A perfect rhyme (night / light) feels closed and final. A near rhyme shares only the vowel (night / time) or only the ending sound — it feels softer and more natural, and gives you many more words to choose from.

  1. Use tight rhymes where you want things to feel settled — often the chorus — and looser ones elsewhere.
  2. Keep the rhyme pattern the same from verse to verse, and from chorus to chorus.
  3. Even numbers of lines, of equal length, feel settled. An odd number of lines, or one longer line, feels restless — good for longing, or for a part that should push forward.
  4. Put the stressed syllables on the strong beats. Say the line out loud: the words you lean on (nouns, verbs) belong on beats 1 and 3, the little words (the, of, and) in between.
  5. Keep held notes on open vowels (oh, ah, ay), and keep tongue-twisters out of fast lines.