My Top 10 Pop Song Cliches, Part 2
Monday, October 15th, 2012
I know it was a nail-biting ordeal, but your patience is finally being rewarded — Part 2 of my top ten pop music clichés (here’s Part 1) is live n’ loud. Here’s the rest of the long-awaited list:
6. Rhyming “Change” with “Rearrange”: If the singer’s life is being changed by the breakup of their relationship, you can be sure that their life is also being rearranged. Or, in the context of a political song like Graham Nash’s “Chicago”, if the singer expresses the desire to change the world, it’s a safe bet that they also want to rearrange it.
Putting it this way seems a bit redundant to me. Still, I find this convention totally charming and I hope it’s neither changed nor rearranged. Or, as Bob Marley famously put it: “don’t let them change ya — or even rearrange ya!”
7. Love Is Knocking On Your Face: We’ve all heard lyrics about love knocking on the door, or more grammatically creative variations on this theme, like Tesla’s “love is knockin’ / outside your door.”
But your door, as it turns out, isn’t the only thing love can knock on. Sometimes love’s habit of knocking turns violent — just ask Paula Abdul, who got “knocked out” by a “love TKO,” or R. Kelly, who introduces his girlfriend as “the champ” because of her ability to knock him unconscious with her love.
Usually, in pop-song land, it seems like getting knocked out by love is a positive development. But if it isn’t, we’ve just got to follow Keri Hilson’s advice and get back up — and do whatever Ne-Yo adds about getting back in control of our “pimp ship.”
8. Rhyming “Life” With Something That Doesn’t Rhyme With “Life”: Although it may seem natural for song lyrics to talk about life, seeing as how being alive is something we all have experience with, using “life” as a rhyming word is fraught with peril.
This is because words that rhyme with “life” are pretty scarce, and the few words of that kind are either overused or only work if you’re striving for silliness. Aside from “wife” and a few archaic variations on that word (“alewife,” “fishwife,” etc.), there’s basically “fife,” “knife” and “strife.”
“Fife” probably won’t play well unless your song is about the Revolutionary War, and “knife” and “strife” seem kind of heavy metal genre-specific to me (although I suppose sometimes love, or the loss of it, does “cut like a knife”). I guess that explains why lyricists who use “life” tend to cheat a little and rhyme it with “nice” or something like that.
9. “I’ll Do Anything For You.” Lots of singers profess this to their lover, but is it true? I think anyone who makes this claim should be asked the series of questions made famous in Oliver, including “would you rob a shop?”, and “would you risk the drop?” — which means “would you be willing to be hanged until you are dead?”
Of course, some songwriters are even more up front about their level of devotion — both Bryan Adams and Prince, for instance, claim that they would die for you, while Bon Jovi and Damn Yankees do them one better by being willing to both live and die for you.
I don’t know about you, but I’d be a bit concerned if my significant other was that willing to risk bodily harm for me, even if they drew the line at having to get a few stitches.
10. Instrumental Bridges: It used to be that the typical pop song had a bridge, which traditionally means the section that comes after the second chorus.
What’s more, the bridge had a distinctively different melody and chord progression than the verses. Nowadays, instead of a bridge, a song often reuses the music from the verse part, but leaves out the singing.
Personally, I would prefer that, if a songwriter doesn’t feel like writing a bridge, they use a non-melodic, rhythmic part where they experiment with samples and weird effects. (The mid-section from Footloose that goes “cut . . . foot . . . loose, oh oh oh oh oh!” comes to mind.)
But maybe I’m just being a peevish fishwife. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and I hope you’ll remind me of any clichés I may have overlooked in the comments.
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October 15th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Cut… foot… loose… with a knife!
October 15th, 2012 at 8:49 pm
Hi Kelvin — I never thought of that way of cutting footloose. You’re a wealth of inspiration!
October 16th, 2012 at 5:40 am
Ha ha… Some astute observations here, Steve. I’m a sucker for all these wonderful cliches!
October 16th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Chris,
I’m always cutting out cliches in writing, but never thought of them in songwriting. I’m fascinated with bridges. It seems like songs are simpler than they used to be. Is there something to this phenomenon?
