CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SPOTLIGHTING WITH COMMON METER

Don't be depressed because people are nodding off during your best song, their eyes crossing, their faces drooping inexorably toward the tabletops at your best lines. Don't bother spending big bucks on an exotic vacation pilgrimage to find “inspiration” again. Before you call your travel agent, try a little juggling. It could be a simple case of dull, lifeless lyric structure, and a little excitement might be all you need to put your ideas in a nice, bright spotlight.

Let's start with a common meter structure and see if we can get your listeners' faces off the table:

Both the rhyme and the rhythm move in an abab (alternating) structure, giving double power to our expectations, and making the expected fourth line resolve completely, though a bit dully.

But just because you expect something to happen doesn't mean it has to happen. Expectations can be used to make structures more interesting. A surprise can add color and interest to your songs. First, let your listeners expect something, then surprise them with something different.

EXERCISE 17

Okay, let's start with something we've seen already. Remember the bridge from Paul Simon's “Still Crazy After All These Years” with the shortened fourth line? Let's try that same trick here:

This throws us off balance. We wonder what the vibe is, but it doesn't seem all that promising, given the feeling of instability the shortened line creates.

Do the same thing to your section of common meter.

Now let's make another easy move: Extend line four by another strong stress (including an unstressed syllable). I've added the extra stressed syllable inside the line to keep the end line rhyming with line two:

Do the same thing to yours.

Extending the last line creates a surprise — a deceptive rhythmic closure. Your listeners were innocently expecting a three-stress line rhyming with line two.

You've turned spotlights on both the third and the fourth stressed syllables of line four — the third because it doesn't rhyme with the third stressed syllable of line two, where you expected the rhyme, and at the fourth stressed syllable because it's sticking out of the end where it wasn't expected to be:

The spotlighted positions exaggerate the innuendo in her question. What a simple technique. All it takes is an extra two syllables inserted inside the line, one unstressed and one stressed. You can do it anytime you want. Uncross your listeners' eyes.

You could stop here and have a more interesting structure, but let's keep this effect and try something more.

Let's take what we have so far and rhyme line four with lines one and three instead of line two:

Now we've added a surprise. Let's call it a deceptive closure in this case because it fools us. We expected something else.

The fourth-line rhyme fools us and the spotlights blaze on. Plus there's a little more to see here, since the language is suddenly very specific. And once again, you can do this simple spotlighting maneuver any time you pick up your rhyming dictionary. By the way, this structure leaves the end line sound of line two lingering in the ear; this is discussed more in chapter nineteen, “Understanding Motion.”

So far you've juggled phrase length and rhyme scheme. Again, you could stop here and have a more interesting structure, but you can make it even more exciting.

Let's add another line to what we already have. Make the additional line a four-stress line that rhymes with lines one, three, and four:

Now we've added another kind of surprise. Let's call it unexpected closure because it came out of the blue. It's not like being fooled, where we expected something else (deceptive closure). Here, we had no expectations at all. Pretty neat, huh?

Your listeners are sitting up straighter, paying close attention to the stuff in spotlights:

But the added line seems a little thin for all those spotlights. Told and I are in stressed positions, yet they don't really deliver much. If this line were in an ordinary position, it wouldn't make much difference, but we've set up the line specifically to get extra attention, so something important should go there. Maybe even the title. When you turn on spotlights, use them:

Better. Some drama for the spotlights. I don't mind the rhymes — almost perfect, so they keep the ear on track, despite the tomfoolery with structure.

Once more, we could stop here and have a more interesting structure. But let's see what happens if we add even more.

Let's add yet another line to what we already have. Make it a four- stress line, and rhyme it with lines one, three, four, and five. Add it inside the structure if you want to. Don't look ahead until you've done yours.

I got:

Pretty interesting, huh? We're able to sustain all these lines, building pressure and excitement with each step without losing momentum. All this just because we're expecting a rhyme for bite.

Let's take one more step. Since your listeners (now giving you complete attention bordering on adoration) have been expecting a rhyme for bite all along, let's see what will happen if, in the blaze of all these spotlights, you actually produce it. Finish your section with a three-stress line, rhyming it with line two. Use your rhyming dictionary and find either perfect rhymes or family rhymes. Since you have to pick up a sound five lines earlier, the rhyme has to be as near as possible to perfect. That's also why you'll want to match the rhythm of the three-stress line.

Here's my final result:

All of the extra lines are lit up. Your listeners are wide awake.

As you might have guessed, the final line could have been delivered anywhere in the earlier versions, resulting in any of these structures:

EXERCISE 18

XAXA RHYME SCHEME

All of these same moves are available if you start with the other form of common meter, xaxa, which doesn't rhyme the first and third lines.

Revise your piece of common meter so lines one and three don't rhyme, and manipulate yours as I manipulate mine:

*x stands for any unrhymed line

The structure is slightly more relaxed, but, as you will see, the same surprises are possible:

Our old friend, the additional stressed syllable. Now, rhyme lines three and four instead of two and four:

Only the last two lines rhyme, again turning on spotlights, but this time the rhyme comes out of nowhere, so the structure is as surprising (unexpected closure) as her petticoats. In the full abab, her petticoats fool us. In the looser structure, they surprise us — a subtle but interesting difference.

Now the rest of the added lines are the same as the ones from our original abab exercise:

Either version of common meter can create interesting structure. The more interesting your structure is, the more visible those wonderful ideas are. The more visible the ideas are, the stronger the interest from your listeners will be: heads up, eyes uncrossed, lives transformed.

Okay, so my last line, a phantom in the night, is pretty cheesy, and the cheese really, really shows up in this heavily spotlighted position. It would be a great place to put the song's title, wouldn't it?

EXERCISE 19

Learn to turn on spotlights. Then be sure to put something interesting where they shine.