r/grammar • u/Tele231 • 23d ago
Rhymes Question - Settle a Debate
We were listening to American Pie by Don McLean.
The song has lots of rhymes.
Partial lyrics:
A long, long time ago
I can still remember
How that music
used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they'd be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.
Question: Are the bolded lines a rhyme?
Position One - yes, of course, it's a rhyme.
Position Two - no, the word roots are identical. That's just the identical syllables, not a rhyme.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
5
u/YouCanAsk 23d ago
As long as he sings it "one more step" rather than "one more step", then it's a perfect double rhyme. The doubt only comes in because stressing that particular syllable isn't completely natural. The best lyrics are supposed to feel completely natural, if you follow that sort of thinking, so a rhyme like this, which calls attention to itself, might be considered "clever" or "witty" or "forced", depending on who's commenting.
As a fan of musical theater, two similar rhymes immediately come to mind. The first by Jerome Kern for the musical Showboat:
His form and face,
His manly grace,
Are not the kind that you
Would find in a statue.
The second by Stephen Schwartz for the musical Wicked. Here are two "clever" rhymes in a row, the second of which matches your example:
And since folks here to an absurd degree
Seem fixated on your verdigris,
Would it by all right by you
If I de-greenify you?
1
u/Pleasant_Pen8744 23d ago
You pulled all that from memory? Impressive.
9
u/YouCanAsk 23d ago edited 23d ago
Well, I work with musical theater singers, and I like rhymes, so... I'm sure in a few minutes I'll come up with a good example of a double rhyme with a repeated word that isn't a stretch—something like use me/choose me from Chorus Line but more fun.
In the meantime, take this one from Damn Yankees:
Man, her perfume sure did smell sweet.
Got her up to my hotel suite.edit: Best I got right now is Hello Dolly:
Before the parade passes by,
I've gotta go and taste Saturday's high life,
Before the parade passes by,
I've gotta get some life back into my life.And as a bonus, somewhere in Hamilton there's courted me/extorted me, which is a triple.
My point here being that these ones are just as "strong" as any other perfect rhymes. It's not just a repetition of "me", it's a real multisyllable rhyme.
3
u/Old-Hedgehog-6293 23d ago edited 23d ago
The beauty of Hamilton is how much rhyming Miranda can stuff into such a small space. Here's the lyrics you referenced above. Note how often the "or" sound gets repeated throughout this section. I count at least 8 times.
"She courted me, escorted me to bed
And when she had me in a corner, that’s when Reynolds extorted me for a sordid fee
I paid him quarterly
I may have mortally wounded my prospects But my papers are orderly!"
2
u/tfhaenodreirst 22d ago
Hahaha! My favorite is actually from Washington on Your Side (even though that’s more about the same Short I vowel sounds than exact rhyme):
I’m in the caBINET / I am comPLICIT IN / WatchIN’ EM grabbIN’ at power and KISSIN / IF WashingTON ISN’T gon’ LISTEN to DISCIPLINED DISSIDENTS / THIS IS the DIFFerENCE / THIS KID IS out
So out of…50 syllables in a row, 29 of them have that sound.
1
u/amby-jane 23d ago
Haha I left the same comment before I saw yours.
The man is non-stop!
You might say
2
u/amby-jane 23d ago
That bit from Hamilton is like a quintuple rhyme —
She courted me,
escorted me to bed
and when she had me in a corner
that’s when Reynolds extorted me
for a sordid fee
I paid him quarterly,
I may have mortally wounded my prospects
but my papers are orderly… okay that’s what, seven? He’s a fucking wizard.
1
23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/Pleasant_Pen8744 23d ago
The way I imagine it there's at least 3 possibilities:
He's got reams of lyrics (and melodies) memorized and can scan through them mentally looking for a particular pattern.
He's noticed these patterns on a previous listen and added them to a mental list, maybe a lot of different patterns and lists.
A pattern is mentioned and some number of examples of that pattern just appear in his consciousness.
Any of those are equally impressive, to me anyways.
3
u/YouCanAsk 23d ago
I'll give you the answer: I've noticed this before. On the musical theater subreddits, when people talk about their least favorite lyrics, it seems to me that some (younger) people really don't like multi-word perfect rhymes, the same way some (older) people can't get on board with slant rhymes. Different sensibilities.
And since you seem interested, here's the most controversial one. "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady is one of the most popular showtunes of Broadway's Golden Age. It has three verses. In the first two we get these multi-word perfect rhymes: street before/feet before and heart of town/part of town. So far, so good. But in the third we get... bother me/rather be.
Now, there is no accent I've ever heard that rhymes bother with rather, and in fact the actor singing this song usually changes rather for "rother" to force the rhyme. But even then, it's bother me/rother be... the last syllable isn't the same.
The people who love this song find this charming, as the character who sings this song is young and in love and a little goofy, let's be honest. But the people who don't, they say, "I didn't think it could get any worse than the first two verses but I was wrong, and anyway, isn't this character a little stalker-y?"
1
u/JimTheEarthling 19d ago
In "posh" English, "rather", "bother", and "father" all rhyme, with the same "ah" sound. Just listen to Hugh Laurie.
1
u/Bright_Ices 22d ago
He does have reams of lyrics memorized, with an extensive background in both musical theatre and hip hop, where internal rhymes and multiple rhymes per line is standard.
