In praise of rhyme

Always sad to note the death of one of your heroes, but in these horrendous times Stephen Sondheim had a good run for his money, and I’d guess was able to do most of what he wanted to do. For me, he was always a model of how to use rhyme, treating it as a complex craft. You had a mentor, you learned the ropes, and you then spent a lot of time, thought and effort to make sure the result was as good as it could be. Sometimes, it was stunning. Writing the lyrics for “West side Story” wasn’t a bad way to announce yourself, and if you look at the uniform quality allied to variety of tone in “Something’s Coming”, “Officer Krupke” and “America” you can see this was always a special talent.

Mind you, he was lucky. He never had the poetry establishment telling him that rhyme was something to grow out of. Popular songs have always been the dirty secret poets should ignore, the reminder that almost every member of the population is walking around humming words in their head, held there by the power of rhyme.

But now it’s the season to be merry, when we sing Christmas carols and the advertisers look for new ways of making us feel guilty unless we spend a huge amount of money immediately to make our loved ones happy. It’s also, God help us, the moment when those same advertisers feel they have to dress up their slogans with rhymes. They don’t know how they work, they’re tone deaf to scansion, but hey it’s Christmas, so it rhymes. I’ve just listened to three in less than a quarter of an hour, and they were all appalling. Even though he’s hardly had time to settle in, Sondheim must be spinning in his grave.