# Songs with no rhymes
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 23, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624 "2008-01-23T03:37:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/1 "2008-01-23T03:37:38Z")
One my favorite songs recently has been “Killing the Blues” by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. One of the unusual things about this song is its lack of rhyme.
What other songs, in English, don’t use rhyme at all?
---
### Author:  [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/2 "2008-01-23T04:40:37Z")
I think this must depend on the genre of music one listens to, because as I glance at my iPod, I see tons of bands/songwriters who don’t use rhymes in their lyrics. Here’s a random Radiohead verse, for example:
_Just as you take my hand
Just as you write my number down
Just as the drinks arrive
Just as they play your favourite song
As your blather disappears
No longer wound up like a spring
Before you’ve had too much
Come back and focus again…_
ETA: Even more “traditional” songwriters don’t always use rhymes – here’s a random Elvis Costello lyric:
_Take your tiny feet out of your mother’s shoes
Or there is going to be a terrible scene
It’s not just the lipstick drawn on crooked
When they find how wicked we are
How wicked we have been
How I’ve been tempted_
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/3 "2008-01-23T04:49:02Z")
[Frank Mills](http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Hair/Frank-Mills.html), from the musical _Hair_, is a good example of this.
> [@](#):
>
> I met a boy called Frank Mills
> On September twelfth right here
> In front of the Waverly
> But unfortunately
> I lost his address
>
> He was last seen with his friend,
> A drummer, he resembles George Harrison of the Beatles
> But he wears his hair
> Tied in a small bow at the back
The meter’s all screwy too.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/4 "2008-01-23T05:10:15Z")
Several of Sting’s songs don’t rhyme. [Fields of Gold](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/sting/fields+of+gold_20132037.html), for example. Not a rhyme to be found.
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### Author:  [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/5 "2008-01-23T11:27:10Z")
Simon and Garfunkel’s **America** is the first example I think of for song’s featuring free verse.
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/6 "2008-01-23T11:34:12Z")
_Folk Song_, by Bongwater was one of my favorites, although it’s rather dated now from its number early '90s references.
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/7 "2008-01-23T12:41:38Z")
Incubus songs are full of all sorts of non-rhyming goodness.
[QUOTE=Megalomaniac]
Hey megalomaniac
You’re no Jesus
Yeah, you’re no fucking Elvis
Wash your hands clean of yourself
Maniac, step down, step down
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/8 "2008-01-23T12:55:40Z")
_Devil in Jersey City_ by Coheed and Cambria doesn’t really have any rhymes. OK, he follows the line “follow me home” with “fuck me back home,” but that’s really stretching it.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/9 "2008-01-23T13:44:48Z")
Nearly all of [Robert Wyatt’s lyrics](http://www.strongcomet.com/wyatt/lyrics/) for Soft Machine, Matching Mole, and as solo. I don’t think he ever wrote a lyric that rhymed.
For instance (From one version of “Moon in June”; Wyatt changed lyrics every time he sung it):
> [@Robert Wyatt](#):
>
> Living can be lovely, here in New York State
> Ah, but I wish that I were home
> And I wish I were home again - back home again, home again
> There are places and people that I’m so glad to have seen
> Ah, but I miss the trees, and I wish that I were home again
> Back home again
> The sun shines here all summer
> Its nice cause you can get quite brown
> Ah, but I miss the rain - ticky tacky ticky
> And I wish that I were home again - home again, home again…
> Living is easy here in New York State
> Ah, but I wish that I were home again
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### Author:  [@xnylder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xnylder)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/10 "2008-01-23T14:18:24Z")
Perhaps you’d like this little ditty by Oscar Brand, [A Clean Song](http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/216946.html)?
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### Author:  [@Mike\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Fun)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/11 "2008-01-23T14:53:52Z")
Nice Bongwater reference!
sucking and shopping, sucking and shopping, sucking and shopping…
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/12 "2008-01-23T16:21:57Z")
Does “Polka Dot Undies” count?
> [@](#):
>
> Well, I took her out to dinner, but on one thing she was firm:
> She’d swallow almost anything, except for
> Stories that her brother didn’t like birds,
> But hung around leather bars, and liked to eat
> Fish and chips, and he still sucked his thumb.
> I said, “I don’t mind!” And she kissed me on my
> Polka-dot undies!
> My polka-dot undies!
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### Author:  [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/13 "2008-01-23T19:10:22Z")
The Beatles’ “Across the Universe”.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/14 "2008-01-23T20:01:07Z")
Frank Zappa’s “Penis Dimension,” “Dental hygiene Dilemma,” and several other songs in **200 Motels**.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/15 "2008-01-23T20:04:19Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
_Devil in Jersey City_ by Coheed and Cambria doesn’t really have any rhymes. OK, he follows the line “follow me home” with “fuck me back home,” but that’s really stretching it.
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm, the only one I can think of that _does_ rhyme is _The Final Cut_.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/16 "2008-01-23T20:13:38Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri]
[Frank Mills](http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Hair/Frank-Mills.html), from the musical _Hair_, is a good example of this.
[/QUOTE]
Great example. That is an exceptional song, I do believe.
As **gallows fodder** says, pretty much everything Thom Yorke has ever written. [E.g.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-F5L1S7LKU)
> [@](#):
>
> She lives with a broken man
> A cracked polystyrene man
> Who just crumbles and burns
>
> He used to do surgery
> On girls in the eighties
> But gravity always wins
God, that’s a beautiful song. [/aside]
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/17 "2008-01-24T00:59:55Z")
Howard Jones rarely rhymed, and Stevie Wonder sometimes doesn’t rhyme.
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### Author:  [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/18 "2008-01-24T01:15:12Z")
A whole bunch by Bjork. But one of my favorites is “All is Full of Love.”
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### Author:  [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/19 "2008-01-24T01:31:11Z")
Most of Dylan’s “It’s a Hard Rain That’s Gonna Fall” doesn’t rhyme…except the “blue-eyed son/darling young one” part.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-no-rhymes/434624/20 "2008-01-24T01:35:18Z")
A whole bunch of Pearl Jam.
Some Pixies
Some Gang of Four
Some Wire
I’m sure I’m missing a bunch, but I really don’t pay attention to which bands rhyme and which don’t.
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