If It Doesn’t Rhyme, I Don’t Mind

Songwriters

In defense of musical theatre lyrics with imperfect rhymes

I’m a hard-core musical theatre nerd and I don’t understand why so many people gripe about lyrics featuring imperfect rhymes. They don’t bother me. In fact, I sometimes prefer them since they’re more surprising than perfect rhymes such as love and dove (yawn).

Imperfect rhymes work especially well when you’re going for a laugh because jokes are only funny if you can’t see the punch line coming. I cracked up the first time I heard: “Don’t be a penis/The man is a genius” from Something Rotten! (lyrics by Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick) and: “Please read the words within/We were Jews who met with Christ/But we were all-American” from The Book of Mormon (lyrics by Robert Lopez, Trey Parker and Matt Stone).

I realize a lot of knowledgeable people believe imperfect rhymes (or — if you’re fancy — assonances) are lazy. Tony Award-winning The Band’s Visit songwriter David Yazbek even said so. But while I admire Yazbek’s incredible perfect-rhyme skills (see “A house in the Bahamas, paisley silk pajamas/Poker with Al Roker and our friend Lorenzo Lamas” from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), I disagree with his blanket assessment. I think obvious perfect rhymes are easier to come up with than ingenious false ones. Where’s the artistry if I can predict every single rhyme every gosh darn time? (See what I mean?)

Even the beloved Lin-Manuel Miranda uses imperfect rhymes! Hamilton‘s opening lyrics are: “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a/Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten/Spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor/Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?” Miranda fuses the styles and traditions of hip-hop and musical theatre, so it makes sense for him to use rhymes both perfect and false.

So to those who scoff at imperfect rhymes, I say rules are meant to be broken. I’ll take insightful lyrics and smart wordplay over perfect rhymes any day.

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Linda Buchwald tweets about theatre at @PataphysicalSci. Follow TDF at @TDFNYC.

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tweets about theatre at @PataphysicalSci. Follow TDF at @TDFNYC.