The Dramatist
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When you’re writing lyrics, how important is finding the perfect rhyme? 48 | The Dramatist pp48-67 Feature E&F.indd 48 11/7/18 9:12 PM Masi Asare CHICAGO, IL used to be a rhyming purist, but I have to say my approach has evolved over the years. I do believe (as the purists do) that sometimes a less-than- of the same impact as a rhyme in binding a song to- true rhyme can be symptomatic of a certain kind gether and making it easily decipherable to the ear. of laziness in the writing. In that sense it can be I think overall, these days I simply don’t view Isimilar to how I feel about cursing in lyrics, or us- the rhyme as the jewel of the lyric. I actually often ing the word “love,” you can always find something use very simple, one-syllable rhymes, because what more specific if you just put more time in. On the is sparkly to me is the starkness of the character’s other hand, sometimes the cleverness of the rhym- emotion, or the imagery she has to use to convey ing can get in the way of the character. You can her point...and that matters to me more than the end up establishing your own character as a clever rhyme. lyricist and not the specifics of the character who is using those words on the current of the song. I MASI ASARE is a composer, lyricist, and playwright. Shows include also think it depends on the terms and rules of your Sympathy Jones (music/lyrics/concept), The Family Resem- show. If everyone in the show sings in true rhymes, blance (book/music/lyrics), in development with Playwrights then a character who rhymes less, or who eschews Horizons, and the Broadway bound Monsoon Wedding (lyrics). true rhymes—well, that says something about the Awards: Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award, Georgia Bogardus Holof Lyricist Award, Paulette Haupt Composition Prize. PhD, NYU character. Tisch. She is an assistant professor in the Music Theatre program at In today’s context, sometimes a lyric laden with Northwestern University. true rhymes can seem a bit pretentious. Someone who can get her point across with rhymes that land a little more obliquely...well, that says something about who she is and how she understands her Kat Eggleston world. Maybe she lives closer to the ground, may- be she comes from a working-class background, VASHON, WA maybe she is kind of stoic and reserved and has a hard time saying what she really means. Or, maybe love a perfect rhyme, but she lives more in a pop or folk music world...and I also love the imper- as a composer/lyricist I also think very specifically fect ones and implied about musical style as a function of character. rhymes, along with So ultimately, I think the use of rhymes (true other kinds of word- or not) is a character choice. Some characters I play; it’s always seemed write rarely rhyme at all, as in the case of the West I more important to pair African grandmother in my musical The Family the music of the language Resemblance. Her oratory is not overly dependent itself to the musical struc- on rhyme. For my work as a lyricist on the musical ture that carries it. With that adaptation of the film Monsoon Wedding, I began by approach, a half-rhyme can work reading a book on Urdu poetry, which often uses beautifully if it falls in the middle of intricate two-syllable rhymes, but also carefully a verse or on a descending melodic line. I like to placed repetition. Repeated words can have some November/December 2018 | 49 pp48-67 Feature E&F.indd 49 11/7/18 9:12 PM look at the pairing of lyric and melody as if it were part of a natural conversation, in the sense that a Shelia Payton spoken exchange contains rhythm and the rise and fall of speech; this works in constructing songs MILWAUKEE, WI outside of a theatrical context but is particularly important when combined with stage action. hile I do pay attention to and I wrote a play with music called The Cyclone search for good rhymes, the most Line, set partly in the Oklahoma dustbowl. There’s important thing for me is whether a song in it where a small boy describes what rain the words work for the story/narra- looks like, to other kids who’ve never seen it be- tive. This applies whether I’m writ- fore. True story. It was a difficult and wonderful Wing lyrics for a love or social commentary song, or task trying to put that scene in words, and part of lyrics that will be part of a theatrical work. what I tried to do was to match the music What moves me when I hear a song with the feel of a soft rain. The first two is how it touches my heart and/ verses have more ‘perfect’ rhymes or speaks to my mind. It than the third one, and by the time could be (in part) because that last verse came around I felt the musical soundtracks I that a pattern had been estab- grew up with came from lished and I could play with the the 50s and 60s. But I words a little. The finished piece think it’s based more on seemed to do the trick. I’ve [in- examples I’ve seen over dicated] the internal and external time of the ways music rhymes here to show where they fall: (and the arts in general) can make us more aware of Every week, someone else gone. our common humanity; and the Every week we pass a farm, impact this recognition can have on All their possessions all out for auction on what had our lives and on the lives of others. once been the lawn. Here is an example (chorus and bridge) from a And the dust can ride on a sunbeam. copyrighted song my musical partner (Maurice Cot- It piggybacks on every breeze. ton) and I wrote titled “Too Many Young Men Gone.” It’s lighter than thought, but it crushes the crops And fills the air that we breathe. Chorus Maybe I’ll tell my grandkids Young men dying needlessly Someday – if I get old – in a world blind to their humanity. How all the kid’s eyes opened up real wide at the tall tales To save them we must see I told That there’re too many young men gone. About rain. Bridge Stand under it as it comes down Each time a young man dies the whole nation is harmed With your head tilted up, your eyes squinted shut, by the loss of true potential that will never fully dawn. Tasting the drops on your tongue. He might have been a teacher who turned young lives around, KAT EGGLESTON is a singer, guitarist, songwriter and actor who has recorded, taught, and performed internationally for more than a craftsman, gadget geek, civic leader—someone of re- thirty years. Her latest project, The Cyclone Line, is an original nown. play with music: the story of her father as an old man recalling his childhood in the dustbowl. SHELIA PAYTON is an author, playwright, lyricist and libret-tist living in Milwaukee, WI. Musical credits include lyrics for R&B and faith-based songs, an upcoming social justice concept album, and a libretto for an African/African American-themed opera: Black 50 | The Dramatist Caesar, scored by Neal Tate, the first African American music director on Broadway. pp48-67 Feature E&F.indd 50 11/7/18 9:12 PM plays. I just wrote this couplet for Hadestown: “I knew you before we met / And I don’t even know you yet.” That one had to be perfect because it is about this cosmic union. But in general, I prefer the four chord to the five chord, I love to dwell in a suspended, emotional, complicated world musi- cally, and I feel the same with language. The last thing I’ll say is—and I say this as a constant reminder to myself as well as an offering for other writers—for a long time I had a “note to self” above my desk that said this: “wordplay is not the same thing as poetry.” Because it’s easy to get so caught up in the cleverness and the left-brain Anaïs Mitchell side of writing that we lose sight of this. I try hard to stay in touch with—if a line gives me shivers, if BROOKLYN, NY a line gives me tears—there’s poetry there. And the soul is hungrier for that, than for any display of technical skill. ANAÏS MITCHELL is a performing singer-songwriter who comes ’m new to the theater and have spent most of from the world of narrative folksong and balladry. Her musical my life in the indie folk/rock music world and theatre show Hadestown enjoyed record-breaking runs at New York Theatre Workshop and Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre. The show traditional balladry, where I find none of the ob- moved to London’s National Theatre in 2018, before its session with perfect rhymes that music theater anticipated transfer to Broadway in 2019. folks seems to have! So I’m thrilled to write in Ipraise of slant rhymes, which, when they are used artfully (and not lazily) I often find more “perfect” than perfect rhymes. Here’s a stanza I never ended Sandra up using, but I always loved the sound of these slants: “How he moved among the lambs / Iodine Hodge- was on his hands / How his breath was white and warm / Winter was inside the barn.” Hamp- The sound of words is everything to me (along- side meaning and image).