How to Get Your Mind on Rhyme
January 25, 2008 · Written by Melissa Donovan
Here’s a little exercise designed to help you get your rhyme on — an especially fun exercise because we get to play with music. I like to call it Catch the Rhyme.
All you need is a song. A good song, rhythmic and rhyme-y, but not with a lot of fancy runs. Go for an old Beatles song, or just about anything from the eighties. Disco could work, if you’re into that kind of thing, but forget about classical music because most of it doesn’t have words, and what we’re doing requires words. We’re writers, right?
You might want to start with a short, simple three-chord pop song. If you can do that, graduate yourself to longer and more complex tunes.
If you know all the lyrics to your song, that will be immensely helpful. If not, Google the song title with the word “lyrics” and you’ll find it in three seconds flat. Take those lyrics, and rewrite them, trying to match as many rhymes in the song as possible, and not just the end rhymes. Your rhymes can be as strict or as loose as you want.
If you do just a few of these, pretty soon rhyming will start to feel more natural, and your rhymes will flow with ease.
Here’s my attempt with the first chorus from 80s one hit wonder 99 Red Balloons by Nena.
The Original Verse
You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we’ve got
Set them free at the break of dawn
Till one by one they were gone
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message: something’s out there
Floating in the summer sky
Ninety-nine red balloons go by
My Attempt to Catch the Rhyme
Shoes untied at a little bus stop
Sigh and whistle a tune ’cause it’s all that you’ve got
Set your feet on the fake green lawn
Tie your shoes and then you yawn
Flash the mace, thugs on the make here
Cash is precious: buy a cold beer
Waiting till the bus comes by
Mighty fine greasy spoon — let’s dine!
Pretty bad, I know, but it’s the best I could do in just a few minutes. Try it for yourself and post a verse or a chorus in the comments! And have a great weekend! Don’t forget to write!
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Right on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, I like to rock.
I tried it on one of my favorite John Farnham songs, “Don’t you know it’s magic”.
Original:
See her at the marketplace
Where she comes from nobody knows
Now that you ask me
I guess I like the way she wears her clothes
The way she smiles at him
My heart just swells it grows and grows
You think I’m telling you fairytales
I suppose
My Version:
Can’t you see her smiling face?
Her hips sway wherever she goes.
Blue eyes sparkling bright
makes you wonder what it is she knows.
She walks right by with a grin
leaves hearts broken in rows and rows.
She’s in every man’s fairytales
to her toes.
And this time with Toby Keith’s, “You shouldn’t kiss me like this”:
Original:
I got a funny feeling
The moment that your lips touched mine
Something shot right through me
My heart skipped a beat in time
There’s a different feel about you tonight
It’s got me thinkin’ lots of crazy things
I even think I saw a flash of light
It felt like electricity
You shouldn’t kiss me like this
Unless you mean it like that
Cause I’ll just close my eyes
And I won’t know where I’m at
We’ll get lost on this dance floor
Spinnin’ around
And around
And around
And around
They’re all watchin’ us now
They think we’re falling in love
They’d never believed we’re just friends
When you kiss me like this
I think you mean it like that
If you do baby kiss me again
My version, “If I could have just one wish”:
My head spins, boy I’m reeling;
maybe its this bottle of wine.
My eyes burn I can’t see;
I’m sure that I’m not feeling fine.
Your skins burning like an amber light;
a fire deep inside me begins.
I wonder when your eyes grew bright
wonder at simplicity.
If I could have just one wish
I’d hold you right where we sat
Never say my goodbyes
it’d be as easy as that.
In your arms like before
our love sound
so sound
so sound
so sound
We’d never have this row
we’d rise high above
in my dreams this never ends
if I had just one wish
we’d stay right where we once sat
What would you baby do with me then?
You really have to listen to the lyrics to get the full affect of these songs and rhymes. I love the opportunity to really listen to music. So often I have it playing in the background but I tune the words out while I work. It makes me forget how truly beautiful the lyrics can be sometimes. I’ll have to make an effort to listen to the words more often.