She was tall, thin and tarty
And she drove a Maserati
Faster than sound
I was heaven bound

Who said rock and poetry are uncomfortable bedfellows?!

Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all her words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn't feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you

Internal rhymes. Assonance. Dislocation. Simplicity. Brilliance.

Ian Dury & The Blockheads - "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards"

Van Gough did some eyeball pleasers.
He must have been a pencil squeezer.
He didn't do the Mona Lisa.
That was an Italian geezer.

Costello as well

"Look at the graceful way she dances
One foot speaks the other answers"

best rhyme ever in popular music history is by Tim Rice:

"All these things you saw in your pyjamas
Are a long-range forecast for your farmers"

Was (Not Was) - Shadow and Jimmy:
"For men without women
are like fish without water to swim in"

The Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun:
"Called my mother told her
In the dresser
There's ten or twenty dollars but there ain't no lesser"

Class!

Several intelligent couplets: -

A friend in need is a friend in debt,
The kind of friend King Money can forget

May those that are full get struck dumb
When they tell the hungry of the good times to come,
More money than sense in their defence
And cheaper jokes at our expense

The Midas touch doesn't mean that much
Until you're crippled with greed,
Using gold as a crutch
Or half a man, in half a town
Or half a kingdom, for half a crown

edited for transposition.

Some really intelligent too. But my favourites are these rather silly ones from 'Princess Olivia'

"The literati in their cellars
Perform semantic tarantellas"

"She's frosty as the face of Phineus
Leaves me feeling igloominious"

or whether it's too clever for its own good:

"I was faced with a choice at a difficult age
Would I write a book? or should I take to the stage?
But in the back of my head I heard distant feet
Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat"

The song is "Empty" from the album "Waking Hours"

Don't get so distressed
If the good life won't arrive
You've been reading S.O.S.
When it's just your clock reading 5:05

Don't you know little fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality
But each time that I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
'Cause I've got you under my skin

I've never seen a woman make a f*ckin' skinhead cry,
And I never seen a woman try to snap an arm with her thigh.
Now I have and it's just across the pub,
And the worst thing is she's takin' you home for a rub.
You don't deserve it, you know it's a fact,
But mix her up with booze, you got a suicide pact,
2 tequilas and 4 vodka mules,
She's a wrecking ball and her fists are her tools.

Binge drinking, binge drinking
Tried keeping up with your missus, what was I thinking?
She looks like Caprice,
But it's a shock to see her wrestling 2 police,
With one in a headlock!
Fighting with bouncers and flashing her bits,
After 2 flamin' sambucas she dont care who she hits,
Waking up on Sunday morning, with bruises and cuts,
Face it son, your missus is nuts!

What could you say as the earth gets further and further away,
Planets as small as balls of clay?
Astray into the Milky Way, world's out of sight,
As far as the eye can see, not even a satellite.
Now stop and turn around and look.
As you stare into the darkness, your knowledge: took!
So keep starin', soon you suddenly see a star.
You better follow it 'cause it's the "R."
This is a lesson. If you're guessin' and if you're borrowin',
Hurry hurry step right up and keep followin',
The Leader.

Well eventually the boy and the girl get married
Sure enough they have a son
And though they both were occupied
With the child she carried
Disagreements had begun
And in a while they fell apart
It wasnt hard to do
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks its true

Paul Simon

in a country where they've turned back time,
you go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre,
contemplating a crime.
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
like a watercolour in the rain.
Don't bother asking for explanations
she'll just tell you that she came
in the year of the cat.

She doesn't give you time for questions
as she locks up your arm in hers,
and you follow 'till your sense of which direction
completely disappears.
By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
there's a hidden door she leads you to.
These days, she says, I feel my life's
just like a river running through
the year of the cat.

Well, she looks at you so cooly
and her eyes shine like the moon in the sea.
She comes in incense and patchouli,
so you take her to find what's waiting inside
the year of the cat.

Well, morning comes and you're still with her
and the bus and the tourists are gone,
and you've thrown away the choice and lost your ticket
so you have to stay on.
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
in the rhythm of the new-born day,
you know sometime you're bound to leave her
but for now you're going to stay
in the year of the cat.

It's not the rhymes so much as the imagery I find alluring here. Has anyone else set a scene as well as describing the first person as being 'like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime'? A silk dress 'running like a watercolour in the rain' has great charm too. Every souk or winding village street I've ever visited has been subjected to scrutiny for the 'blue tiled walls near the market stalls', but I've yet to find the secret door.

From "Philadelphia":

Everything’d be just fine
if I had the right pastime
I’d’ve been Raskolnikov
But Mother Nature ripped me off

In Philadelphia
I’m sure that I felt healthier
Maybe it’s right to be nervous now?

One way system – smooth and commendable
Go by bus – they’re highly dependable
The swings in the park for the kids have won awards
The clean streets acknowledged in the Lords
But what’s a park if you can’t see a linnet?
A timetable if your journey’s infinite?
My bag’s packed and I’m leaving in a minute
For what is Chatteris without you in it?

