Two pages and nobody’s mentioned America’s “A Horse with No Name” for worst rhymes (not to mention worst lyrics)??
I mean:
"There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain"
Things and rings would be clichéd – if it made any sense in this context.
Name, rain, name, pain? Please!
I just spent twenty minutes looking up Flanders and Swann lyrics. I’ve always particularly liked their version of Greensleeves. The lyrics are here but it’s much better when it’s read aloud. I’ve been reading their songs to my cats. They seem to like The Reluctant Cannibal best.
He rewrote this part because he didn’t want to sing about his “old man”, but he didn’t even try to make it rhyme!
Notwithstanding that this particular song doesn’t make a whole lot of sense out of the context of its time, meaning pretty much any remake would be unnecessary, but couldn’t we at least make it rhyme?
Maybe he thought that since “man” and “slam” were an almost-rhyme, it would be better to have a totally-non-rhyme instead. But I doubt it. He probably just used the first thing that came to his head.
