More as I think of them, but just to get the ball rolling…
In Terry Allen’s Amarillo Highway…
“I don’t wear no Stetson
But I’m willin’ to bet son
That I’m a big a Texan as you are”
My own favorite is the 1966 Captain America cartoon theme:
“When Captain America throws his mighty shield
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield!
When he’s led to a fight
And a duel is due,
Then the red and the white
And the blue’ll come through
When Captain America throws his mighty shield!”
On the other side, when I was really into country/western in the '80s, all of the near-rhymes in Barbara Mandrell’s “Wish You Were Here” grated on my ear. It rhymed “another” with “summer,” “ocean” with “broken,” “postcard” with “so far,” and “gotta be honest” with “pina coladas.” Painful.
Pete Seeger (and friends) version of Old Time Religion: (use New England accent for the second to final line)
*Let us pray like the Egyptians
Build pyramids to put our crypts in
And fill subways with inscriptions
That’s good enough for me
[Gimme that Old Time Religion… etc]
Let us pray to Zarathustra
Pray just like we used ta
I’m a Zarathustra booster
That’s good enough for me*
I’ve always liked a lot of Roger Waters internal rhymes and alliterations, stung throughout the phrases and not just tacked on to the end of lines. One from Dogs
“And when you lose control, you’ll reap the harvest you have sown.
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone.
And it’s too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw
around.
So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone,
Dragged down by the stone.”
Under “not so clever”, we must, of course, mention Steve Miller’s “Take the Money and Run”:
Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin’ off of the people’s taxes
“…He was the village idiot, and though it was a pity it was so…”
We’re not gonna get better than ‘Venus’ and ‘seen us’ from Europe’s The Final Countdown.
We’re just not.
First you get down on your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect, and
Genuflect! Genuflect! Genuflect!
You can do what steps you want if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff.
Everybody say his own
Kyrie eleison
Doin’ the Vatican Rag.
could have been written by a first grader
Well, I’m hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three
Allan Sherman (to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas):
“I’m Melvin Rose of Texas,
And my friends all call me Tex.
When I lived in old New Mexico,
They used to call me Mex.
When I lived in old Kentucky,
They called me Old Kentuck.
I was born in old Shamokin,
Which is why they called me Melvin Rose.”
“Doc Bruce Banner,
Pelted by gamma rays,
Turned into the Hulk.
Ain’t he unglamor-ous!”
…or unglamorate or unglamo-rays or agglomerate or…
Then there’s the Merry Marvel Marching Society lyrics, but we won’t go there.
“My name is Nine, recognize, remember you’re too tender
To get slick with the number one contender
I flow like diarrhea when I’m droppin’ shit
Mamma mia, ain’t no cure for the pure lyrical gonorrhea”
- Nine, “Ova Confident”
From “Popular”, Galinda’s song in Wicked, written by Stephen Schwartz:
Don’t be offended by my frank analysis
Think of it as personality dialysis
Now that I’ve chosen to be come a pal, a sis-
ter and adviser
There’s nobody wiser
Not when it comes to—
Popular, I know about popular
And with an assist from me to be who you’ll be
Instead of dreary who-you-were, (well, are)
There’s nothing that can stop you from becoming popu-ler… lar
When I see depressing creatures
With unprepossessing features
I remind them on their own behalf
To think of
Celebrated heads of state or
Especially great communicators
Did they have brains or knowledge?
Don’t make me laugh!
They were popular!
Here’s the second verse and chorus of Elvis Costello’s New Amsterdam
I know it’s unfair, but I’m going with Cole Porter
The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry
So to win them all you must quote with ease
Aeschylus and Euripides…
If she says your behavior is heinous
Kick her right in the Coriolanus.
There’s also Noel Coward:
In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire
To tear their clothes off and perspire
It’s one of those rules that the greatest fools obey
Because the sun is much too sultry
And one must avoid its ultra violet ray.
And, of course:
“But Englishmen detest a
Siesta.”
I always liked Fountains of Wayne rhyming “apartment”, “department”, “compartment”, and “heart went”.
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File this under not-so-clever rhymes:
“You keep lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’
You keep losing when you oughta not bet
You keep samin’ when you oughta be a’changin’
What’s right is right but you ain’t been right yet
These boots are made for walkin’
And that’s just what they’ll do,
And one of these day, these boots my friend
Are gonna walk all over you.”
–Nancy Sinatra
The first two that come to mind (there will be more):
“I woke up alarmed”
-Liz Phair
“She said that she was working for the ABC News
it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use”
-Elvis Costello
mmm
Lorenz Hart, the indispensable:
While you love your lover, let
blues skies be your coverlet.
–from “Mountain Greenery”
We’ll go to Greenwich,
Where modern men itch
To be free;
And Bowling Green you’ll see
With me.
We’ll bathe at Brighton
The fish you’ll frighten
When you’re in.
Your bathing suit so thin
Will make the shellfish grin
Fin to fin.
–from “Manhattan”
Thine arms are martial;
Thou hast grace;
My cheek is partial to thy face;
And if they lips grow weary,
Mine are resting place.
–from “Thou Swell”
If using your accent to rhyme counts, then Cibo Mato’s Sci-Fi Wasabi is up there:
“Obi Wan Kenobi
Told me
In the lobby”