"It's really coming down
Raining cats and hounds"

That rhyme is either briliant or absolutely dire. I can't quite decide which.

"She's black as coal but she burn like a fire
And she wrap herself around you like a well worn tyre"

or profound stuff from Mr Bolan:
"What's it like to be a loon
I liken it to a balloon"

Finally one from the Spands:
"She used to be a diplomat
But now shes down the laundromat"

God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb

God save the queen
She ain't no human being
There is no future
In England's dreaming

Master
Disaster
Telecaster
Faster
Ask her
Plaster
Mean old bastard

Mike Skinner can be laugh out loud funny, but I always smile when I listen to Original Pirate Material and this comes on. Perfect encapsulation of student stoners.
"We just sit in this hazy bubble with our quarters
Discussing how beautiful Gail Porter is."

Just a few

"And though the passion still flutters and flickers
It never got into our knickers"

"The women in Poughkeepsie
Take their clothes off when they're tipsy
But in Albany, New York
They love the filthy way I talk
Until they gargle with the finest champagne
They can't get the grape and the grain
It's not very far from Sulphur to Sugarcane"

"Well, you can laugh at this sentimental story
But in time, you'll have to make amends
The sudden chill where lovers doubt their immortality
As the clouds cover the sky the evening ends
Describing a picture of eyes finally closing
As you sometimes glimpse terrible faces in the fire
We'll I'm the lucky goon
Who composed this tune from birds arranged on the high wire"

"To tell the truth our Mum ran off with someone else's father
Went for two weeks' holiday in Taramasalata"

and, for good, measure - the whole of 'The Other Side of Summer'

"The sun struggles up another beautiful day
And I felt glad in my own suspicious way
Despite the contradiction and confusion
Felt tragic without reason
There's malice and there's magic in every season

(chorus):
From the foaming breakers of the poisonous surf
The other side of summer
To the burning forests in the hills of Astroturf
The other side of summer

The automatic gates close up between the shanties and the palace
The blowtorch amusements, the voodoo chalice
The pale pathetic promises that everybody swallows
A teenage girl is crying 'cos she don't look like a million dollars
So help her if you can
'Cos she don't seem to have the attention span

(chorus)

Was it a millionaire who said "imagine no possessions"?
A poor little schoolboy who said "we don't need no lessons"?
The rabid rebel dogs ransack the shampoo shop
The pop princess is downtown shooting up
And if that goddess is fit for burning
The sun will struggle up, the world will still keep turning

Madman standing by the side of the road saying
"Look at my eyes, look at my eyes, look at my eyes, look at my eyes"
Now you can't afford to fake all the drugs your parents used to take
Because of their mistakes, you'd better be wide awake

(chorus)

The mightiest rose
The absence of perfume
The casual killers
The military curfew
The cardboard city
An unwanted birthday
The other side of summer

The dancing was desperate, the music was worse
They bury your dreams and dig up the worthless
Goodnight
God bless
And kiss "goodbye" to the earth
The other side of summer"

How can I tell you I'm rarer than most?
I'm certain as a lost dog
Pondering a sign post"

"Don't get smart or sarcastic
He snaps back just like elastic
Spare us the theatrics and the verbal gymnastics
We break wise guys just like matchsticks"

"Five miles out of London on the Western Avenue
Must have been a wonder when it was brand new"

"it's the force of habit
If it moves then you fuck it
If it doesn't move you stab it"

"So you jumped back with alarm
Every Elvis has his army, evcery rattlesnakes its charm"

---a lot of people hate

"You lack lust, you're so lacklustre
Is that all the strength you can muster?"

but i likes it

Sometimes when we're as close as this
It's like we're in a dream
How can you lie there and think of England
When you don't even know who's in the team?

or

The people from your church agree
It's not much of a career
trying the handles on parked cars
whoops, there goes another year

"no one ever called pablo picasso an ass-hole"

"Well I was dancing in the lesbian bar
Way downtown
I was there to check the scene
And hang around
Well the first bar things were stop and stare
But in this bar things were laissez faire"

"Hey, roller coaster by the sea, thank you for helping me.
Roller coaster by the water, you made me feel more as i oughtta"

Well I´m here looking through an old picture frame
Just waiting for the perfect view
I hope something special will step in to my life
Another fine edition of you
A pin-up done in shades of blue

Sometimes you find a yearning for the quiet life
The country air and all of its joys
But badgers couldn't compensate at twice the price
For just another night with the boys oh yeah
And boys will be boys, will be boys

Science says love's a chemical reaction in the brain
Well let me be your bunsen burner, let me be your naked flame

Welcome to the glow
Of high-octane affairs
Esperanto style
And blonde dishevelled hair

Subterranean streams
Duckling you're a swan
Infinities of dreams
Imploding into one

choose from dozens, but this is Popemobile to Paraguay by the Fatima Mansions:
It's been a while since you said 'heil'
You CIA-bred necrophile
No Russkies left to rail at, not for now
but the Slavs in their millions
with their scrapheaps of children
must replace your South Americans
More skulls to keep your Mafia in the Mafia Top Ten

Smiths - Half a Person

Sixteen, clumsy and shy
I went to London and I
Booked myself in at the Y...WCA
I said "I like it here, can I stay?
I like it here, can I stay?
Do you have a vacancy for a back scrubber?"

