Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion

Para: We are villains who like to rhyme...
Dox: In fact, we do it all the time.
Para: You may think it's rather crass...
Dox: But you can stick your cards right up your nose.
Para: ...You were supposed to say "ass," brother. I thought we rehearsed this.

—Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series

So...you're listening to a song, or are on one of those crazy planets where everyone speaks in verse. A rhyming couplet is set up, but rather than using a rhyme the speaker takes it in a different, non-euphonic direction, either by speaking a different word, having it bleeped out, or cutting off an offending secti-part.

This is most often used for comedy: generally, the rhyme set up and subverted was clearly supposed to be a profanity. (If the replacement word begins the same way as the averted word, this amounts to a deliberate Curse Cut Short.) It's one of the myriad gimmicks used for Getting Crap Past the Radar, and when used this way is known as a "Miss Susie", after one of the most famous examples. Sometimes in this case the cut-off word will appear in a different context as a Midword Rhyme (The steamboat went to Hell/o operator.) Doing this is the only way to get the worse Bawdy Songs on American network television—though of course the trope is much older than that: it's used in an Elizabethan broadside ballad about seducing a maiden, thus making it at least Older Than Steam.

Known as a mind rhyme according to The Other Wiki.

A subtrope of Last-Second Word Swap, with a little bit of—Diet Coke. Compare with Painful Rhyme, Rhyming with Itself and Midword Rhyme. Not to be confused with Lame Rhyme Dodge.

Examples of Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion include:

Anime and Manga

  • A famous Tokyo Mew Mew fanart piece released just after the Macekre of the English dub does the "cut off" version:

Ichigo: Mew Mew Style, think I'll pass, English dub can kiss my--
Minto: Ichigo!

Announcer:
So, hail to thee, O Pizza Cat! Please ring your little bell!
Although you may be pen and ink, we know you'll fight like --
The Pizza Cats: (in unison) PIZZA CATS!

  • One episode of Pokémon, "Hassle in the Castle", has Team Rocket doing this with their motto.

Jessie: To protect us from all that chafing and itching!
James: It might finally stop all of Jessie's...complaining!

  • A commercial for Sailor Moon aired on the Canadian youth programming channel YTV did this:

"And Sailor Venus
which rhymes with....I can't say that on TV!"

  • The English version of Mahou Sensei Negima gives us this gem from the cheerleader trio in volume 1.

"Rickum, rackum, ruckum, ruckum!
Throw that ball and really f...fight!"

    • Which is just recent usage of a couplet that's been around for decades. In 1992, for example, a version or it appeared in Disney's Aladdin.
  • From Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

"Rah rah ree,
Kick em in the knee
Rah rah rut,
Kick em in the...other knee"

Comics

Etrigan: Our heroes ,quite noble, have fallen to hell; may they curse their eternal foul luck. And while these champions may triumph o'er street crime quite well, down here with the demons they're totally doomed.
Blue Beetle: That didn't rhyme!
Etrigan: So sue me.

  • The Maxx falls asleep watching cartoons in issue #5 and enters a surreal dream land where everyone talks and thinks in rhyme, including him. Upon his escape he discovers he can speak normally again, expressing this with a somewhat forced rhyme subversion:

The Maxx: It is different somehow, this land isn't mine! And my brain has been freed! I'm not thinking in ...poetry stuff.


Electronics

  • The voice sample for the "Boing" synthesized voice in Mac OS X uses a classic example of this:

Spring has sprung
Fall has fell
Winter's here
And it's colder than usual.


Fan Work

There was an old farmer who lived on a rock
He sat in the meadow just shaking his
Fist at some boys who were down by the crick
Their feet in the water, their hands on their
Marbles, they played there until half past four
There came a young lady who looked like a
Pretty, young preacher. She sat on the grass
She pulled up her dress and showed them her
Ruffles and laces and white, fluffy duck
She said she was learning a new way to
Bring up her children, so they would not spit
While the boys in the barnyard were shoveling
Refuse and litter from yesterday's hunt
While the girl in the meadow was rubbing her
Eyes at the fellow down by the dock
He looked like a man with a sizable
Home in the country, with a big fence out front,
If he asked her politely, she'd show him her
Small, tender hands with a movement so quick
And then she'd bend over and suck on his
Candy, so tasty, made of butterscotch,
And then he'd spread whipped cream all over her
Cookies that she had left out on the shelf
If you think this is dirty, you can go fuck yourself!

The prosecutor's put downs were quite rich
But honestly, she was being a big stuck-up...Meanie...


Film: Animated

  • In the first Shrek movie:

Please keep well off of the grass
Shine your shoes, wipe your...face.

    • Though they do complete a rhyme eventually:

Duloc is, Duloc is, Duloc is a perfect place!

    • Shrek the Musical makes a similar joke:

A princess full of sass
And a dragon and a...donkey!

  • Cars: Lightning McQueen is trying to sneak out of his personal appearance:

Dusty Rust-eze: Winter is a grand old time
Rusty Rust-eze: Of this there are no ifs and buts
Dusty Rust-eze: But remember, all that salt and grime
Rusty Rust-eze: Can rust your bolts and freeze your...Hey, look! There he is!

