Not to forget the Modern Major General
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse
etc.etc.etc.
While we’re quoting Cole Porter, I’ve always liked:
“Mr. Harris, plutocrat
Wants to give my cheek a pat
If the Harris Pat
Means a Paris Hat,
Bebe!”
Lorenz Hart pulled a few good ones too:
“Sir Paul was frail; He looked a wreck to me
At night he was a horse’s neck to me
So I performed an appendectomy
To Keep my Love Alive”
I was going to mention Lehrer and Flander & Swann, too. Just great. More F&S:
“That hippopatamus was no ignoramus.”
And, of course:
“'Mud, Mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow
In glorious mud”
Now, Neil Innes:
“Some people say it with flowers,
Some people say it at Lloyds,
But you don’t find many tryin’ to say it with humanoids.”
Irving Berlin:
“My uncle out in Texas can’t even write his name.
He signs his checks with “x’s”
But they cash them just the same.”
Ira Gershwin:
“The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No they can’t take that away from me.”
Johnny Mercer (pick any):
Hooray for Hollywood
They hire fellas whose physiques are good
And then they tell them they’re the perfect shape me
To act like apemen
And they convince them they should
They make them grunt and yell
And people think they’re swell
Hooray for Hollywood
Monty Python, anyone?
*In war we’re tough and able,
Quite indefatigable,
Between our quests, we sequin vests, and impersonate Clark Gable.
It’s a busy life in Camelot,
I have to push the pram a lot.*
or, some philosophy, perhaps?
*Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table*
Stephin Merritt, of the band The Magnetic Fields, is by far the heir to Porter’s legacy. Like Porter, he knocks out some absolutely jaw-dropping forced and fudged rhymes when the real thing won’t do. 
*On the ferris wheel
looking out on Coney Island
Under more stars than
there are prostitutes in Thailand
Our hair in the air,
our lips blue from cotton candy
When we kiss it feels
like a flying saucer landing *
One of my favorites, from “Strange Powers.”
there is no sun except the one
that never shone on other guys
The moon to whom the poets croon
has given up and died
Astronomy will have to be revised
Or I could make a career of being blue
I could dress in black and read Camus
smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth
like I was 17
that would be a scream
but I don’t want to get over you*
A pretty boy in his underwear
If there’s a better reason
to jump for joy
who cares?
*My Mama said gently,
you can buy her a Bentley,
but my child she’ll only drive it away
I didn’t listen
cause my brain was missing
and I only found it today *
*Acoustic guitar,
if you think I play hard
well, you could have belonged
to Steve Earle
or Charo or Gwar
I could sell you tomorrow
so bring me back my girl *
I met Ferdinand de Saussure
on a night like this
On love he said “I’m not so sure
I even know what it is”
It’s very small and made of glass
and grossly overadvertised
It turns a genius to an ass
and makes a fool think he is wise
It could make you regret your birth
or turn cartwheels in your best suit
It costs a lot more than it’s worth
and yet there is no substitute
In an old Silverline
I was yours, you were mine
I was hoarse, you were mean
We designed drum machines
They made sounds much like drums
I was young you were dumb
Now you’re older and I’m wiser
We design synthesizers
Heather, Heather
we belong together
like sex and violence;
like death and silence.
Aw dude, I was working up a Stephin Merritt post. You just wasted like 20 minutes of my time!
While I have nothing bad to say about Cole Porter or Tom Lehrer, I’d like to humbly submit the first eight lines from the song “Your Ex-Lover is Dead,” by Canadian band Stars, as the most arresting couplets to open an album in quite some time:
*God, that was strange to see you again,
Introduced by a friend of a friend;
Smiled and said “Yes, I think we’ve met before.”
In that instant it started to pour;
Captured a taxi, despite all the rain,
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of that time you thought I was sad,
I was trying to remember your name.
*
I love that the last two lines don’t rhyme - thus drawing attention to the little ironic “twist” at the end.
available light found a quirky, cool song called “We Both Go Down Together” by The Decemberists. The best line is, “Meet me on my vast veranda / My sweet, untouched Miranda”.
some other favorites:
Mike Doughty, “I Hear The Bells”
You snooze, you lose
Well I have snost and lost
I’m pushing through
I’ll disregard the cost
Tom Waits, “Hoist That Rag”, from Real Gone
*The sun is up, the world is flat
Damn good address for a rat
The smell of blood, the drone of flies
You know what to do if the baby cries
Well we stick our fingers in the ground
Heave and turn the world around
Smoke is blacking out the sun
At night I pray and clean my gun
So just open fire when you hit the shore
All is fair in love and war*
Tom Waits, “Make It Rain”
really, the whole song is awesome, but i love these lines:
*I’m not Able
I’m just Cain
Open up the heavens
Make it rain
I’m close to heaven
Crushed at the gate
They sharpen their knives
On my mistakes*
The late, great Joey Ramone:
Now I guess I gotta tell 'em
That I got no cerebellum.
Lobotomy {But of course}
Not that anyone’s going to be reading this far down, but I’ve always been quite fond of Franklin Bruno’s lyrics and rhyme schemes (his singing, well, not so much). As an example, from “I Blame You” comes this:
“See, it didn’t occur to my heart to infer
That these obstacles were insurmountable.
Your embrace was so cold; still, I bought all you sold.
Now I’m hell-bent to hold you accountable.”
shortly followed by:
“And I smoke like a fiend- I’ve been dunned and demeaned
By this finely machined amour fou.
You were yin to my yang, you were sturm to my drang;
But they tell me to tango takes two.”
The Decemberists have some great lyrics. Though it’s not a couplet, one of my favorite rhymes of theirs is in the song “Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect,” when lyricist Colin Meloy rhymes “Birkenau” with “lay my rifle down.”
Every time I hear “We Both Go Down Together,” I wonder if it’s loosely based on Matthew Arnold’s poem Dover Beach.
Heh, I had the same thought, although I only half-remembered the poem from 11th grade English, and that was quite a while ago.
I loaded up their furniture and took it to Spokane
And auctioned off every last naugahyde divan.
Also Warren Zevon, Mr. Bad Example.
My favorite Sondheim rhyme is from his earliest music/lyrics outing, Saturday Night, in an ode describing Brooklyn:
There’s a friendly golf course with greens,
And a friendly hash house with beans.
There’s a friendly clink whence
Come juvenile delinquents,
But they were born in Queens.
Cole Porter strikes back with:
“I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses.”
TKO, Porter.
And, for the coup de grace, let me introdue W. S. Gilbert:
“I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news ?
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I’m very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.”
“Three little maids who, all unwary,
Come from a ladies’ seminary,
Freed from its genius tutelary–
Three little maids from school!”
“My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time–
To let the punishment fit the crime–
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!”
And finally:
“When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo’d by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire – the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles – you feel like mixed pickles – so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you’re hot, and you’re cross, and you tumble and toss till there’s nothing ‘twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick ’em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!”
(I’d post the entire song – it’s out of copyright – but that’s just be overkill.)
I’m as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer.
Better still, how about Lehrer parodying Cole Porter:
I’ve just remembered another one. While not in the same linguistic league, I do think the lyrics of COmmon People by Pulp, which IMO is the Greatest Pop Song Ever Written, are very clever indeed:
It brings a lump to my throat whenever I hear it.
That’s Lehrer parodying W. S. Gilbert. He parodied Porter earlier in the song.
Oh yes. Oops.