Smiths - The Queen is Dead

So I broke into the Palace
With a sponge and a rusty spanner
She said "Eh, I know you - and you cannot sing"
I said "That's nothing, you should hear me play piano".

Betty Boo - Where are you Baby?

I have used up all my tissues
Because there are more seriouser issues

Costello again- Wear It Proudly

Like a fifteen year old kid wears a vampire kiss
If you don't know what is wrong with me
Then you don't know what you've missed

Agree with the earlier comment on "Other Side of Summer" - filled with wonderful imagery and venom!

Oh will you never let me be?
Oh will you never set me free?
The ties that bound us are still around us
There´s no escape that I can see
And still those little things remain
That bring me happiness or pain

A cigarette that bears a lipsticks traces
An airline ticket to romantic places
And still my heart has wings
These foolish things
Remind me of you

A tinkling piano in the next apartment
Those stumbling words that told you what my heart meant
A fairgrounds painted swings
These foolish things
Remind me of you

The park at evening when the bell has sounded
The isle de france with all the girls around it
The beauty that is spring
These foolish things
Remind me of you

I know that this was bound to be
These things have haunted me
For you´ve entirely enchanted me
The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations
Silk stockings thrown aside, dance invitations
Oh, how the ghost of you clings
These foolish things
Remind me of you

First daffodils and long excited cables
And candlelight on little corner tables
And still my heart has wings
These foolish things
Remind me of you

The smile of Garbo and the scent of roses
The waiters whistling as the last bar closes
The song that crosby sings
These foolish things
Remind me of you

How strange, how sweet to find you still
These things are dear to me
That seem to bring you so near to me
The scent of smould´ring leaves, the wail of steamers
Two lovers on the street who walk like dreamers
Oh, how the ghost of you clings
These foolish things
Remind me of you, just you

Broken windows and empty hallways,
a pale dead moon in a sky streaked with grey.
Human kindness is overflowing,
and I think it's gonna rain today
---
We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us-so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them
____
Karl, you never have seen such a glorious sight
as these beautiful women arrayed for the night
just like countesses, empresses, movie stars and
queens
And they'd come there with men much like me
Froggish men, unpleasant to see
Were you to kiss one, Karl
Nary a prince would there be
----

Just listening to 'Mule Variations' and 'Hold On' came on and I was reminded of something Costello said about it that the absence of 'playing' at the end of 'there's no music' really makes you sit up and take notice only for him to drop it in a couple of lines later

By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing

(althou that might only work if you know the song but Tom does leave that space hanging)

Not a fan, but these lines have always stuck, from Stereo.

"What about the voice of Geddy Lee
How did he get so high?
I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy.
I know him and he does
Well you're my fact checking cuz."

Not sure if it's the rhyme or that they're bonkers. Also, the Duckworth Lewis method record has some good ones.

"Always denied entry by the English gentry.
Now we're driving Bentley's playing 20/20"

from "Age of Revolution" is a good one as is pretty much all of Jiggery-Pokery.

"He didn't know a Stratocaster from a nuclear disaster"

I think the song is "The Man Who Walked Towards The Music" by Pete Atkin

You drove me, nearly drove me, out of my head
While you never shed a tear.
Remember? I remember all that you said
Told me love was too plebian,
Told me you were through with me, an'
Now you say you love me

Nice.

Or Fever...

Thou givest fever, when we kisseth
Fever with my flaming youth
Fever - I'm afire
Fever, yea I burn forsooth

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back...

-if I'd been somebody else
(Pack of Lies - the Fatima Mansions)

They first met at the hospital, she was checking out for good
Her body patched but past repair, and there her angel stood
She was feeling quite confused now that her death was close at hand
She had to face eternity, so why not this mumbling man?
Who bought himself a wedding suit at a local war on want sale
It belonged to some old Turkish man who'd owed and gone to jail
He would caox her mind with talk of love to make her body kind
Because people hate the truth, you know; they need their pack of lies

Growing tired of being foreign, being spat on and shortchanged
He demanded that she leave with him for the land from whence he came
They were herded on like cattle to a ferry at high tide
This unkempt, aging orphan and his helpless, dying bride
But he left her at the other shore crying on the deck
She was slumped against the rail as he had shrugged to free his neck
and the customs shed was empty as he made his way inside
There were no chimpanzees in uniform to hear his pack of lies

Now she's ascending into heaven with contentment on her face
and Holy God is there to greet and batter her into her place

But meanwhile back on Earth, we see the prodigal's returned
and they're making him the chieftain and they've come to him to learn
From the neighbours in the rich land let us steal and kill and lie
and when they ask who calls the weaklings there he just shrugs and says, 'Not I.';
Though surrounded by diseases, I stood tall and kept my health
I could have been important if I'd been somebody else
The moral of this story is: This land's a victim-farm
Don't you ever feed a beggar here, he'll eat your fucking arm
and don't blaspheme the strong ones if you want to stay alive
Just smile and give them thanks when they say, 'Here's a pack of lies!'

