Writing for Vaudeville Part 35

So far as the vital necessities of the popular song go, rhymes may occur regularly or irregularly, with fine effect in either instance, and the rhymes may be precise or not. To rhyme _moon_ with _June_ is not unforgivable. The success of a popular song depends on entirely different bases. Nevertheless, a finely turned bit of rhyming harmony may strike the ear and stand out from its fellows like a lovely symphony of fancy. If you have given any attention to this point of rhyming you can recall many instances of just what I mean.

5. Strive for Regular and Precise Rhyming--If Fitting

If you can be regular and if you can be precise in the use of rhymes in your song-poem, be regular and be precise. Don't be irregular and slovenly just because others have been and succeeded.

You will not succeed if you build your lyrics on the faults and not on the virtues of others. The song-poem that gleams like a flawless gem will have a wider and more lasting success--all other things being equal.

On the other hand, it is absolutely fatal to strive for regularity and precision, and thereby lose expression. If you have to choose, choose irregularity and faulty rhymes. This is an important bit of advice, for a song-poem is not criticized for its regularity and precision--it is either taken to heart and loved in spite of its defects, or is forgotten as valueless. As Winifred Black wrote of her child, "I love her not for her virtues, but oh, for the endearing little faults that make her what she is."

6. Hints On Lyric Measures

Reference to the lyrics already instanced will show you that they are written in various measures. And while it is foreign to my purpose to discuss such purely technical points of poetry, [1]

permit me to direct your attention to a few points of song measure.

[1] The Art of Versification, by J. Berg Esenwein and Mary Eleanor Roberts--one of the volumes in "The Writer's Library"--covers this subject with a thoroughness it would be useless for me to attempt.

Therefore if you wish to take this subject up more in detail, I refer you to this excellent book.

An individual poetic measure is attained by the use of metre in a certain distinct way. Because the normal combinations of the emphatic and the unemphatic syllables of the English language are but five, there are only five different poetic measures. Let us now see how an investigation of the bafflingly unexact measures of our examples will yield--even though their irregular natures will not permit of precise poetic instances--the few helpful hints we require.

(a) _The first measure_--called by students of poetry the trochaic measure--is founded on the use of a long or emphatic syllable followed by a short or unemphatic syllable, It has a light, tripping movement, therefore it is peculiarly fitted for the expression of lively subjects. One of our examples shows this rather clearly:

There's a | little | spark of | love still | burning

Yet this is not a measure that is commonly found in the popular song. Other combinations seem to fit popular song needs quite as well, if not better.

(b) _The second measure_--called the iambic measure--is the reverse of the first. That is, the short or unemphatic syllable precedes the long or emphatic syllable. "Alexander's Ragtime Band " uses this measure at the beginning of the chorus.

Come on | and hear | come on | and hear

The first verse of Mr. Harris's song shows this measure even more clearly:

You sit | at home | and calm | ly read | your pa | per

This second measure, being less sustained in syllabic force, is more easily kept up than the first measure. It is therefore in common use.

(c) _The third measure_--called the dactylic measure--is formed of a combination of three syllables. Its characteristic is an emphatic syllable followed by two unemphatic syllables, as:

The | old oak en | buck et

The | iron bound | buck et

(d) _The fourth measure_--called by the frighteningly long name of amphibrachic measure--is formed by a short or unemphatic syllable followed by a long or emphatic syllable, which is followed again by another short or unemphatic syllable.

I won der | who's kiss ing | her now

(e) _The fifth measure_--called anapestic measure--is made up of two short or unemphatic followed by a long or emphatic syllable.

When the bell | in the light | house rings ding | dong

All these three-syllabic measures have a quicker movement than the two-syllabic, owing to the greater number of unaccented, unemphatic syllables. They lend themselves to a rus.h.i.+ng impetuosity of expression which is the notable characteristic of the popular song.

But they are not always regular, even in high-grade poetry.

