# singing songs wtihout rhymes

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-songs-wtihout-rhymes/25786
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 17, 2000, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-songs-wtihout-rhymes/25786 "2000-07-17T02:03:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2000, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-songs-wtihout-rhymes/25786/1 "2000-07-17T02:03:42Z")

</div>

There are other threads in the Great Debates about rhyming and poetry. This thread is about famous songs with extended stretches of non-rhyming verses. It could be spoken word poetry (no william Shatner, please), narrative-type pieces, or stream-of-counciousness pieces. Two famous ones that comes to mind are “Peter and the Wolf” by Prokofiev and “All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crow. My favorite is “Funk That”, by Sadat X. Do you have any favorites?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2000, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-songs-wtihout-rhymes/25786/2 "2000-07-17T14:56:43Z")

</div>

Most of Soft Machine’s lyrics were unrhymed. About the only rhyme in “Moon in June” (19 minutes of it) is it’s title. One particular lyric from Soft Machine Vol. 2 (don’t recall the song name) goes:

There’s also “Frank Mills” from HAIR

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Gilligan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Gilligan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gilligan)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2000, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-songs-wtihout-rhymes/25786/3 "2000-07-17T20:59:19Z")

</div>

Well, there’s Aaron Copland’s _Lincoln Portrait_, but I prefer Peter Schikele’s _Bach Portrait_, which is a great take-off on it.

Jethro Tull’s _Passion Play_ has a prose story read in the middle of it. “The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2000, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-songs-wtihout-rhymes/25786/4 "2000-07-18T14:55:08Z")

</div>

Many Pearl Jam songs do not rhyme – far too many of them to list here, in fact.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2000, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-songs-wtihout-rhymes/25786/5 "2000-07-19T22:56:07Z")

</div>

From Monty Python:

“Many times, we’re given rhymes,  
that are quite un-sing-able”