The man who sailed around his soul
From east to west, from pole to pole
With ego as his drunken captain
Greed, the mutineer, had trapped all reason in the hold

The man who walked across his heart
Who took no compass, guide or chart
To rope and tar his blood congealed
When he found his self revealed ugly and cold

And the sirens that sing
By your nose with its ring
Theyll drag you in
For your sins

Now he sits all alone
And its no place like home
Its empty skin
A bag to keep lifes souvenirs in
The man who sailed around his soul
The man who sailed around his soul

The man who sailed around his soul
Came back again to find a hole
Where once he thought compassion and the truth
Had laid to warm his freezing carcass on return

The man who walked across his heart
Was doomed to journey from the start
Of every love affair hed broken
All the lies hed ever spoken
Tattooed on his arm
And the jellyfish stings
Even angels with wings
Who look too deep
And dare to peep

Now he sits all alone
Knowing flesh blood and bone
Is everything
He found the treasure hed been seeking
The man who sailed around his soul

I tried to pick a couplet but could not decide.
Let the Massive decide - best rhyme from Ella Fitzgeralds Manhatten:

Summer journeys to Niag'ra
and to other places aggra-
vate all our cares.
We'll save our fares!

I've a cozy little flat in
what is known as old Manhattan
we'll settle down
right here in town!

We'll have Manhattan
the Bronx and Staten
Island too.
It's lovely going through
the zoo!

It's very fancy
on old Delancy
street you know.
The subway charms us so
when balmy breezes blow
to and fro.

And tell me what street
compares with Mott Street
in July?
Sweet pushcarts gently gli-ding by.

The great big city's a wonderous toy
just made for a girl and boy.
We'll turn Manhattan
into an isle of joy!

We'll go to Yonkers
Where true love conquers
In the whiles
And starve together dear, in Chiles

We'll go to Coney
And eat baloney on a roll
In Central Park we'll stroll
Where our first kiss we stole
Soul to soul

And "My Fair Lady" is a terrific show they say
We both may see it close, some day

The city's glamour can never spoil
The dreams of a boy and goil
We'll turn Manhattan
into an isle of joy!

Dream-like and brilliantly surreal:

Captured by Hitler with Oliver Twist in the tower
Guards say here's pens and paper just sit down and work for an hour
O, Goodness, how can we escape? but it's not worthwhile
All I can do is smile.

Down gallons of glandular corridors of the dark castle
The pompous old bellman is tolling one bell
At bathtime the hippies in chains they are crossing the hall
Where Hitler is making his new film about it all
We slip through a pew and escape but I just don't know
All I can do is grow

Tell me more, what then

Down Main Street I go on a duffel-coat hoping instead
For a little room, yawn, I'm so tired with this big bag of coal on my head
It's a top hat I'm trying to sell or a lesson to learn
Vaguely seeking some fire to burn

While a group of middle-aged persons with dwarfish expressions and tinned conversations in Sunday blessed blue
Standing around for a photograph, watch the cuckoo
Do you need any coal? But it doesn't appear that they do
Then I offered my throat to the wolf but I just can't die
All I can do is fly

Safe and secure in the skirts of the midsummer wood
Cooking soup with stale words and fresh meanings it tastes so good
The green wolf with his bunch of red roses is slinking away
All on a summer's day.

The little girl you dangled on your knee without mishap
stirs something in your memory and something in your lap.

The Undertones' perfect cousin "thinks that I'm a cabbage, 'cos I don't watch university challenge"

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

In Spain, the best upper sets do it

Lithuanians and Letts do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Fins
Folks in Siam do it - think of Siamese twins

Some Argentines, without means, do it
People say in Boston even beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Romantic sponges, they say, do it
Oysters down in oyster bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish, do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Electric eels I might add do it
Though it shocks em I know
Why ask if shad do it - Waiter bring me
"shad roe"

In shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

1. Things that one is liable to read in the Bible
2. David making Goliath lay down and dieth
3. Jonah making his home in a fish's abdo-men
4. Moses being found on the water by a pharoh's daughter

And also, take in the gospel whenever it's poss'ble.

Those are clever, clever rhymes. Probably due to years of frustration over having nothing to rhyme with "Gershwin".

I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who
Walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

Or

I’m just gonna have to learn to hesitate
to make sure my words
on your Saxon ears don’t grate
But I wouldn’t know a single word to say
If I flattened all the vowels
And threw the ‘R’ away

Or indeed:

This is the story of our first teacher
Shetland made her jumpers
And the devil made her features
Threw up her hands when my mum said our names
Embroidered all her stories with slanderous claims
It's over and done with...

