Entry 3 – Lyrics Part 1

Robyn’s lecture⁴ highlighted an interesting technique that inspired my musical listening for this week – internal rhymes. I found a lyricist named Daniel Dumile that employs this technique masterfully, poring through multiple songs he wrote under the name Madvillian to gain a further appreciation for utilising internal rhymes. Here is an example from the song “Figaro”⁵:

Do not stand still, boast yo’ skills

Close but no krills, toast for po’ nils, post no bills

Coast to coast Joe Shmoe’s flows ill, go chill

Not supposed to overdose No-Doz pills

While I am not generally writing in a hip hop style, I still found it beneficial to see how he manipulates language to create his rhyme scheme – I’m especially fond of how he arrives at the unique phrasing “po’ nils” to mean “poor zeroes”, i.e. a no-hoper.

As a result, I constructed some of the lyrics of one of my songs to have a stronger internal rhyme scheme in order to make it flow better, with this being the outcome:

Oh no, she’s a deliberating girl

now that you want her you’ll see

try to be strong and abscond from her

know that you’ll never be free

The words ‘want’, ‘strong’, and ‘abscond’ form a notable internal rhyme scheme that I’m quite happy with.

4 Habel, Robyn. “Lyrics – Part 1”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1A, University of Adelaide, March 25, 2019.

5 Madvillain. “Figaro.” Madvillainy. By Daniel Dumile and Otis Jackson, Jr. Produced by Madlib. 23 March 2004.