My pet peeve is awkward or forced rhyming schemes in songs. And rhyming one word with the same damn word again. That's not really a rhyme, to me.
I loathe how Nickelback must make exact ABAB rhyming schemes, with lines that scan exactly.
I could not freakin' stand that awful Kid Rock song which took one of my personal faves, Werewolves of London and ruined it. But he then had to rhyme THINGS with THINGS in the chorus. Duh - not imaginative, dude.
So how is it that I barely wince when Neil writes,
"The finger of blame has turned upon itself
And I'm more than willing to offer myself"
If anybody else tried to rhyme SELF with SELF I would be really irked.
But Fall at Your Feet is a wonderful song, which moves me greatly and I don't care much at all if this is a bad rhyme.
What is it for you that Neil (or Tim) can get away with, but which you would put up with from no other?

I'm pretty lenient with rhymes. The only thing that bothers me in that area is when some really awkward effort is made to make a rhyme, using some word that's a bad fit for sense.

If the word works for the sense and overall sound, I'm okay if it's not technically a rhyme.

But Neil's pretty good with whatever he tries to pull off. It's not so much I'd forgive him more as it's never come to that.

What about Private Universe, Beajai?

I love that song but I don't know if it is the repeated word or the fact that the word just sounds incongruence to me in that song, Hmm...(It starts with 'L' by the way...).

Hackneyed old lyrics which should be banned from any further use:

Rhyming "baby" with "don't mean maybe"
Rhyming "higher" with "fire" and/or "desire"

A couple of lines from Nails in My Feet always bugged me:

"Total surrender/Your touch is so tender"
(Love the rest of the song)

...And these ones from Either Side of the World:

"When you're in love/The world loves with you"
(Pass the corn)

I never thought of that as rhyming, I thought of it as kinda repeating the self thing you know?

Certified organic genius and Lizard King Jim Morrison rhymed fire with fire.

Nah, I'm crazy about Private Universe! And Nails in My Feet
My whole point is that St Neil can get away with all of this and more.
I am shamelessly biased.

I see your point about baby and maybe, BTTM. YAWN!
I can't stand love and above being rhymed. It's always forced and twee and awful, and there should be a law against it....
Unless, of course if Neil did it!

quote:

Originally posted by Byrds Talk to Me:
Certified organic genius and Lizard King Jim Morrison rhymed fire with fire.

See now, Morrison delivers it in such a way that it just sounds like repetition.
But that Kid Rock tool phrases his like they're supposed to be rhyming words.

I don't know about forgiving, but the grammarian in me wants to edit the English lyrics to "Together Alone."

The official words are:
"Together alone
above and beneath
we were as close
as anyone can be"

Now how difficult would it have been to do a bit of editing and say, "we were as close as any two could be"? Not difficult, I assure you!

quote:

Originally posted by aikakone:
I don't know about forgiving, but the grammarian in me wants to edit the English lyrics to "Together Alone."

The official words are:
"Together alone
above and beneath
we were as close
as anyone can be"

Now how difficult would it have been to do a bit of editing and say, "we were as close as any two could be"? Not difficult, I assure you!

LOL! My wife has always said this same thing. I personally never had a problem with it. I'm going to have to share this post with her.

The reason would be poetic license...

"We were as close as anyone be" just rolls of the tongue/sounds better.

The gramatically correct version just sounds awkward. And Neil has said that he feels the sound of words is almost more important than the meaning.

I would have written it the same way for the same reason.

I must respectfully disagree, H-F, I think it rolls just as well after you have sung it a few times.
We ironic grammarians like to say, "Avoid the inconsistent number. They're a bad mistake to make!"

I still think the words "as any two could be" don't sound as good as "as anyone can be".

There's more to consider than whether it works with the meter, and I'm not referring to how hard or easy the words are to say. I think it's the softer flow of the words or something....it seems to fit the atmosphere of the song better. I've never really thought about what specifically makes one word sound better than another before. Forget for a moment what the words mean and just think about how they sound.