Narrator: Now, honey rhymes with bunny, and bunny rhymes with...
Pooh: Rabbit?

    • And again in the new movie:

Its toes are black, its fur is blue/ I swear all I tell you is not made up!

  • The Lion King:And OOOOOOOH, what a shame! (He was ashamed!) Thought of changin' my name! (Oh, what's in a name?) And I got downhearted...(How did you feel!?) Every time that I...(Hey Pumbaa, not in front of the kids!) Oh. Sorry. He wanted to say "farted"
  • In Disney's Aladdin, Genie sarcastically "cheers" Jafar: "Jafar, Jafar, he's our man, if he can't do it, GREAT!"
  • In The Rugrats Movie the moms are discussing the gender of Didi's then unborn baby and Charlotte says:

You know the saying, born under Venus, look for a...(cell phone rings cutting her off) hello?

Film: Live Action

Eddie: I'm through with taking falls
And bouncing off the walls
Without that gun
I'd have some fun
And kick you in the...(gets hit in the head)
Roger: Nose!
Smart Ass Weasel: "Nose"? That don't rhyme with "walls"!
Eddie: No, but this does! (kicks Smarty in the junk)

  • Variation from the musical Altar Boyz: The song is about waiting until marriage to have sex. The line rhymes, but it's still not the word that the audience might be expecting:

So 'till then, I'll have to master...my own fate.

Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad.
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle,
Don't grumble; give a whistle,
And this'll help things turn out for the best.

"We have a snoozaphone for your brother Stew, and a sousaphone for your brother Drew, a muncle for your uncle, a fant for your aunt, and a fampa...for your cousin Leon."

    • Not to mention:

Why, for year after year
I've put up with it now!
I must stop this Christmas from coming...
But how? Er, I mean, in what way?

  • In the 1981 film The Private Eyes, the killer subverts rhyme in each note to the detectives. For example:

If Jock could talk, he'd give you a clue.
But now that he's dead, what can you do?
He deserved what he got. I don't regret it a bit.
By the way, you're standing in bull ca-ca.

  • In Ferris Buellers Day Off, thinking he's terminally ill, a strippergram/prostitute dressed as a nurse is sent to his house, and greets him (actually his sister) with the rhyme:

I came to help restore your pluck,
cause I'm the nurse who likes to...
(the door is slammed in her face)

    • This was still too vulgar for network TV, and most showings have the door slam before the nurse says anything.
  • The father in Catch That Kid (a.k.a. Mission Without Permission) uses subverted rhyme when starting go-kart races to tone down the language:

Tom: Let's step on the gas and kick some...butt!

Pretty little fly
Why does it cry?
Caught in a web...
Soon will be ...eaten

I ate some bugs
I ate some grass
I use my hand
To wipe my tears

    • Justified, considering his character is a Catholic monk.
  • The Hot Chick had a little rhyme that went like this:

Boys are cheats and liars, They're such a big disgrace
They will tell you anything to get to second...
Baseball, baseball He thinks he's gonna score,
If you let him go all the way then you are a
Horticulturist's study flowers, geologists study rocks,
All a guy wants from you is a place to put his
Cockroaches, beetles, butterflies and bugs
Nothing makes him happier than a giant pair of
Jugglers and acrobats and a dancing bear named Chuck
All boys really want to do is
Fff...orget it no such luck

You looked, and looked,
and found the book,
and from the chest
the thing was (transforms) STOLEN!

  • The soundtrack version of the song "Cabin Fever" from Muppet Treasure Island has an extra verse, which goes like this:

My sanity is hanging by a thread,
Since we're going nowhere, I've gone out of my head,
We were sailing, sailing, over the bounding main
Lew Zealand: ...And now we're not! Heh heh heh!

Fireballs, Girls. Take this sucker down.
Let us show him what we're all about.
Scott: That doesn't even rhyme!

    • Well, it's closer to a rhyme than the one Scott comes up with in the graphic novel during the same scene (for the record, the "fireballs" line is a rhyme in the graphic novel, by way of Matthew using "out" instead of "down"):

You think you're so great, but you're missing the point
You gotta have friendship and courage and whatever!
Matthew: That doesn't even rhyme!
Scott: Shut up!

But from that point on, Phil Coletti was known as...Machete Phil!

  • The Don Knotts-Tim Conway film The Private Eyes featured a number of these.
  • The Unsinkable Molly Brown has a song called "Belly Up To The Bar, Boys", that has these lyrics:

And never whirl with a three-toed girl
Or a discontented whor...
..rible example, like a girl who's name was Carrie...

Tom's Boss: I'm a bit worried about you, Tom.
Tom: Oh? Why?
Tom's Boss: Well, your latest card reads: "Roses are red. Violets are blue. Fuck you, whore.