Thanks for a fun article! G.
October 16th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
I love this cliches. “My favorite is Love is Knocking on your face” and “the champ” because of her ability to knock him unconscious with her love. That is memorable. Thanks for sharing.
October 16th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
These cliches are awesome! Very nice I love it.
October 16th, 2012 at 5:08 pm
More fun to read here and I guess I am not as aware of redundancy and rhyme in music very much – maybe the same as art…I just like it or I do not?
My partner remembers so many words to songs and so does Whitney…I have a hard time memorizing – I often need refreshing to remember. But I did so love singing OLIVER in Cleveland – well behind the curtains, because the young man playing the part had a huge voice change going on….
I miss singing so much, it sometime overwhelms me
October 17th, 2012 at 2:11 am
I have no idea what to say here other than you had me laughing at 6am, so thanks for that! If you’re ever in New Mexico I have a friend of like mind you must meet. I can just see you spending about 18 hours straight talking
October 17th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Hi Rob — yes, I guess there’s a good reason why they’re used, which is that they seem to appeal to people.
October 17th, 2012 at 9:01 am
Hi Giulietta — well, if I were to be cynical about it, I would suggest that songwriters have determined that a song has just as much potential for exposure / revenue without a bridge as it does with a bridge, so why not just remove the bridge? But I don’t know exactly how other songwriters are thinking about these issues.
October 17th, 2012 at 9:11 am
Hi Cathy — thanks, I strive for memorability!
October 17th, 2012 at 9:11 am
Hi Kim — thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
October 17th, 2012 at 9:15 am
Hi Patricia — oh, you have a theater background, huh? I didn’t know that. It sounds like you really enjoyed it. Do you mean you were part of the chorus, or actually singing the part of Oliver and the kid was lip-syncing?
October 17th, 2012 at 9:16 am
Hi Julie — bringing 6 a.m. laughter is what I’m here for. Yes, if your friend is a song lyric geek we should definitely meet.
October 17th, 2012 at 10:28 am
I sang the part of Oliver and the kid lip-synced…
I did play the maid in Madame Butterfly and Sir Harry in Once Upon A Mattress in college and I was on stage for that.
..not much theater experience, rather I needed to learn to read well and speak well for the Ministry….the mainline denominations are not about theater they are about thinking. UCC is all about justice issues…so I needed passion and powerful words.
My mother did not want her children to perform publicly. I am fairly stiff physically, but I none the less embarrassed her all the time
October 17th, 2012 at 11:01 am
Chris — this was a fun read. I laughed through this whole post, but especially the idea of finding a rhyme for “life.” I can see why songwriters might cheat a bit on that one. This is where songs can sometimes get away with things because singing allows you to slightly slur and blur the non-rhyming word. It’s only when you look at the lyrics that you go, “WHAT?”
Thanks for the laugh today:~)
October 17th, 2012 at 6:22 pm
I’m impressed you actually thought so much about music cliche`s, plus tracked down so many examples.
I’m still trying to decide If I’ve used any of the listed cliche`s in my songs, n so far I don’t think I have. I’ll be more conscieous of trying not to now of course!
Always sing that “Everybody Cut, everybody cut cut…” part of Footloose when running it thru the noggin radio.
I think each song has to be individually composed for what the writer feels it needs, whether or not It’s a mainstream decision or not. I always prefer original to predictable- which to me is art.
October 18th, 2012 at 7:58 am
Hi Sara — I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Yeah, with some types of music, I think slurring your words is even required — for grunge music for instance, you’re supposed to slur your words because it makes you sound less clean-cut and more nihilistic.
October 18th, 2012 at 8:00 am
Hi SnaggleTooth — yes, it is my blessing or my curse, depending on how you look at it, that I am able to instantly recall the lyrics to thousands of songs, even songs that I have only heard once. I never thought it would be a useful ability until I started writing this series of posts. Yes, I agree that, even if others have used a particular lyric, that shouldn’t stop us from using it if it seems to work for our song.