That's (partly) what poetic license if for

The tree from Neil's childhood referred to in Private Universe was actually a cherry tree, but apple tree just sounded better. Both fit the meter, both were easy to say, one just sounded better.

If it were an essay, I'd be on your bandwagon, but sometimes in songwriting you need to bend the rules for the greater good of the song.

Unless you're the guy who leads the songwriter's circle I participate in, but that's a whole other thread...

You shouldn't analyse song lyrics, you can't possibly guess what the author was saying. But here goes anyway....I think there's far more being said in 'Together Alone' than first appears.

The title itself, for example. If you're alone there's just you there, but if you're together that implies two people. Can two people ever be alone when they have the other one there?

The song then reflects how two can be one and one can be two. Is he talking about two people together or is it one person and the two sides of their personality?

"We were as close as anyone can be" - could be two people, could be one (you can't get closer). Hence use of "anyone".

"Now you are gone far away from me" - the other person has gone, or could be a mood has changed and departed.

"As is once will always be together alone" - clever use of 'once'. Implies 'one' that is now how it used to be, alone.

"holding our breath" - two people, or just one?

"I'm still your friend when you are in need" - two people, or the one side of a person offering help to the dark side of the same person?

So there you are. Just my ideas on this song but I think it shows you can't assume anything is grammatically incorrect without knowing what it is actually about. Like all the best songs, Neil's are completely open to interpretation.

i'm with HF on this one!

Nice analysis, Sad Claude. With Neil it could even be exactly that. I just suspect in many other songwriters it's a bunch of words thrown together without the forethought or the art.

And yes, my grammar pet peeve is number agreement. Some people hate split infinitives. I had a professor who was that way. Mine is number, especially as it appears in songs to try to make them so vague as to apply to men or women.

I'm sorry, I don't have a good example just now. Perhaps I blocked them out. But hearing that in many people doesn't help me appreciate their art because as I've already typed, I suspect it's not an artistic choice. Or if it is, it's a rather dumb one.


Oh, and Beajai, from your original post, perhaps you allow the two self rhymes because they are different words since self is just a part of the rhyme, as -tion would be in "nation" and "friction".

We were as close as any one can be......as close as any union as one. Hmmmm.

quote:

Originally posted by aikakone:
Oh, and Beajai, from your original post, perhaps you allow the two self rhymes because they are different words since self is just a part of the rhyme, as -tion would be in "nation" and "friction".

No, I really wouldn't like it if anybody else did it. I've cringed over lesser rhyming offences. But my love for Neil's songwriting is just unconditional.

Well on syntax, even though "there's closets in my head" sounds right and people would use that contraction in conversational speech, given that it IS a contraction of "there IS", it always gives me a mild case of "does not compute" when I hear it... "there is closets in my head"????

But the bigger point is that Neil and Timbo both seem to have a wonderful sense of poetry. Some words / phrases they choose just sound so right or capture the imagination...

vanished
frightened
broke off the logic of life
lie like Ophelia
eskimoes in summer clothes
like a cumulo nimbis (this one sounds a little too clever sometimes, depending on my mood)
ALL of the verses of Straight Talk
radio band of gold
sunlight halo...you look wonderful
protect and prevail

quote:

Originally posted by Byrds Talk to Me:
Hackneyed old lyrics which should be banned from any further use:

Rhyming "baby" with "don't mean maybe"
Rhyming "higher" with "fire" and/or "desire"

A couple of lines from Nails in My Feet always bugged me:
"Total surrender/Your touch is so tender"
(Love the rest of the song)

...And these ones from Either Side of the World:

"When you're in love/The world loves with you"
(Pass the corn)

Exactly! I've raised that one before. I've always had strong reservations about that side of Neil's song-writing but as many regard it as part of the package it becomes difficult to discuss. I think I prefer Tim's lyrics.