I feel like a quote out of context
Withholding the rest
So I can be for you what you want to see
I got the gestures and sounds
Got the timing down
Its uncanny, yeah
You'd think it was me
Do you think I should take a class
To lose my southern accent?
Did I make me up
Or make a face 'til it stuck
I do the best imitation of myself.

To be hung drawn and quartered
would be uncomfortable and awkward
but a fate I would endure to be with you

Jack Rubies - Be with you

And surely Squeeze's 'up the Junction' is a fantastic example of rhyming lyrics, which unfortunately I am not motivated enough to reproduce in full here, but my 13 year old self was highly taken with lyrics such as

I started work on monday
so I had a bath on sunday
and
We stayed in by the telly
although the room was smelly

How about:

Feed your children on crayfish and lobster tails
Find a school near the the top of the league
In theory, I respect your right to exist
But I will kill you if you move in next to me

Oh it stinks, it sucks
It's anthropologically unjust
But the takings are up by a third
So cunts are still running the world

Lyrical couplets? Hows about

We were cool, we were slick,
We were quite unprepared to be violently sick...

["Grooving Along" from Something For The Weekend CD]

All Elvis Costello's songs are "clever". If he relaxed a bit and cut down on the cleverness he might write one that I'd like to listen to twice.

the old hippety hoppers amongst us:

NWA Express Your(or is that yo'?)self.

I'm expressin' with my full capabilities
And now I'm livin' in correctional facilities
Cause some don't agree with how I do this
I get straight, meditate like a buddhist
I'm droppin' flava, my behaviour is hereditary
But my technique is very necessary
Blame it on ice cube... because he says it gets funky
When you got a subject and a predicate
Add it on a dope beat
And that'll make you think
Some suckaz just tickle me pink
To my stomach. 'cause they don't flow like this one
You know what? I won't hesitate to dis one
Or two before I'm through
So don't try to sing this!
Some drop science
Well I'm droppin' english
Even if yella
Makes it a-capella
I still express, yo, I don't smoke weed or sess
Cause its known to give a brother brain damage
And brain damage on the mic don't manage
Nuthin'
But makin' a sucker and you equal
Don't be another sequel..

Very few days go by where I don't think "Official to the bone gristle" - Method Man from Mobb Deep's Extortion.

Jay-Z - Big Pimpin;

On the canopy
My stamina be
Enough for Pamela Anderson-Lee

Surprised nobody's mentioned WZ. Whatever you think of the man, his music or his voice (acquired tastes all), his lyrics are up there with everybody so far mentioned. Check out 'Mohammed's Radio', 'Play It All Night Long' (a song that manages to get "brucellosis" into the verse!) and obviously 'Werewolves of London' - too many more to mention.
Personal fave: 'Desperadoes Under The Eaves' -

And when California slides into the ocean
As the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing
Until I pay my bill

and the final couplet -

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was listening to the air-conditioner hum............"

At which point various members of the Beach Boys and other LA glitterati hum a lengthy coda. Genius.

From Mr A Ant:

You think that I'm made of readies
That makes me choke on my shreddies
(Made of Money; Friend or Foe, 1982)

From Mr M Fry

Can't complain, mustn't grumble
Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble
(That Was Then, This is Now; Beautystab, 1983)

As good as it gets
"Called my congressman and he said quote
Like to help you son but your too young to vote"

What goods a park if you cant see a Linnet
a timetable if your journeys's infinite

That untouched take-away
I brought home the other day
Has quite a lot to say
The evidence is clear
On every side
piled up high and wide
About how lately I've let things slide

But I want love, just a different kind
I want love, won't break me down
Won't brick me up, won't fence me in
I want a love, that don't mean a thing
That's the love I want, I want love

Elton John - I Want Love

Someone beat me to "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" so how about Howie's "I Wanted Your Heart", if only for the couplet:

"Old ladies on the pavement in their dense, dark empty hours
Are as hard as nails and brittle as pressed flowers."

Might not be the cleverest rhyme but, for me, it sure does capture Manchester in the 70's.

"I drive a Rolls Royce / Cos it's good for my voice"

Caught between the longing for love
and the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing, and the church bells ring
and the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening strolls the pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there

She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam, I guess
But I used a little too much force

But it has always been one of my favourite drinking songs (which requre clever rhymes to make them memorable!)...

I've been a wild rover for many a year
And I spent all my money on whiskey and beer,
And now I'm returning with gold in great store
And I never will play the wild rover no more.

And it's no, nay, never,
No nay never no more,
Will I play the wild rover
No never no more.

I went to an ale-house I used to frequent
And I told the landlady my money was spent.
I asked her for credit, she answered me "nay
custom like yours I can have any day."

etc, etc, etc.

Simon Mayo used to play 'em a lot. Jolly clever lyrically. British rap. Not much stuff about ho's and caps and stuff. Apologies for another cut 'n' paste but this is great.

