Sublime scanning

Everyone understands the role rhyming plays in songs. Fewer people think about scansion—the rhythm or meter of the lines.

If a line scans well, then the emphasized beats match the emphasized syllables. Compare this:

MARy HAD a LITtle LAMB

to this:

MARy HAD a SMALL parAkeet

When it comes down to it, the scan is far more important than the rhyme. Don't believe me? Listen to Chicago's Questions 67 & 68. There's not one rhyme in that song. Because all the words fall neatly into place, you don't even notice until someone points it out.

Good scansion also goes a long way toward selling the lyrics.

Not long ago, fellow songstress Jannie Funster posted a snippet of something she's working on in my comments:

Give it away
it'll come back to ya.
Sweeter and deeper than
you ever dreamed.
Give it away
it'll come back to ya.
Give it away.

Because I'd never heard the song, I first read these lyrics as if they were prose, with no idea how they'd scan. My impression: Hmm, that's nice. Yep. Nice message.

But then, out of songwriterly curiosity, I looked at the lines again to figure out where the emphases should go.

GIVE it aWAY (beat beat)
IT'll come BACK to ya
SWEETer and DEEPer than
YOU ever DREAMED

Suddenly the snippet was amazingly hooky. It stuck in my head without so much as a melody to help keep it there. And the lyrics! So insightful and meaningful and TRUE.

Line the words up with the beat, and their impact increases a hundredfold.