Literature

  • Non-profane use: In the novel The Fairy's Return, one character is constantly making up poems, but he always ends his couplets with a non-rhyming word, even when the word has an obvious synonym that does rhyme.
  • In Night Watch, Detritus trains new City Watch recruits, and teaches them his jody (which "somehow, you could tell it was made up by a troll"):

"Now we sing this stupid song
Sing it as we march along
Why we sing this we don't know
We can't make the words rhyme prop'ly!

Lovely to look at
Nice to hold
If you drop it
You get torn apart by wild horses.

      • Which is based on a sign in real-life souvenir shops that feature "Consider it sold" as the last line.
  • In Godel Escher Bach, the Crab puts on a record of himself singing "A Song Without Time or Season." Here's how it goes:

A turner of phrases quite pleasin',
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
In his songs, the last line
Might seem sans design;
What I mean is, without why or wherefore.

  • Non-comic, non-profane example: In George Herbert's poem "Denial" every stanza (except the last) ends on a non-rhyme, to symbolize the speaker's spiritual crisis.
  • Kurt Vonnegut retells one in his novel Breakfast of Champions:

Roses are red
And ready for plucking
You're sixteen years old
And ready for high school

  • A long verse appears in Don't Pat the Wombat'

Mary had a little lamb, she also had a duck.
She took it round the corner and taught it how to
Fry some eggs for breakfast, fry some eggs for tea.
The more you eat, the more you drink the more you have to
Peter had a boat, and the boat began to rock.
Up jumped Jaws and bit him on the
Cocktails, ginger alle, fourty cents a glass.
If you don't like them shove it up your
Ask no questions, tell no lies
I saw the boogey man doing up his
Flies are bad, mosquitoes are worse
and this is the end of my silly little verse.

  • Sean Kelly's National Lampoon parodies of war poetry included two couplets by "Wilfred Owen, who in 1915 found himself at the front, under constant gas and artillery attack, and without his rhyming dictionary":

Clouds broke at evening, and the sun set red
Flushing to rose the faces of the deceased.

People tell you all the time,
Poems do not have to rhyme.
It's often better if they don't

And I'm determined this one won't.
—Oh dear.
  • The title of Buck Up, Suck Up . . . and Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room, by James Carville and Paul Begala.


Live Action TV

You're the cutest of the Scoobies
with your lips as red as rubies
and your firm yet supple...tight embrace!

    • Which is incidentally a callback to an earlier verse in which Xander dodges a crudity without breaking the rhyme:

She is the one, she's such wonderful fun
such passion and grace.
Warm in the night, when I'm right in her tight
...embrace. Tight embrace!

    • Also inverted a few times in that same musical episode: there are several instances where a song is interrupted, and then it is always the case that the interruption rhymes, while there seems no obvious way the intended line could have:

She's just going through the motions,
faking it somehow.
She's not even half the girl she...ow!

      • Another example of that:

Xander: She clings, she's needy,
She's also really greedy,
She never -
Anya: His eyes are beady!

      • And again:

Buffy: Will I stay this way forever?
Sleepwalk through my life's endevors?
Dude in Distress: How can I repay--
Buffy: Whatever.

Every soul that plays this role risks injury or death,
I'd rather sweep the bloody stage than ever do MacYouKnowWho.

Michael Kelso: If this van's a rockin'...we're in there doing it!

  • Colin Mochrie, of Whose Line Is It Anyway? fame, is very good at improv—but his talents do not lie in music. Inexplicably, during the American run of the show, Drew Carey's favorite game was Hoedown (his excitement at it visibly irritated Ryan Stiles at times), meaning it was performed very often. Mochrie didn't even try to sing most of the time, rhyming in a sort of chant. However, he gleefully subverted the format several times—in one about the lottery, saying he didn't care anymore, speaking briefly in tongues, running around the studio, and hugging an attractive audience member; another time, in a callback to an earlier gaffe with his microphone's battery, mouthing words but saying nothing, ending in "my battery pack!"; and once ending a hoedown verse about a traumatic event in "I lost the ability to rhyme" (which did not, obviously, rhyme with the previous line).
    • On the other hand, however, many of the other stars on the show, particularly Greg Proops, do this so often and easily that subverting a profane rhyme is called "Pulling a Greg" in the fan community. Example:

The other day my girlfriend said 'Greg, you wanna thrill'?
She took me to a bridge at the bottom of a hill.
She tied the rope to my leg and I ran out of luck.
For when she pushed me off that bridge, I just yelled out 'wow'."

      • Drew did it at least once: "I hope soon that I get out all my stitches / 'Cause let me tell you, brother, they hurt like sons of guns."
      • Drew also inverted it in the "Children" Hoedown:

I don't pay alimony, I don't pay child support,
I don't pay nothing of no kind of that sort,
I get to keep all the money that I'm paid,
How can you have any children if you never ever get l(BEEP)--hey!"

      • No less a performer than Robin Williams once used the above cheer in a game of Props.
      • Used by Ryan in an Irish Drinking Song:

And there I'll open a business,
And I will get real rich,
I am so happy
I'll leave that old...Oh, hidey hidey...

      • Wayne Brady pretends to read a poem from an imaginary book:

My teacher was beautiful, a beautiful lass.
But I was embarrassed in front of the class.
I would sit in the back because I was quite a loner.
And then I - oh!

    • During an Irish Drinking Song, Colin is set up to say a line that rhymes with trucker, but instead he just smiles and says nothing. Both he and the audience know what he could have said.
  • This was a gag about Once an Episode in Up Pompeii! where one of the characters, an extremely virginial young man would compose odes to his current crush which would suggest an obviously bawdy rhyme which was invariably subverted.
  • The limerick version popped up again in Boy Meets World

Cory: There once was a boy named Cory.
Eric: Who now has an interesting story.
Cory: He learned about kissing.
Eric: And all he was missing...
Shawn: When he and Topanga made out!
Cory: Shawn, can we say "summer school"?

  • The Amanda Show had an example of this, when a boy in a classroom full of superpowered kids had the power of super rhyming.

Teacher: Alright, get out of class!
Student: Oh no, my dad's gonna kick my--
Teacher: Be quiet!

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah!
Spooky! Scary!
Boys becoming men,
Men becoming wolves!

    • Also:

Kenneth: You made a promise to Masi Oka. "Conserve electricity. Don't be a zero, be a good guy!" ...Why doesn't that say 'hero?' That feels like a real missed opportunity.

  • On The Muppet Show, during the Loretta Lynn episode, Fozzie, Scooter, Annabelle, and Link Hogthrob sing what's supposedly "The Rhyming Song". As might be expected, none of the lines in the verses rhyme. (They're also disjointed, but that's another story.)
  • From the opening of Comic Relief V:

Robin Williams: (rapping) We wanna raise some money
we'll work around the clock
If you don't send enough
I'm gonna have to show my...Comic Relief T-shirt!

But it doesn't matter what I'm paid,
Because I'm finally getting--
Six bucks an hour!
Includes a room and shower!

  • The Two Ronnies had far too many to list them all. Particularly memorable is one of their Jehosophat and Jones songs:

Up in the loft where the lamp-light flickers
I lost my heart and she lost her...parasol.

  • From The Gillies Report musical sketch "Maralinga, or Wise After the Event":

But will we act
Upon this fact?
This whole inquiry was a stunt!
I've never seen a bigger...miscarriage of justice!

  • The Paul Hogan Show did a parody of The Prophecies of Nostradamus where Hoges revealed the prophecies of his ancestor which, like Nostradamus', were also in verse. One of them ran:

The boy stood on the burning deck,
His pockets full of crackers.
A flame shot up his trouser leg
And blew off both his...sandshoes.

It's K to the N to the O-P-E,
She's the dopest little shortee in all Pawnee....Indiana.
R to the O to the N,
Swanson got swagger the size of Big Ben...clock.
Yo B to the O to the double S,
Do what he say and you'll be success...ful.

  • CSI had a non-singing one in an early episode that centered on a hockey player.

Catherine:This guy was about pucks,bucks and...chicks.

  • MythBusters had one episode where the hosts were testing myths regarding flatulence, and were attempting to keep things tasteful, generally by using the scientific term "flatus" in place of...the common term for such. Rob Lee also avoided using said "common term", generally via Unusual Euphemism (or else via less offensive terms), but there was one time he danced around the word using this very trope:

Rob Lee: We've all heard it: "Beans, beans, good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you"...er, produce flatus.

  • In one episode of Adventures in Wonderland, the White Rabbit has contracted "rhymitis", which forces him to only speak in rhyme. After he's cured, he sings a song full of these, with each followed by the chorus "And you know what the best part is? It doesn't rhyme!"
  • In Lexx, 790's attempts at love poetry are always interrupted just before the final word, but it is easy to guess how the poem would have gone.

Music

  • The 1921 classic "Ain't We Got Fun" does the clean version:

There's nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get -- children.

    • The second time 'round, the poor get "laid off."
  • Obscure British Art-pop band David Devant and his Spirit Wife and Mr Solo (the lead singers solo project) do this a LOT.
    • From 'Pimlico':

Sometimes London don't seem too appealing
Maybe youre lover is living in Deptford.

    • From 'Slip it To me':

And my Uncle thinks I'm barmy
'cause i don't pack my bag and join the navy.

    • From 'Black and White'

I woke up this morning, my head was full of rocks
I couldn't remember the night before, I'd lost a pair of shoes

    • From 'Genius':

This song doesn't make it's own luck
'cause this song doesn't give a flying family planning clinic.

    • Furthermore the lead singer sometimes changes the lyrics which actually do rhyme when performing live. For instance 'Do you have plans in your head, you wish they'd all go drop dead' becomes 'Do you have plans in your head, you wish they'd fuck off and die'.
  • OK Go's Let It Rain:

Did you come here to dance?
What's in your...glass?

