I’ve been thinking of rhyme lately, and how in popular song it has largely disappeared, or has been so altered as to be unrecognizable. My teenage son shares with me songs by Radiohead and Incubus and other contemporary groups, and for the most part, rhyme is absent. There are exceptions (White Stripes relies heavily on rhyme), but most recent rock lyrics treat rhyme as strictly optional. As for the admittedly small amount of hip‑hop I am exposed to, either the rhymes come quick and easy, rhyming for their own sake and without relationship to the story being told; or they aren’t real rhymes at all, but fudged approximations.

Rhyming in English is tough because the language isn’t well suited to it. Think of “love,” certainly one of the more important words for a songwriter. It has exactly five possible rhymes: “of,” “shove,” “glove,” “dove” and “above.” (With the current use of “gov” as short for governor, I suppose there’s now a sixth.) That’s why you’ve heard so many songs that include, “You’re the one I’m thinking of” or “You were sent from heaven above.” They are there to set up the rhyme.

But “glove” and “shove?” I’m sure there are lyrics using these, but the words don’t exactly lend themselves to high romance. Envy lyric writers in Spanish, Italian or French, languages where appropriate rhymes flow like wine. As the Canadian critic Hugh Kenner observed, “The Romance languages are romantic because love rhymes with heart rhymes with flower. The English language is English because love rhymes with shove and heart rhymes with fart and flower rhymes with power.”

Keeping this in mind, admiration grows for those lyricists who’ve managed to rhyme well and make sense at the same time.

There are two kinds of rhymes: direct and clever. A direct, unfussy rhyme throws the point of the song home like a dart at a bulls‑eye, no matter the genre:

“But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

“When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry.”

If Johnny Cash had fudged that rhyme, or chosen anything less punchy than “die” and “cry,” the song wouldn't have worked. An example of fudging the rhyme comes from last year's Oscar winner for Best Song, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” (that’s the title; don’t blame me):

“But I gotta stay paid, gotta stay above water/Couldn't keep up with my hoes, that's when s*** got harder.”

“Water” rhymes with “daughter” and “slaughter,” among others. You could fudge a little with “hotter” or “potter” by slightly altering the vowel sound. But “water” does not come close to rhyming with “harder.” It’s fudging the rhyme to the extent of making no rhyme at all.

Cole Porter was arguably the cleverest lyricist who ever lived. Examples are far too many to cite. They seem to roll off the tongues of the people who sing them in such a relaxed manner that you miss just exactly how clever they are. Here’s the verse to “I Get a Kick Out of You”:

“My story is much too sad to be told, But practically everything leaves me totally cold.

The only exception I know is the case

When I’m out on a quiet spree

Fighting vainly the old ennui

Then I suddenly turn and see

Your fabulous face.”

Every word at the end of a line gets rhymed, and yet the rhymes are not obvious, nor are they there just for their own sake. And “spree/ennui” is a masterstroke. One of things good rhyming leads you to is a broader vocabulary.

Stephen Sondheim wins hands‑down the award for our cleverest living lyricist. If you don’t believe me, pick up the cast album to any of his musicals and start taking notes. Your pencil will be busy.

As for great lyricists of the direct sort, I’m still looking around. The deflation of rhyme’s importance to pop lyric writers seems to date roughly to the ‘70s. Since then, it’s been increasingly less important to rhyme a line than to infuse it with the character you’re trying to convey. John Lennon, whose songs exampled character and originality, wrote weak rhymes. He seemed to settle for any word that sort of sounded like a rhyme. Sometimes he’d simply use the same word. The end of “Imagine” is an example: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one/I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.” “One” doesn’t rhyme with “one.” A rhyme by definition requires a different word.

But that doesn’t keep “Imagine” from being a great song. Rhyme is just one arrow in the songwriter’s quiver, one that a songwriter doesn’t necessarily have to use. Perhaps it’s better to write of love freely and without rhyme, than to write, say:

“I didn’t offer you a glove,

I offered you my love.

All you gave it was a shove.”