Identifying rhyme schemes in popular songs

We really enjoy rhymes. There's just something so satisfying about hearing words that sound similar but are not the same. (and god forbid you rhyme a word with with the same word). It's even better when you get to say something meaningful through rhymes, like Chuck D did back in 1988.

                         ...And on that day, Chuck D forbade kids to rhyme for the sake of riddlin'


 There are many elements present in good poetry writing (Rap= Rhythm And Poetry [the more you know!]) internal rhymes, assonance, consonance, etc. For now, let's just stick to the most basic: the rhyme scheme. A rhyme scheme is "a poet's deliberate pattern of lines that rhyme with other lines in a poem or stanza". [definition brought to you by www.study.com - great resource!] We assign a letter to a line that ends with a particular word, and assign the same letter to other lines that end with the same word sound. It will eventually look something like this:

       (That's an excerpt from the Sound of Silence, by Simon and Garfunkel.) [It's a good song.]

It's pretty simple. You will eventually notice that many songs share the same patterns. AABB and ABAB are the most common, but experienced writers might also tussle with AAAA or ABXB (X meaning that it doesn't rhyme with anything else) rhyme schemes to spice up their poems. There are countless rhyme schemes out there. Your job as a citizen of the world is to listen to various writers from different genres and ages and look out for cool rhyme schemes.

With that in mind, let's do a little exercise.

-Look up an excerpt of the lyrics to one of your favorite songs. (At least 14 lines.)
-Identify the rhyme scheme. Is it similar to the ones explained in this post, or is it something completely different?
-Share your results with us!

Until next time...

                                                                  This will be fun...