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It's a forced rhyme. I'm sure everyone comes down on one side or another, depending on their accent and your ears, at one time or another. I wouldn't read much into it.

"To you" (what he means) and "to ya" (what he sings) don't rhyme even in Cohen's native dialect, so it's not like anyone's being inauthentic. He's just as phony as anyone else.

Nanohedron wrote:

benhall.1 wrote:

Nanohedron wrote:I love Buckley for so much else, but in this case I have to agree.

As a serious question, can you point me to anything that he's done that's actually any good and that I might appreciate? Or did he just turn soulful, meaningful stuff into mush?

A matter of taste, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure of your question: Do you already dislike most of his stuff, then? Or are you simply unfamiliar?[/url]

I suppose it's more of the latter. However, every now and then, some friend or other has pointed something out to me along the lines of, "No, honestly, you'll really like this. This is why Jeff Buckley was so brilliant." And I find that I have to listen to yet another saccharine, over sentimentalised ... thing.

I'll go listen to your link ... [sigh]

s1m0n wrote:It's a forced rhyme.

I know what it is. I just think it fails in this song, and should be abandoned on principle so long as the realer rhyme is already to be had. Not to advocate inflexibility about it, necessarily, but in general it really doesn't work for me. Besides, "yuh" drives home an intimate familiarity the other doesn't. So for me, it's canonic to the song. Let others do as they may.

s1m0n wrote:He's just as phony as anyone else.

And he'd probably be the first to say as much. But genuine people actually do walk this Earth, you know. Just because one is flawed, it doesn't mean kindliness or humility makes one a fake.

I'm with Ben, I'm afraid. I don't get Buckley, either.

Mind you, Bob Dylan's mother once confessed - at the height of his fame - that she didn't get it, either. She couldn't see what anyone saw in Bob's music.

Nanohedron wrote:

Peter Duggan wrote:... cod phonetics ...

What is this "cod"? Not part of my lexicon, unless fish now speak.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cod
British informal
Not authentic; fake.
'a cod Mittel-European accent'

I nearly said 'phoney phonetics', but cod works this side of the pond!

s1m0n wrote:I'm with Ben, I'm afraid. I don't get Buckley, either.

Mind you, Bob Dylan's mother once confessed - at the height of his fame - that she didn't get it, either. She couldn't see what anyone saw in Bob's music.

Interesting. I've never particularly thought of Bob Dylan's stuff as "music". Or not just music, at any rate. I've always thought of it as being poetry. Set to music, but still, primarily poetry.

s1m0n wrote:It's a forced rhyme. I'm sure everyone comes down on one side or another, depending on their accent and your ears, at one time or another. I wouldn't read much into it.

"To you" (what he means) and "to ya" (what he sings) don't rhyme even in Cohen's native dialect, so it's not like anyone's being inauthentic. He's just as phony as anyone else.

Just to be clear, my reference to cod/phoney phonetics was about how I was notating things ('ya', 'yuh', 'yah' etc.), not what Cohen or anyone else sang.

benhall.1 wrote: I've always thought of it as being poetry. Set to music, but still, primarily poetry.

It's lyrics. They're different genres. With few exceptions, lyrics sound way more impressive sung than said or (especially) read cold off a page. Real poetry doesn't need melody. All the music is in the words. Melody gets in the way.

This is my chief objection to BD's Nobel prize.

~~

There are a few lyrics in the canon of english lit that are fine enough to get taught as poetry - Summer is a-Coming In and Oh Westryn Winde, for example. But those are a tiny fraction of the body of english lyrics. In the long run, Dylan's not going to make the cut. Some of Cohen might.

s1m0n wrote:Dylan's not going to make the cut. Some of Cohen might.

I'd say Cohen already has. He started out a poet, who set his poems to music.

There are other songs that followed a similar path. Jerusalem, and In the Bleak Midwinter, come to mind.

benhall.1 wrote:However, every now and then, some friend or other has pointed something out to me along the lines of, "No, honestly, you'll really like this. This is why Jeff Buckley was so brilliant."

Well, that wouldn't be me.

s1m0n wrote:It's a forced rhyme. I'm sure everyone comes down on one side or another, depending on their accent and your ears, at one time or another. I wouldn't read much into it.

Yes. Except...

... read from the page, so without the constraint of Cohen’s pronunciation of hallelujah, it may not even be forced. 'Hallelu-yuh' - 'to yuh' or, in some places, 'Hallelu-yer' - 'to yer' are unremarkable, especially if the rhyme is anticipated.

If sung then there is so much content between the two that I don’t think I would have paid attention to Cohen’s ‘you’ in the live version that Ben mentioned.

Question - are forced rhymes normally the other way round, with the compromise in the second line?

david_h wrote: Question - are forced rhymes normally the other way round, with the compromise in the second line?

Poets are advised if a weak rhyme is necessary to disguise the fact by recasting the lines so that the weaker element comes first, if possible.

s1m0n wrote:Poets are advised if a weak rhyme is necessary to disguise the fact by recasting the lines so that the weaker element comes first, if possible.

Which may be successful for me as a reader - I normally notice them in doggerel when used for effect.

Assonance ('getting the rhyme wrong')!