  • A clean classic from U2's "Some Days Are Better Than Others"

Some days you're quick
but most days you're speedy
Some days you use
more force than is necessary

  • From Madvillain's "Great Day"

Spit so many verses, sometimes my jaw twitches
One thing this party could use is more...booze

  • Tommy Tutone's memetic hit "Jenny (867 5309)" features this little gem

Jenny, Jenny, you're the girl for me
You don't know me but you make me so happy

    • Tommy Heath's awkward pause right before delivering the "happy" line really makes it.
  • A double subverted lyric with different words than you'd think - Hieroglyphics' Throw it in Ya Grill:

A little bit of this is all I need
Can't wait to get home and smoke some salmon
Throw it in ya grill, then called my seed (scene?)
And when the street lights go off, we're jammin

    • Not where you thought they'd go with that, was it?
  • From the Weird Al song "I'm So Sick of You":

You don't have an ounce of class
You're just one big pain in the neck

    • And from Al's not-officially-released track "Still Billy Joel to Me":

It's a big hit isn't it
Even if it's a piece of junk

This song's got nothing to say
But I'm recording it anyway
I know if I put my mind to it
I know I could find a good rhyme here

  • From Daphne and Celeste's cover of "School's Out"

"Sitting in Class
Is a pain in the neck

    • From the Alice Cooper song of the same title, with Lampshaded goodness (and to be fair, it is hard to come up with something that rhymes with "principals"):

Well we got no class
And we got no principals
And we got no innocence
We can't even think of a word that rhymes!

Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes (got big lanes, got big lanes)
Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same (look the same, look the same)
There's not a line that goes here that rhymes with anything (anything, anything)
I has a dream last night, but I forget what it was (what it was, what it was)

  • From Alice Cooper's I Love America:

I love my bar and I love my truck
I'd do most anything to make a buck
I love a waitress who loves to...flirt!
They're the best kind

  • Another Alice Cooper example in "Working Up A Sweat":

The bandages come off today
Really feelin' sick
The hardest part's explainin'
All these blisters on my...NOSE!

  • The MC Lars song "Internet Relationships":

Let me send you pics for your personal collection
I hope they inspire you and give you a...smile

    • And his "Space Game":

And I'm from Mars, and she's from Venus
She has ovaries and I have a...light saber

  • Stephen Lynch loves doing this in his songs.
    • "If I Were Gay":

"And if I were gay
We would tear down the walls
But I'm not gay
So won't you stop cupping my...hand!"

    • "Vanilla Ice Cream":

"Just don't take it personally
This is no attack
But we will never last because
I'm white and you are -- also white..."

    • And in his El Ray Performance...

"I thought college life was great.
Ed couldn't count from one to two."

    • And in "Gynecologist":

When your legs are open, I begin the gropin'
But I fear I must be blunt
I would just as soon not go near your balloon
I think that I'll stick to your. . . front.

      • Double-Subverted, as it is a rhyme. Just not the one everyone thought it would be.
        • Also, from the same song: he "loves pu...tting womens' minds at rest".
    • "Whittlin' Man":

Yeah, he'd whittle if it's light, he'd whittle if it's dark
And if Noah was around, well, he'd whittle him an ark
He'd whittle something new, and he'd whittle something old
He'd whittle something hot, and he'd whittle something rather chilly...

  • Benny Bell's infamous song "Shaving Cream"; depending on the performance you witness, it has anywhere from 8 to hundreds of verses all in the form:

Our baby fell out of the window
You'd think that her head would be split.
But luck was with her that morning --
She fell in a big pile of shhhhhhhhhhhhh--
--SHAV-ing cream, be nice and clean
Shave every day and you'll always look keen.

    • The Mora Tr äsk cover of this song, Skidvalla, substitutes ski wax for the shaving cream.
    • An old friend of mine sang this charming version, a double example:

I think I'll break off with my girlfriend
Her antics are queer I'll admit
Each time I say, 'Darling, I love you'
She tells me that I'm full of...
Shaving cream, shaving cream, be nice and clean
Shave every day and you'll always look just like the same old big pile of shit

  • Invoked and played by Voltaire during the whole song: The Dirtiest Song That Ain't.

Down in Carolina
I met a girl with a nice [...]
So I reached down between us
And I whipped out my [...]
Skipped right past the suckin'
And got right down to [...]
She turned and said: "I gotta ask,
Would you slip it into my [...]?

  • The Assumption Song by Vito Petroccitto Jr. is entirely based on this trope.

There was an old farmer who lived on a rock
He sat in the meadow shaking his
Fist at the boys playing down by the crick
Their feet in the water their hands on their
Marbles and playthings...

    • However, subverted HARD at the very end of the song..

And then he'd spread whipped cream all over her
Cookies that she had laid out on her shelf
If you think this is dirty you can go f*** yourself!

    • The entire thing can be heard here
  • 'Series of Dreams' by Bob Dylan has a good example. Just the opening is quoted here, but the whole song avoids the use of the expected rhyme, although several other words appear in rhyming partnership with dreams.

I was thinking about a series of dreams
Where nothing comes up to the top
Everything stays down where it's wounded
And comes to a permanent stop

    • Sneakily averted in "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream":

I decided to flip a coin, like either heads or tails
Would let me know if I should go back to ship or back to jail
So I hocked my sailor's suit and I got a coin to flip
It came up tails, that rhymes with...sails, so I made it back to ship.