Therefore in the popular song we may look for, and certainly be sure to find, all sorts of variations from the regular forms here given. Indeed, regularity, as has been clearly pointed out, is the exception and not the rule; for few single lines, and, in a still more marked degree, almost no songs, adhere to one measure throughout. Precisely as "apt alliteration's artful aid" may be used or not used as may suit his purpose best, so the song-writer makes regularity of measure subservient to the effect he desires.

However, I give these examples not with a view to the encouragement of either regularity or irregularity. My purpose is to show you what combinations are possible, and to say, as the jockey whispers in the eager ear of the racehorse he has held back so long, "Go to it!" Break every rule you want to--only break a record. As Mr.

Berlin said, "I've broken every rule of versification and of music, and the result has often been an original twist. In popular songs a comparative ignorance of music is an advantage. Further, since my vocabulary is somewhat limited through lack of education, it follows that my lyrics are simple."

This is only Berlin's modest way of saying that not one in ten successful song-writers know anything about the art of music, and that very few are well enough educated to err on the side of involved language and write other than simple lyrics. He drew the application as to himself alone, although his native genius makes it less true of him than of many another less gifted. The big point of this observation lies in his emphasis on the fact that

7. Simple Lyrics and Simple Music Are Necessary

Perhaps in Mr. Berlin's statement rests the explanation of the curious fact that nearly all the successful popular song-writers are men who had few educational advantages in youth. Most of them are self-made men who owe their knowledge of English and the art of writing to their own efforts. Conversely, it may also explain why many well-educated persons strive for success in song-writing in vain. They seem to find it difficult to acquire the chief lyric virtue--simplicity.

Not only must the words of a popular song be "easy," but the _idea_ of the lyric must be simple. You cannot express a complex idea in the popular song-form, which is made up of phrases that sometimes seem short and abrupt. And, even if you could overcome this technical difficulty, you would not find an audience that could grasp your complex idea. Remember that a majority of the purchasers of popular songs buy them at the five- and ten-cent store. To sell songs to this audience, you must make your music easy to sing, your words easy to say and your idea simple and plain.

8. Rhythm the Secret of Successful Songs

Being barred from other than the simplest of ways, by his own limitations, his introducers and his market, the song-writer has to depend upon a purely inherent quality in his song for appeal.

This appeal is complex in its way, being composed of the lure of music, rhyme and emotion, but when a.n.a.lyzed all the parts are found to have one element in common. This element to which all parts contribute is _rhythm_.

Now by rhythm I do not mean rhyme, nor metre, nor regularity. It has nothing necessarily to do with poetic measures nor with precision of rhymes. Let me attempt to convey what I mean by saying that the rhythm of a song is, as Irving Berlin said, _the swing_. To the swing of a song everything in it contributes. Perhaps it will be clearer when I say that rhythm is compounded of the exactness with which the words clothe the idea and with which the music clothes the words, and the fineness with which both words and music fit the emotion. Rhythm is singleness of effect. Yet rhythm is more--it is singleness of effect plus a sort of hypnotic fascination.

And here we must rest as nearly content as we can, for the final effect of any work of art does not admit of dissection. I have shown you some of the elements which contribute to making a popular song popular, and in the next chapter we shall see still others which are best discussed in the direct application of the writing, but even the most careful exposition must halt at the heart of the mystery of art. The soul of a song defies a.n.a.lysis.

9. Where the "Punch" in the Lyric is Placed

Just as it is necessary for a popular song to have a punch somewhere in its music, so it must come somewhere in its lyric. Just what a lyrical punch is may be seen in the chorus of "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine."

In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, On the trail of the lonesome pine, In the pale moons.h.i.+ne our hearts entwine, Where she carved her name and I carved mine, _Oh, June, like the mountains I'm blue, Like the pine, I am lonesome for you!_ In the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, On the trail of the lonesome pine.

The underlined words are plainly the punch lines of this famous song--the most attractive lines of the whole lyric. Note where they are placed--in the chorus, and next to the last lines. Read the chorus of "My Little Dream Girl" and you will find a similar example of punch lines: