Seriously, how many rhyme “Good” and “God”, or sometimes “Blood”. And that’s just the tip of the holy iceberg.
I’m the assisting minister at our church, so sometimes I’m walking next to the senior pastor as we’re singing. And he allllmost cracks up every time I sing those lines so they rhyme (so after “blood”, I sing “gud”… just loud enough for it to annoy him.
I prefer near/slant rhyme to true rhymes myself. (Not to be contrarian—I just think they usually sound better, more so in poetry than song lyrics, where I can tolerate perfect rhyme more,) I’m sure this one will come up as one of the worst, but it’s one of my favorite identity rhymes, playing on two meanings of “mass”: “Generals gathered in their masses/just like witches at black masses.” (“War Pigs,” by Black Sabbath, of course,) That is just killer.
As for rhymes I truly hate: almost any song that rhymes “love” with “above” or “glove.” The laziest, tritest, most uninteresting rhyme there is.
It’s a close call, but I can tolerate fire/desire more. Jimi made it work well enough in “Let Me Stand Next to your Fire,” so it’s got that going for it. I’m sure I can think of “love”/“above” exceptions, but if you hit the trifecta and add “glove,” yer out.
One of the more clicheed ones rhymes that I’ll have to put Pere Ubu’s feet to the fire again, in the otherwise serviceable “Waiting For Mary” - I’m down on my knees, I’m begging you please.
No, that would be rhyming “school” with “golden rule”. Is there a single song in the history of man that doesn’t use that? Sure, you can rhyme “fool”, but “golden rule” has to be used first.