Rhyming the Words

There are many different styles when you are rhyming words that you wish to become song lyrics. There are also songs that do not rhyme at all, but the music composed to the lyrics make those songs sound like they fit. There’s a plethora of opinions out there from artists (and others) who think a certain way about what line should rhyme with what and where. But I will let you in on a little secret. There is no correct way—there’s only your way. I may get skewered for saying that, but I feel it’s true. Yes, songs sound good when the lines rhyme together. However, there are a lot of songs that don’t, and they sound great. For the purposes of this blog I’ll talk about how to rhyme and why it’s so prevalent in music.

When writing lyrics to a song there are so many choices for subject matter. You can literally write about anything. I find the best way to write is to create the lyrics or poem first, then add the music. This is what we do for our clients at YourSongmaker. They send us the words and we create the music any way they want. Often times I or another producer will go over the song lyrics and edit them to make sure the words rhyme together at specific parts of the song. Usually it’s the word at the end of the verse line, rhyming with the end word of the next verse line. Sometimes it’s every other line. Both are correct and either way works. It just depends on your writing style.

For example, if someone sent in a poem where a line stated;

The sky is ours my love, it’s beautiful like you.

To create a rhyming lyric line, you would rhyme with “you”.

So, it may be something like this;

The sky is ours my love, it’s beautiful like you.
We have forever with each other, I’ll be true.

Also, there’s a technique where you can rhyme multiple words in each line;

The sky is blue and my love for you is true.
We have forever together, we’ll see this through.

As you can see there are three words that rhyme in the first line, two (right next to each other) in the next line with the last word rhyming with the top three words. It brings it all together. It’s not hard to do. What I hear most people (who are new to lyric writing) find hard is making the words fit together to describe what’s going on in the story or the message they are trying to convey to the listener.

Rhyming can get cheesy if you aren’t careful. Where some lyricists falter, is rhyming words just to rhyme. In other words, be cautious about what the line is actually saying. Don’t just write something that doesn’t make sense because the words rhyme well together. You need to really think about what you are trying to convey with the words you are using. It can make or break the lyrics to your song.