Day 14: No Rhyme or Reason

Any given song has dozens of separate elements that (ideally) work together to form a cohesive unit. There are way too many elements for me to go over in a single song, and my lack of musical knowledge would probably prevent me from doing a good job if I were to try. Regardless, my analytical abilities today are much better than they were in the past. When I was a kid, I'm pretty sure the most important factor to me was whether or not a song rhymed.

This is pretty stupid; there are lots of perfectly justifiable reasons for the lines in a song not to rhyme. But there is a reason most songs include rhyming so often. I'm sure there's a more sophisticated way to put it, but the fact is that rhyming sounds good to the human ear. This means that if your audience expects a line to rhyme and it doesn't, they are most likely going to notice. Drawing attention to a specific line can be a really effective source of meaning if used correctly, but if it's pointless then it only serves to detract from the quality of the song.

Today I'm going to show this by evaluating two specific instances in Taylor Swift's songs. One of them, Enchanted, does a very good job of using non-rhyming lines to further it's tone, while the other, Speak Now, is much less effective. I think this a relatively fair comparison; they come from the same album and have a somewhat similar tone overall. Sure, there are differences but it doesn't get much closer than this. I'll start with Speak Now, since there isn't quite as much to say about it.

"I sneak in and see your friends
And her snotty little family, all dressed in pastel
And she is yelling at a bridesmaid
Somewhere back inside a room
Wearing a gown shaped like a pastry"

Why wear a gown shaped like a pastry when it could be shaped like salami?

When an artist makes a decision like this, there's always a tradeoff. Like I said before, this tradeoff can be well worth it if executed properly. So what does Speak Now gain by giving up the rhyme scheme? In this case, what's gained is the rate that information is transmitted to the audience. In other words, she doesn't rhyme so she can say whatever words she wants.

Out of all the reasons to give up rhyming, this is the worst. In theory it could be a good idea, but there are so many examples of songs that can effectively communicate exactly what they mean to the audience while rhyming every line. So what is a good reason to stop rhyming? Let's look at Enchanted.

"Please don't be in love with someone else
Please don't have somebody waiting on you"

These are the last lines in the song. To get a better idea of how they are used, you really need to listen to the whole song. They are used previously, but notably this usage is in repetition. So even though they don't rhyme with each other, each line kinda rhymes with itself, at least enough not to draw attention away from the music. This last usage though breaks the previously set norm and draws attention to them. And by being the last lines, it ends the tone of the song in a very tenuous place. This fits perfectly with the actual content of the lines, where Taylor is pleading with the uncertainty of a newly discovered love interest. She may be enchanted, but she also is aware of how little she knows both about the guy and the relationship as a whole. This, in my opinion, is well worth the little that is lost by choosing not to rhyme.

So yeah, if you're going to have something not rhyme, that's how you do it. There really isn't much else to say about it, so I'm going to leave it there.

See you tomorrow,
-C