  • Oscar Brand's "Clean Song" is probably familiar to devotees of Dr. Demento:

There was a young sailor who looked through the glass
Spied a fair mermaid with scales on her island
Where seagulls flew over their nests
She combed the long hair that hung over her shoulders...

  • Allan Sherman used this trope in one of the parodies in his medley "Shticks And Stones" on his 1963 album My Son, The Folk Singer; in this case, he detoured around what was then a borderline obscenity in Yiddish, the word "schmuck":

Oh, I'm Melvin Rose of Texas,
And my friends all call me Tex.
When I lived in old New Mexico,
They used to call me Mex.
When I lived in old Kentucky,
They called me Old Kentuck.
I was born in old Shamokin,
Which is why they call me Melvin Rose.

  • The Killers, Mr. Brightside:

Now they're going to bed,
And my stomach is sick,
And it's all in my head,
But she's touching his chest, now
He takes off her dress, now...

    • Also possibly the chorus.

Churning lovesick lullabies,
Choking on your alibis,
But it's just the price I pay.
Destiny is calling me.
Opens up my eager eyes.
'Cause I'mmm Mr. Brightside.

Grass below you, sky above,
Celebrate Spring with a crazy little thing called...Fuckin' outside.

    • And in Chiron Beta Prime by the same artist:

That's all the family news that we're allowed to talk about
We hope you come and visit us soon
I mean we're literally begging you to visit us
And make it quick before they [MESSAGE REDACTED].

    • In his "Kenesaw Mountain Landis", there's one that seems like this at first given his humor, but it turns out to just be an unexpected rhyme scheme (which does get respected the rest of the way):

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a bad motherfucker
He was seventeen feet tall, he had 150 wives
He didn't do that much except he saved the game of baseball
He put two and two together and he noticed it was four
Now the treachery of Shoeless Joe can't hurt us anymore

    • "The Future Soon", which has the following lines:

I'll end world hunger, I'll make dolphins speak,
Work through the daytime, spend my nights and weekends Perfecting my warrior robot race...

      • It's a bit of a stretch, but the intended rhyme is likely "Asleep", though an earlier line describes working "In a space lab in space," which rhymes but doesn't fit the meter of the song.
      • Alternatively, you can think of "speak" rhyming with the first syllable of "weekends."
  • Paul and Storm, who often tour with Jonathan Coulton, have one of their own in "Cruel, Cruel Moon." You keep waiting for them to sing "...and then rip me apart." but they never do.
  • Subverted rhymes aren't always obscured obscenities. From Brian May's song "'39":

And the night followed day
And the storytellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day
Sailed across the milky seas

    • Replace "seas" with the intended rhyme "way," and remember that Brian May's a Ph.D in astrophysics...and the song begins to make more sense.
    • On the other hand, in Good Company...

Soon I grew, and happy, too
My very good friend and me
We'd play all day with Sally J.
The girl from number four

  • Popular cheer for cheerleaders:

Ra! Ra! Rhee! Kick 'em in the knee!
Ra! Ra! Rhass! Kick 'em in the other knee!

    • Ah, but don't forget the inverted version:

Ra! Ra! Rhass! Kick 'em in the ass!
Ra! Ra! Rhee! Kick 'em in the other ass!

    • Another cheer like this:

Rick em! Rack em! Rock em! Ruck em! Go out there and really fight em!

    • One more cheer:

We eat Wheaties! We are fit! The other team doesn't! They eat shhh...redded wheat!

    • And another!

Chocolate, Strawberry, Banana Split! We think your team plays like, SHIFT to the left, shift to the right...

    • Depending on your team's colours:

We're red! We're white! We're good! You're...not.

Two, four, six, eight, our team is really great! Three, five, seven, nine, you lead petty little lives and you live in a cultural wasteland.

  • Variation: In this performance of Roy Zimmerman's song "Ted Haggard Is Completely Heterosexual", there is the following couplet:

Zimmerman: Now Ted's a little haggard, but he's thankful for the schism,
[audience laughter]
Zimmerman: [speaking] "You're right, but wait for it."
[sings] And you might find it hard to swallow...the syllogism...

    • Also, in "Saddam Shame":

Now we've learned our lesson: it's hard to conduct
A war when the prewar intelligence sucked.
Now some say the country is totally f...ar from anything a well-meaning superpower could ever hope to reconstruct.

    • And again in "Summer of Loving":

Find a white dress or a tux;
It ain't nobody's business who a person marries.

    • And a cleaner, more subtle version in "Defenders of Marriage":

One summer evening when my woman was doing laundry
I shared a six-pack with an old John Bircher
And oh so wisely he imparted an ancient quandary
To ponder: He
Said, "It's nature versus...legislature."

You scream,
I scream,
Everybody scream
For morphine

  • From the Bob and Tom Song "Snailman"

Sometimes he drives a big car,
Sometimes he drives a truck,
He knows you're in a hurry,
He doesn't give a darn

I really couldn't be bothered:
My mind was totally blank.
So I made myself a cup of tea,
Read the paper, had a w-alk in the park.