And I know bitterness is never a solution
Cos deep in my soul I had a silent revolution
As a means to an end I may choose wealth
But love is truly an end in itself

And I see George hand in hand with the dragon
Loading contraband upon the same band wagon
Pinball machines have a sign say tilt
But in life it's difficult establishing guilt

So it won't be me to cast the first stone
Cos I've got far too many hang ups of my own
And further more if the truth be known
I want mercy when my cover gets blown

Good, innit?

and probably not that clever either, but I've always rather liked:

"There'll be some dramas
Inside your pajamas
Tonight."

Courtesy of the generally pretty unpoetic Humble Pie in 79th and Sunset.

Knuckledy Crunch and slippledee-Slee song, from The Tumbler album

Lived on a house-boat when I was young, very young,oh so young,
Every Tuesday I would feed all the swans in the sun,oh such fun,
Then one day a man was seen,
Chugging along on his river machine,
It was a boat
Ha ha ha, hee hee hee!
knucledy crunch and slippledee-slee.

Or, Seven Black Roses, from the same album:

Seven roses appeared in my sight
Shining like black stars in the night
And around them drops of diamond water flowed,
From a dream then, on his horse, my friend the devil rode.

Thomas Dolby, from "Aliens Ate My Buick"

Airhead:

"You ask me do I love you
Does the pope live in the woods?
Quod erat demonstrandum, baby
(Ooh, you speak French!)"

..and then later:

"She's losing faith in a world that is out of control
She's gonna nix politics, she's taking up volleyball"

The Ability To Swing:

"Each beat send me deeper under
Each beat send me more to sleep
Heart melts ice and heart spells danger
Don't hold your breath boy 'cause it don't come cheap"

I found a new hermeneutic
I found a new paradigm
I found a plan just to make you mine

You're gonna need an ocean
of calamine lotion
You'll be scratching like a hound
the minute you start to mess around

Chris TT - Dreaming Of Injured Popstars

all around wales the bands are on fire
as the flames lick higher they run from their homes
it only took one match to burn down Kelly Jones

Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable

And oh, what a bargain,
We're two easy targets
For the old men at the off-tracks,
Who've paid in palaver
And crumpled old dollars,
Which we squirreled away
In our rat trap hotel by the freeway.
And we slept-in Sundays.

Possibly the most beautiful rhyming, ever. 

Bruce Springsteen's Hungry Heart

An interesting example of a track which can be enjoyed at face value but on reflection gives another perspective.

Another example that springs to mind is The Police's Every Breath You Take.

Would you object to
Never seeing each other again?

Today's the fourth of July
Another June has gone by
And when they light up our town I just think
What a waste of gunpowder and sky

Ah, Aimee...

Now, who's going to kick in with some RT?

She hung around with the Kig of Sweden
He gave her things that she was needin'

Bertie Wooster liked this couplet, thought it was dashed clever. Jeeves reluctantly agreed that it "very nearly" rhymed.

I bet that you look good on the dancefloor
Don't know if you're looking for romance, or
You don't know what you're looking for.

How many boys, one night stands
How many lips, how many hands have held you
Like i'm holding you tonight?
Too many nights staying up late
Too much powder, too much paint
You cant hide from the Turning of the tide

Did they run their fingers up and down your shabby dress
Did they find some tender moment there in your caress?

Boys all say you look so fine
Dont come back for a second time
You cant hide from the turning of the tide

Poor little sailor boy,never set eyes on a woman before
Did he tell you that he'd love you darling for ever more?

Pretty little shoes, cheap perfume
Creaking bed in the hotel room
You can't hide from the Turning of the tide

Did they run their fingers up and down your shabby dress
did they find some tender moment there in your caress?

Boys all say you look so fine
Dont come back for a second time
your cant hide from the Turning of the tide

I feel really sorry for the lady in this song - you can picture her and her lament for better days - wonderful.

Another shout for Costello (obviously) - too many great songs to list here but some great lines include:-

'With your arms and legs wrapped round more than my memory tonight"

'with a hand full of eagerness"

Curtain opens, spotlights the gentleman,
Signing his love letter best wishes, Simpleton
Dialogue, swam from his pen like pollywogs

He knew better that perfume was gravity,
Pulling him closer to what could be tragedy,
Love is blind, deaf and dumb, but never mind

Intermission gave way to a miracle,
The birth of an accident grew to a spectacle,
That couldn't wait, the mother was three weeks late.

So Father Mason, clutching his crucifix
Baptised the baby in whiskey and liquorice
What a lovely way, drowning sins in tooth decay

Or

In the breathless hush of 4 a.m.
In the dark sits a sad cliché
Cloaked in the navy blue of slowly fading stars
Tell me how this came to be
Sleeplessness talk to me
She'd say over and over again

Fumbling through a cut glass vase
Passing lipstick, cotton spools
Burning jealous pictures of marriages of friends

Such mournful words on this snow-white vacant page
All the lessons that she learns she packs away

Will you never cease to be the glutton of sympathy?
Don't you know the stars are all fading, let the sunshine capture
the sparkle of your smile

In the end it took me a dictionary, to find out the meaning of 'unrequited',
While she was giving herself for free, at a party to which I was never invited...

