The three best lyrical rhyme bombs of all time
Ever hear a song lyric and do an audio double take? Something that’s unexpected, a little bit weird and just incredibly satisfying in the way it beautifully rhymes.
I’m calling them rhyme bombs. Here are my top three and the stories behind the songs:
Rhyme bomber 1: Mariah Carey
Song: Touch My Body
Released: February 2008, Island Records
Mariah is well-known for her songwriting prowess. And she doesn’t just churn out any old lyrics either; her use of literary devices in hit pop songs has been documented in a quite sublime Twitter thread. It’s a mash-up of all things high- and low-brow, literati meets pop royalty, and includes examples of Mariah’s penchant for juxtaposition, which is at the core of 2008’s Touch My Body.
The lead single from Maz’s eleventh studio album E=MC2, this track is quite the unholy lattice of simpering seduction interspersed with all-out threats against infringing on her privacy.
I’m just going to a toga party, respect my privacy
On the one hand, she promises to “hug your body tighter than my favourite jeans” (and who wouldn’t want that), but in the next breath she warns: “I best not catch this flick on YouTube.” Presumably if that happened, she’d be squeezing the oxygen out of you like a boa constrictor in 501s.
In the third verse she lobs in this casual, effortless five-syllable rhyme bomb:
“'Cause if you run your mouth and brag about this secret rendezvous
I will hunt you down
'Cause they be all up in my business like a Wendy interview
But this is private, between you and I”
Note: The “Wendy” in question is Wendy Williams, host of the eponymous talk show. Five months before Touch My Body was released, Wendy did interview Mariah and asked the somewhat pointed question, “To be as creative as you are, you’ve got to have yourself as the centre of the universe. Is that true?” Mariah’s response: “You’ve gotta give out what you wanna get back.” Mic drop.
Rhyme bomber 2: Carly Simon
Song: You’re So Vain
Released: November 1972, Elektra Records
Rewinding 36 years from Mariah’s confidentiality threats takes us to 1972, the year Carly Simon released You’re So Vain. The track reached number one in multiple countries and is ranked by many as one of the greatest songs of all time. Not surprising, as it includes two top-drawer rhyme moments including the wonderful opening lines of the third verse:
Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
But it’s the stunning triple rhyme bomb in the very first verse, ending in the absolutely wild “gavotte,” that marks out this song as something special. Gavotte, as you well know, is a moderate tempo French folk dance created by the Gavot people of the Pays de Gap region in the 1690s:
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself gavotte
As for how “gavotte” made its way into the lyrics, Simon revealed in 2012 that she had the chorus of the song nailed and written down, but it took over a year for the verses to come together. She saw the now-mythical egomaniac arrive at a party at her sister’s house and check himself out in the mirror while someone remarked: “He looks like he’s walking onto a yacht.”
How to walk into a party, step 1
Of course, this was more than two decades pre-Google so Simon couldn’t surreptitiously look up “what rhymes with yacht” on her phone, but she does fess up: “It rhymed with what I needed it to rhyme with. He’s gavotting because that’s what a pretentious, vain man would do. But he’s not at the French court, he’s at my sister’s house.”
Note: The identity of the self-obsessed lothario who is the subject of Simon’s smackdown has been much debated. She even teasingly released one-letter clues over the years so we know their name includes E, A and R.
In 2015 she confirmed that the second verse was about Warren Beatty - and witheringly noted that he thinks the entire song is about him (how vain indeed) - but she left the door open on who exactly is at the party watching themselves do the folk dance shuffle through one eye.
Rhyme bomber 3: Lauryn Hill
Song: Ex-Factor
Released: December 1998, Ruffle House Records
Fast forward 26 years to 1998. This was the year of B*Witched, Boyzone and Cher’s Believe, which hogged number one for seven weeks, shifted 1.8m copies and introduced a new generation to auto-tune.
But it wasn’t all cheesy pop and uplifting comeback anthems that year. Lauryn Hill of Fugees fame released Ex-Factor, the second single from her debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. In it she laments the state of her relationship, searching for meaning and questioning herself, radiating pain, longing and frustration. In lyrics that some saw as directed at former Fugees member Wyclef Jean, she asks:
Tell me who I have to be (who I have to be)
To get some reciprocity
See, no one loves you more than me (more than me)
And no one ever will (no one ever will, yeah)
Ress-ip-ross-itee
“Am I not enough for you to love me back?” she asks in a chorus that has resonated with millions. No one has a greater love than Lauryn and no one has before or since rhyme bombed “reciprocity” to such devastating effect - and no one ever will.