    • In "Boy Band":

And we've already had a hit,
And you're listening to it,
And I'm sure you think it sh-ould be number one already!

You gave us digital and satellite,
You never said they would be sh-ockingly bad!

    • And from "Tabloid Journalists":

They'd exploit any tragedy that makes them a buck,
And if it makes things worse they don't give a f...
..Or your own protection you'd better beware,
There are tabloid journalists everywhere.

    • And again in a song about the return of amusingly deformed vegetables, and what this might mean for Esther Rantzen (who spent the 70s and 80s anchoring a show that featured them heavily):

She knows very well she had the easiest job,
Just holding up a parsnip that looked just like a kno .. ughty thing!

    • And again in "David Cameron Said Tw..", at the end of every verse (except the last one which just bleeps it out).
    • And yet again in "We Love Our NHS":

We heard your stories, we're here to bring the missing bit,
And if you're losing your own argument, could just be you're full of shanana da da da da naa

    • And once more with feeling:

Are you having a happy Christmas?
Just exactly how happy is it?
On a scale of one to ten
where one is great and ten is sh-ockingly bad

  • Comedy artist Worm Quartet performed "Spatula", with multiple instances of the approaching mention of male genitalia being the cue for the chorus of "Spatula, spatula, spatula..."
  • Tom Lehrer uses this trope in a few of his songs.
    • It's parodied in The Folk Song Army (along with just about every other folk song trope).

The tune don't have to be cle-ver,
And it don't matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line.
It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English,
And it don't even gotta rhyme.
Excuse me, rine.

    • An even better example occurs in "My Home Town", where Tom Lehrer replaces an entire line with "I'd better leave this line out just to be on the safe side" or "We're recording tonight, so I'll have to leave this line out", depending on which recording you're listening to (the former for the original studio recording, the latter for a later live performance). The really funny thing about this particular example is that there is no line to leave out. Try as he might, Tom Lehrer couldn't come up with anything that actually rhymed and that sounded better than simply suggesting that there was a line, but he wasn't allowed to include it.
      • To provide some context, the entire song is a cheerful ditty about all the charming folks in his home town...and about how unspeakably, amorally depraved each one is. The elided line would have described some secret involving "That fellow...who taught our Sunday School", and "our kindly Parson Brown." Remember, back then it really was the love that dared not speak its name.
  • They Might Be Giants' "Kiss Me, Son Of God:"

Now you're the only one here
Who can tell me if it's true,
That you love me,
And I love me.

    • This is debatable, but I think they set up "exploited working class" to rhyme with "kiss my ass", but instead used "kiss me, son of god." If you know the song title, you can see this one coming.
    • Also in "Number 3", then averted on the third line.

A rich man once told me "Hey, life's a funny thing."
A poor man once told me that he can't afford to speak.
Now I'm in the middle, like a bird without a beak...

  • Fred Wedlock's 'Handier Household Help' [to name but one of his comic songs to do this]

And you can bung it down the toilet. You can spread it down your halls.
You can buy it in pint canisters for putting on your...banisters.
It removes the stains from carpet, the blemishes from glass,
Keeps your radio free from static. It will fumigate your...attic. (And so on...)

  • In Draco and the Malfoys' "Potions Yesterday":We were teamed up in duelling class/But no one else believed that I could knock you on your bum
    • Sometimes inverted in concert.
  • From Deirdre Flint's Cheerleader:

A cheerleader might not have her GED but she's pursuing one.
A cheerleader might not be a CEO but she'll be...dating one.

  • The Arrogant Worms are often miscredited with The Assumption Song (see above). Although they never recorded that song, they have pulled this trope with I Pulled My Groin:

I pulled my groin, I pulled my groin
It hurts me when I skate, but not when I master...hills

  • The pirate-themed band The Jolly Rogers have recorded a song called "The Clean Song" (possibly NSFW) whose lyrics consist entirely of this trope, except for the very end.
    • In the same vein is a supposed "Old English Folk Song", sung here by Bob Saget.
  • Bat for Lashes' version of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire":

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and blunt
And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my...soul

  • Used twice in the Bowling for Soup song "99 Biker Friends" which is insulting an un-named abusive boyfriend that titular biker friends and the band wish to beat up. The first time it was played straight:

Such a big man
Such a little chick
I think it all
Goes back to your tiny...pick up truck

    • The second time was very much subverted:

Tell her that you're sorry
Blame it on the beer
Your dad was mean to you
Your friends think you're...an asshole.
And I do too
Over compensating
For your small shoe

  • The profanity-ducking version is Subverted by The Pogues in "The Old Main Drag":

One evening as I was lying down by Leicester Square
I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls

  • The ending of Peter Gabriel's "Big Time":

Big time, my belly's getting bigger
Big time, and my bank account
Big time, look at my circumstance
Big time, and the bulge in my big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big, hi there

    • Certain versions of the song just end it after the last "big".
      • I believe that only the music video version ends with the "Hi there," which is clearly taken from the beginning of the song.
  • Genesis pulled this to neat effect in "Land of Confusion". The rhyme of the first couplet in the refrain suggests exactly the opposite of the word used in the second:

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth living in

    • They almost totally avert the trope at the end, though:

Stand up and let's start showing
Just where our lives are going to

  • Another obscenity free example comes from "I Wish I was a Hudson" by...ummmm...the Hudsons.