Well things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl
The boys just dive right off the cars and smash into the street
And when they're on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot
And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet
So put a candle in the window and a kiss upon his lips
As the dish outside the window fills with rain
Just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart
And pay the fiddler off til I come back again

Circles and rings, dragons and kings
Weaving a charm and a spell
Blessed by the night, holy and bright
Called by the toll of the bell

Bloodied angels fast descending
Moving on a never-bending light
Phantom figures free forever
Out of shadows, shining ever-bright*

Neon knights!
Neon knights! all right!

* technically that should be 'bri-ay-ayee-ight'.

Elvis Costello.........too many words!
Less is definitely more.

I'll go for Herman's Hermits' (written by Graham Gouldman) 'No Milk Today'.

'No Milk Today,
My love has gone away
The bottle stands forlorn
A symbol of the dawn.'

Eurydice appeared brindled in blood
And she said to Orpheus
If you play that fucking thing down here
I'll stick it up your orifice!

Very funny piece of school-boy humour from the mighty Cave:)

I'd like to settle down, but first I've got to settle up,
With the understanding man in the embalming fluid shop

Brilliant. Trouble is, I can't remember the name of the song. It's Viv Stanshall & it's one of the songs (I think the first one) on the album "Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead".

Pure genius.

What about 'Aisle of Plenty' from The superb Selling England By The pound by a fully intact Genesis. Spot the (old) supermarket references.

Eay love, there's the Safeway home
Thankful for her Fine Fare discount
Tess co-operates

In fact, most of Gabriel's lyrics on the Foxtrot and Selling England albums have some great wordplay

You and I won't be the fools that other lovers are,
Thinking every silver bottletop potentially a star.

Victoria Wood. I tried to pick one rhyme from this lot but couldn't:

Freda and Barry sat one night.
The sky was clear. The stars were bright.
The wind was soft. The moon was up.
Freda drained her cocoa cup

She licked her lips. She felt sublime.
She switched off Gardeners' Question Time.
Barry cringed in fear and dread
As Freda grabbed his tie, and said:

Let's do it!
Let's do it,
Do it while the mood is right!
I'm feeling
Appealing.
I've really got an appetite.

I'm on fire
With desire.
I could handle half the tenors in a male voice choir.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!

But he said:

I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I don't believe in too much sex.
This fashion
For passion
Turns us into nervous wrecks.

No derision!
My decision
I'd rather watch The Spinners on the television.
I can't do it.
I can't do it tonight.

So she said:

Let's do it!
Let's do it,
Do it till our hearts go boom!
Go native,
Creative
Living in the living room.

This folly
Is jolly.
Bend me over backwards on me Hostess trolley.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!

But he said:

I can't do it.
I can't do it.
Me 'eavy breathing days have gone.
I'm older,
Feel colder.
It's other things that turn me on.

I'm imploring:
I'm boring.
Let me read this catalogue on vinyl flooring.
I can't do it.
I can't do it tonight.

So she said:

Let's do it!
Let's do it,
Have a crazy night of love!
I'll strip bare.
I'll just wear
Stilettos and an oven glove.

Don't starve a
Girl of a palaver.
Dangle from the wardrobe in your Balaclava.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!

But he said:

I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I know I'd only get it wrong.

Don't angle
For me to dangle.
Me arms 'ave never been that strong.

Stop pouting.
Stop shouting.
You know I pulled a muscle when I did that grouting.
I can't do it.
I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it!
Let's do it,
Share a night of wild romance,
Frenetic,
Poetic!
This could be your last big chance

To quote Milton,
To eat Stilton,
To roll in gay abandon on the tufted Wilton.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!

I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I've got other little jobs on hand.
Don't grouse
Around the house.
I've got a busy evening planned.

Stop nagging.
I'm flagging.
You know as well as I do that the pipes want lagging.
I can't do it.
I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it!
Let's do it
While I'm really in the mood!
Three cheers!
It's years
Since I caught you even semi-nude.

Be drastic
Gymnastic.
Wear your baggy Y-fronts with the loose elastic.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!

I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I must refuse to get undressed.
I feel silly.
It's too chilly
To go without me thermal vest.

Don't choose me.
Don't use me.
Me mother sent a note to say you must excuse me.
I can't do it.
I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it!
Let's do it!
I feel I absolutely must.
I won't exempt you,
Want to tempt you,
Want to drive you mad with lust.

No cautions,
Just contortions!
Smear an avocado on me lower portions.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!

I can't do it.
I can't do it.
It's really not my cup of tea.
I'm harassed,
Embarrassed.
I wish you hadn't picked on me.

No dramas!
Give me me pyjamas.
The only girl I'm mad about is Judith Chalmers.
I can't do it.
I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it!
Let's do it!
I really want to run amok.
Let's wiggle.
Let's jiggle.
Let's really make the rafters rock.