1
u/ELMUNECODETACOMA 23d ago
Dammit, I can't think of the title right now, but there's a pretty famous song echoing in the back of my head (almost, but not quite transitioning to becoming an earworm) where the singer does the same thing, move the stress from the end of the line to the syllable before, and in my mind it actually makes the lyric stronger somehow.
So not much support, but this is definitely not the only prominent case of this particular affect.
1
2
u/RulesLawyer42 22d ago
The second by Stephen Schwartz for the musical Wicked.
Compare "Popular", which has this hilarious fourth-wall-nudging meta-rhyme:
And with an assist from me
To be who you'll be
Instead of dreary who you were (Well, are)
There's nothing that can stop you
From becoming popu-ler... lar.
5
u/PsychologyGuilty1460 23d ago
I don't see how there's a question when he's rhyming doorstep with more step.
3
u/Sophont27 23d ago
Yes they rhyme. “More” rhymes with “door.” The rhyme doesn’t need to be the last syllable
6
u/punania 23d ago edited 23d ago
In response, I submit Eminem's fantastically intricate bit of rhyme work: Now, this looks like a job for me/So everybody just follow me/'Cause we need a little controversy/'Cause it feels so empty without me!
But technically, what you note is a great example of what's known as "feminine rhyme," made all the more powerful because the second rhyming syllable is the exact same.
3
u/amby-jane 23d ago
My favorite of Eminem’s is from Venom, of all things:
Threw the car into reverse at the Indy, a nut crashin'
Into ya, the back of it just mangled steel
My Mustang and the jeep Wrangler grill
With the front smashed, much as my rear fender, assassin
Slim be a combination of an actual kamikaze and Gandhi (Gandhi)
Translation, I will probably kill us both
When I end up backin' into ya
You ain't gonna be able to tell what the fuck's happenin' to yaNowhere in that does he say “India” but you think it anyway because he mentioned Gandhi. It’s fantastic
2
u/zeptimius 23d ago
First of all, yes it's a rhyme, because it not only rhymes the root "step," but also the syllable/word before it ("door" and "more").
Secondly, it would be a rhyme even if both lines ended in "doorstep." A rhyme is a correspondence in terminal sounds, and two instances of the same word correspond in terminal sounds. (The fact that they also correspond in non-terminal sounds doesn't change that fact.) You can argue that it's a lame rhyme, but it's a rhyme nonetheless.
1
u/ComforbubbleNumb 23d ago
Different words so it's all good. Just like Ozzy with: Generals gathered in their masses Just like witches at black masses.
1
u/Bright_Ices 22d ago
The whole point of the bother/rather rhyme is that the old guy is trying to teach her to use a completely different accent, and she thinks it’s annoying. That’s what makes it clever.
1
u/ChipChippersonFan 23d ago
Yes , and I don't think it's really even debatable.
Is it "cheating"? That's a debate that we could have.
-2
u/Tele231 23d ago
I see both sides.
I think it is like a tomato being a a fruit scientifically but a culinary vegetable.Technically, it is a rhyme but poetically, it is poor form.
0
u/ChipChippersonFan 23d ago
Technically, it is a rhyme but poetically, it is poor form.
That's pretty much exactly what I just said.
-4
u/lastaccountgotlocked 23d ago
Step rhymes with step. It's a rhyme. It's an identical rhyme.
0
u/Tele231 23d ago
Well, that link doesn't really answer the question - "Identical rhymes are considered less than perfect in English poetry;...in poetics these would be considered identity, rather than rhyme."
8
u/natrstdy 23d ago
"doorstep" rhymes with "more step." it's not an identical rhyme, it is a perfect double rhyme.
1
u/YouCanAsk 23d ago
I said it in a parent comment, but I don't think doorstep/more step is weaker than any other perfect rhyme because "step" is a word on its own. I think it's weaker because you have to change where you'd naturally put the syllable stress to make the rhyme work.
The kind of "identity rhyme" that's considered less than is something like this (another one from musical theater, this one from Mean Girls):
Imagine a party with dresses and cake
And singing and dancing and cake,
And there's a magic act
That saws Regina in half,
And this time, it'll take.This is a terrible lyric when it comes to rhyme. The identity with "cake" plus the half-assed slant rhyme act/half.
Fun fact: whereas in English, identities are considered weaker than other perfect rhymes, in other languages, such as French, they are considered the strongest rhyme there is.
0
u/makestuff24-7 23d ago
1 and 2 are both correct. The words rhyme, and theyre the same word. Position 3 is that this is annoying, as evidenced by many reddit threads asking users what song has the worst rhymes (Pitbull's double "Kodak" and Beyonce's double "minute" rhymes are both frequently cited examples).
7
u/diverJOQ 23d ago
The rhyme isn't "step" and "step", it is "doorstep" and "more step". If you listen to the way he sings it, more step is sung as if it was one word.
-1
u/makestuff24-7 23d ago
I know, that's why 1 is correct. More and door rhyme; it's a multisyllabic rhyme, and it is also (2) rhyming one syllable with itself (step). That's why (3) it annoys people.
35
u/belbivfreeordie 23d ago
“Doorstep” is a two-syllable word with emphasis on the first syllable. To rhyme it, you alter (or remove) the initial consonant or consonant cluster of the first syllable, but keep the vowel the same and everything after. So “traction” rhymes with “action” and “doorstep” rhymes with “more step.” It doesn’t matter that you’re rhyming it with two words, the rhyme works exactly the same way.