Further to my earlier post on Rhymes and structure, the early verses of I Had a King consisted of 8 measures. Yet Joni compressed them into 3 lines of lyrics, so that they read correctly. Still, when one looks at the sheet music, it is clear that all three verses follow rigidly identical patterns.
On the internal rhyme idea, in my restructured (4-line) presentation, there is still some internal rhyming going on in the first verse He's swept with the broom Of contempt and the rooms Have an empty ring Here, I refer to "swept, contempt, empt(y)". Also, the way I wrote the lines, they all pretty much use up two measures per line. The one exception would be as follows (I re-write them to follow the two measure structure instead) I had a king in a tenement castle Lately he's taken to painting the pastel Walls brown He's taken the Curtains down. I had a king dressed in drip-dry and paisley Lately he's taken to saying I'm crazy And blind He lives in Another time. I had a king in a salt-rusted carriage Who carried me off to his country for marriage Too soon Beware of the Power of moons. Basically, the lines have 11, 11, 2 and 7 syllables (give or take some "grace syllables"). Also, the chorus (which I wrote as 5 lines instead of 4) contains 10 measures (2 per line my way). My guess is that she slaved over these lyrics, just for us (or maybe for her, too) ;-) . Here's Michael From Mountains, re-worked similarly. Michael wakes you up with sweets He takes you up streets And the rain comes down Sidewalk markets locked up tight And umbrellas bright On a grey background There's oil on the puddles In taffeta patterns That run down the drain In colored arrange(ments) That Michael will change With a stick that he found Michael from mountains Go where you will go to Know that I will know you Someday I may know you Very well Michael brings you to a park He sings and its dark When the clouds come by Yellow slickers up on swings Like puppets on strings Hanging in the sky They'll splash home to suppers In wallpapered kitchens Their mothers will scold But Michael will hold (you) To keep away cold Till the sidewalks are dry Michael from mountains Go where you will go to Know that I will know you Someday I may know you Very well Michael leads you up the stairs He needs you to care And you know you do Cats come crying to the key And dry you will be In a towel or two There's rain in the window There's sun in the painting That smiles on the wall You want to know all But his mountains have called So you never do Michael from mountains Go where you will go to Know that I will know you Someday I may know you Very well Copyright ) 1968; Siquomb Publishing Company Here, all three verses (as I have re-structured them) have the rhyming patterns AAB CCB DEF FFB This can hardly be an accident, and it smacks of craftsmanship rather than miraculous genius to me. Anyway, I hope I haven't killed this horse. Music and poetry derive so much from math and logic. Hard to believe Joni was a decimal in Ray's Dad's math class. :-) Bob S