Be mighty.
Be flighty.
Come and melt the buttons on me flameproof nightie.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!

Let's do it!
Let's do it!
I really want to rant and rave.
Let's go,
'Cause I know
Just how I want you to behave:

Not bleakly,
Not meekly.
Beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly.
Let's do it!
Let's do it tonight!.

I went to the Comedy Store when Whose Line ... was at it's peak, and still remember Josie Lawrence being challenged by the audience to sing a song in a country style about a pedal bin.
She did so brilliantly, with an ad lib ditty about a father's deathbed words of advice to his son. It ended with the lines,
'And he said, Son, when you love, you don't win medals.
But you've got to have a heart, just like a pedal bin's got to have bin pedals.'

.....time to transubstantiate."

Tom Lehrer - The Vatican Rag

Baker Street Muse

Windy bus-stop. click. shop-window. heel.
Shady gentleman. fly-button. feel.
In the underpass, the blind man stands.
With cold flute hands.
Symphony match-seller, breath out of time.
You can call me on another line.
Indian restaurants that curry my brain.
Newspaper warriors changing the names they

Advertise from the station stand.
With cold print hands.
Symphony word-player, I'll be your headline.
If you catch me another time.

Didn't make her --- with my Baker Street ruse.
Couldn't shake her --- with my Baker Street bruise.
Like to take her --- but I'm just a Baker Street muse.

Ale-spew, puddle-brew --- boys, throw it up clean.
Coke and Bacardi colours them green.
From the typing pool goes the mini-skirted princess
With great finesse.
Fertile earth-mother, your burial mound is fifty feet
Down in the Baker Street underground. (what the hell!)
Walking down the gutter thinking,
``how the hell am I today? ''
Well, I didn't really ask you but thanks all the same.

(Pig-Me & The Whore)

``big bottled fraulein, put your weight on me,'' said the
Pig-me to the whore,
Desperate for more in his assault upon the mountain.
Little man, his youth a fountain.
Overdrafted and still counting.
Vernacular, verbose; an attempt at getting close to
Where he came from.
In the doorway of the stars, between Blandford Street
And Mars;
Proposition, deal. flying button feel. testicle testing.
Wallet ever-bulging. dressed to the left, divulging
The wrinkles of his years.
Wedding-bell induced fears.
Shedding bell-end tears in the pocket of her resistance.
International assistance flowing generous and full
To his never-ready tool.
Pulls his eyes over her wool.
And he shudders as he comes.
And my rudder slowly turns me into the Marylebone
Road.

(Crash-Barrier Waltzer)

And here slip I --- dragging one foot in the gutter ---
In the midnight echo of the shop that sells cheap
Radios.
And there sits she --- no bed, no bread, no butter ---
On a double yellow line --- where she can park anytime.
Old lady grey; crash-barrier waltzer ---
Some only son's mother. Baker Street casualty.
Oh, Mr. Policeman --- blue shirt ballet master.
Feet in sticking plaster ---
Move the old lady on.
Strange pas-de-deux ---
His Romeo to her Juliet.
Her sleeping draught, his poisoned regret.
No drunken bums allowed to sleep here in the
Crowded emptiness.
Oh officer, let me send her to a cheap hotel ---
I'll pay the bill and make her well - like hell you
Bloody will!
No do-good over kill. we must teach them
To be still more independent.

(Mother England Reverie)

I have no time for Time magazine or Rolling Stone.
I have no wish for wishing wells or wishing bones.
I have no house in the country I have no motor car.
And if you think I'm joking, then I'm just a one-line
Joker in a public bar.
And it seems there's no-body left for tennis; and i'm
A one-band-man.
And I want no top twenty funeral or a hundred grand.

There was a little boy stood on a burning log,
Rubbing his hands with glee. he said, ``oh Mother England,
Did you light my smile; or did you light
This fire under me?
One day I'll be a minstrel in the gallery.
And paint you a picture of the queen.
And if sometimes I sing to a cynical degree ---
It's just the nonsense that it seems.''

So I drift down through the Baker Street valley,
In my steep-sided un-reality.
And when all is said and all is done --- I couldn't wish
For a better one.
It's a real-life ripe dead certainty ---
That I'm just a Baker Street muse.

Talking to the gutter-stinking, winking in the same
Old way.
I tried to catch my eye but I looked the other way.

Indian restaurants that curry my brain ---
Newspaper warriors changing the names they
Advertise from the station stand.
Circumcised with cold print hands.

Windy bus-stop. click. shop-window. heel.
Shady gentleman. fly-button. feel.
In the underpass, the blind man stands.
With cold flute hands.
Symphony match-seller, breath out of time ---
You can call me on another line.

Didn't make her --- with my Baker Street ruse.
Couldn't shake her --- with my Baker Street bruise.
Like to take her --- but I'm just a Baker Street muse.

From the song "Robert Johnson" by Alexis Korner:-

She never cared much for ramblin' boys and
in his moonshine she put poison.