assonance is beautiful

I'm no Tomlin fan, but this post on Chris Tomlin's lyrics annoyed me.

I'm good with this bit:

Well, enough’s enough. We are the most educated Christians in history, and yet our lyrics are considerably stupider than our much less educated Christian forebears–the people who sang lyrics by Fanny Crosby or Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts.

And please note that I didn’t say our lyrics are “simpler.” Simple can be good. Simple can be beautiful. I’m not arguing with simple.

But what Brother Tomlin seems happy to keep sending our way–and what the rest of us are happily receiving–isn’t simple, it’s just bad. Shame on him, shame on the worship leaders who aren’t finding anything else to set before us, and shame on us for not objecting.

I think that our congregational lyrics are more stupid than those of many other generations, but Prof. John Stackhouse (who wrote the post) seems to think that Tomlin's main crime is in his use of rhyme.

The man either doesn’t care about rhyming and settles for the merest assonance, or he lacks the skill or patience to actually craft rhymes. And rhyming is a pretty basic part of the pop genre in which he writes, not some exotic quality of songwriting I am unreasonably demanding of him.

...

And the last line offers this rhyme for “home”: “flows.” Say it with me, now: “Home, flows. Home, flows.” Nope, no rhyme there. Not by a mile.

Aaaargh! Mere assonance indeed! Assonance is type of rhyme. More subtle, delicate and suggestive than it's brother. One is not better than the other. They are used for different effects. Full rhymes feel like fierce magnets pulling lines together. There is a place for them. But some ideas shouldn't be forced together so strongly. Assonance creates a looser unity. Professor Stackhouse needs to go back to high school and learn about poetic devices.

I remember writing a poem in year 4 and being too embarrassed to show it to the teacher because the rhymes felt heavy and obvious. Tomlin would have us move on from year 4. Stackhouse would have us stay there.

It's okay to criticise someone's lyrics (I received a scathing critique of Never Alone last week) but let's save our harshest words for issues of content not artistry. Songs that are badly written will fall out of use after a decade or so. That's what has always happened. Most of our contemporary songs, however, are not stupid because of their artistry but because their theology is wrong, shallow or off balance. Let's think about that.

[HT: Mike Bird]