Aside from the way that Peter Gabriel is able to sound simultaneously bored and self-absorbed, nothing irritates me about pop music more than when a lyricist completely botches what should have been an obvious rhyme. Consider the Boomtown Rats' 1979 hit "I Don't Like Mondays," which goes:
And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was as good as gold.
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be...
And here every listener in the world is silently mouthing "told," which not only rhymes but completes the thought quite nicely. Everyone except Bob Geldof, that is, who goes with "shown," which is merely assonant and doesn't provide any extra meaning beyond "told" that I can detect.
I wonder if he ever came up with a rhyme for "Nobel Prize."
"Howard Cosell eyes."
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