in FEMININE RHYMES or MASCULINE RHYMES, create rhyme’s tension and resolution.

  The unstressed ending syllables above are all IDENTITIES, which is normal for Feminine Rhyme. These IDENTITIES only continue the resolution. Unstressed syllables of FEMININE RHYMES are usually IDENTITIES, but they do not have to be.

  Call these pairs above MOSAIC RHYMES, since they are put together with syllables of different words, like stained glass pieces in a church window.

  Some words end on secondary stress, a syllable that, while it is not the primary stress in the word, is stronger than the syllables around it. Use “//” to mark secondary stress.

  Listen to it. You can tell by the pitch of the last syllable that it is stronger than the syllable before it. You cannot treat it as Feminine Rhyme, since its second-last syllable is the unstressed syllable. All Feminine Rhymes have a stressed second-last syllable, or at least their second-last syllable is stronger than the last syllable.

  You have two choices when you rhyme “appreciate”:

  1.You can treat it as a one-syllable Masculine Rhyme. appreciate

  fate

  relate

  Even better, you can rhyme it with other secondary stresses:

  2.You can treat it as a three-syllable rhyme. (Here as a Mosaic): ap pre ci ate

  quiche he ate

  These three-syllable rhymes are still Masculine, since their last syllable is more stressed than the one before it. The somersaults you have to turn for these little gems are worth it only if you are writing comedy. They sure do dance.

  FINDING RHYMES

  Occasionally when I’ve asked writers what rhyming dictionary they use, some have been indignant, as though to say, “I do not cheat. I am self-sufficient.” Others have looked at me sadly, as if hoping that someday I will abandon my artificial crutch and get in touch with my creative inner self.

  Use a rhyming dictionary. This is one place where self-reliance and rugged individualism is silly. Finding rhymes is almost never a creative act. It is a purely mechanical search. On those few occasions where it is creative (finding mosaic rhymes, for example), a rhyming dictionary can still stimulate the creative process.

  The self-reliant writer who thinks rhyming is a spontaneous expression of personal creativity can usually be seen gazing into space, lost somewhere in the alphabet song, “discovering” one-syllable words. This “alphabet process” is certainly at least as artificial as a rhyming dictionary. Nothing about it is creative or pure, nor is it spontaneous. The worst part of it is its inefficiency.

  Try it. Clench your jaw, assume your best self-reliant posture (legs planted, hands on hips, staring determinedly beyond the horizon) and come up with rhymes for “attack.”

  Here is a typical result:

  back quack

  hack rack

  jack sack

  lack tack (oops!)

  mack wack

  knack zach

  pack

  Mentally running through the alphabet misses in two areas:

  1. It misses words that begin with more than one consonant. Here are some you might have missed:

  black smack

  brac snack

  clack stack

  crack thwack

  plaque track

  shack whack

  slack

  2. It misses multi-syllable words ending on the rhyme sound. Here are more you might have missed:

  aback

  almanac

  bareback

  bivouac

  blackjack

  cardiac

  egomaniac

  haystack

  kleptomaniac . . .

  If you’re going to use an artificial process,
at least use an efficient one!

  Finding rhymes is mechanical. Once you have found out what is available, the real creative process begins: using rhyme. And the more alternatives you have to choose from, the more room you have to be creative. Anyone can find a rhyme; not everyone can use rhyme creatively.

  The Complete Rhyming Dictionary, edited by Clement Wood (Doubleday), is the best rhyming dictionary around. It divides rhymes into Masculine, Feminine, and three-syllable rhymes. It is organized phonetically by vowel sound, italicizes archaic words, and is as complete in its listings as something in print can be. (Nothing can keep up with current slang. But you can write those in.) Get it in hardcover so it will last.

  EXERCISE 1: WALK TO A BOOKSTORE AND BUY YOUR RHYMING DICTIONARY.

  USING YOUR RHYMING DICTIONARY

  There are three sections. The first lists masculine Rhymes; the second, Feminine Rhymes; the third, three-syllable rhymes. Each section is organized alphabetically according to the vowels, a, e,i, o, u.

  To find a rhyme, ask two questions:

  1. Is the word I want to rhyme Masculine or Feminine?

  The answer will direct you to Section One or Section Two. Now ask the next question:

  2. What is the vowel sound of the stressed syllable?