...Where I'd quickly learn the system,
Start giving good advice
I'd drink a barrel of whiskey
And I'd eat my beans and...maybe some cornbread. Maybe some cornbread!

  • From the Dead Milkmen

My Baby drives...a truck
My Baby sure is...good luck
My Baby has a...pet duck
My Baby is a heck of a f...friend

Tony the Tiger:Every day I wake up
And I get to work late
My boss says "Hey whats up"
And I say that I'm Grrrrrrrrrrrrrowing tired of this shit

    • By the same artist, My Whole Family

My whole family thinks I'm gay
I guess it's always been that way
Maybe it's 'cause of the way I walk
That makes them think that I like...boys

      • Also by Bo Burnham, Sunday School

Did you know that Satan wears a cape
Made out of a rainbow flag?
And did you know that Jesus hates abortions
Unless the kid was a f- Jew?

      • Untitled

We'll love him and raise him, till he finally leaves us
What should we name him? How about Adolf.
Little Adooooooooolf!

  • For reference, here is (one version) of 'Miss Susie', which originated as a jump-rope rhyme:

Miss Susie had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell
Miss Susie went to Heaven
The steamboat went to
Hello operator
Please give me number nine
And if you disconnect me,
I'll paddle your
Behind the refrigerator
There was a piece of glass
Miss Susie sat upon it and broke her little
Ask me no more questions
Tell me no more lies
The boys are in the girls' room
Pulling down their
flies are in the city
bees are in the park
Miss Susie and her boyfriend
Are kissing in the
D-A-R-K
D-A-R-K
D-A-R-K
[fast] DARK, DARK, DARK
Dark is like a movie
A movie's like a show
A show is like a TV screen
And that is all I know
I know I know my mother
I know I know my pa
I know I know my sister
With the alligator bra!

  • A somewhat similar nursery rhyme-type song:

Three little angels, all dressed in white
Trying to get to heaven on the end of a kite
The kite string broke and down they all fell
Instead of going to heaven, they all went to
Two little angels...(This continues on until the end of 'one little angel'.)
Don't get excited
Don't lose your head
Instead of going to heaven
They all went to bed.

His name was Nobby Hall, Nobby Hall
His name was Nobby Hall, Nobby Hall
His name was Nobby Hall, and he only had one...finger
His name was Nobby Hall, Nobby Hall

    • Later verses include:

He went to rob a bank, and he stopped to have a...sandwich
The copper he came quick, and they caught him by his...elbow
The judge's name was Annie, and she had a hairy...head

  • A no-obscenity version for subtle emphasis in "Mad World":

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

  • The Magnetic Fields' "Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long" does this twice:

You scare me out of my wits
When you do that Shih Tzu

    • and later...

You've just run out of luck
I don't care what you foxhounds do...

  • Digital Underground's "Doowutchyalike"

Homegirls, for once, forget you got class,
See a guy you like: just grab 'im in the biscuits!

    • From the same song:

If you're hungry, then get yourself something to eat
And if you're dirty, then go take a bath.
Messed up the line? Nope - sometimes I don't rhyme.

  • "The Freckle Song" contains several instances, including

She's like my Nellie
From her head down to her...elbow.

    • And then there's:

She was born in Hackensack
she made a fortune on her...career!

    • And, of course, there's:

She drinks until she gets plastered
She gets drunker than...my brother!

  • Julie Brown's comedy song "I Like Them Big and Stupid":

I met a guy, who drives a truck
He can't tell time but he sure can drive

  • Bowser and Blue's "Polkadot Undies" is entirely built on this trope, and it even lampshades it in the last verse.

The moral of this story, like a jewel it is gleamin'.
But you'll never find it in a glass of warm...
Milk or tea, 'cause it will not fit,
And you probably already think I am full of...
Vague innuendos and double-meanin' rhymes.
But I'll tell you that obscenity is all in your...
Polka-dot undies!

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife,
It's like meeting the man of my dreams...and meeting his beautiful new husband.

The path you tread is narrow and the trumpets sheer and very high
the ravens all are watching from a vantage point nearby
aprehension creeping like a tube train up your spine
will the tight rope reach the end, will the final couplet rhyme?

    • The final couplet of the song, of course, is the only one which doesn't rhyme.
  • Subverted by comedian Brian Posehn's "Metal By Numbers" which sets up a obscene rhyme, only to replace it with another word, that means the same thing.

It's metal by numbers!
it's not arithmetic!
John Mayer or Kelly Clarkson,
they both can suck my...penis

  • Done in JibJab's latest 'Year in Review' song, where the lyrics cut to the same word, only in a different context.

Global market meltdowns,
A bailout by the Fed
Fanny, Freddy, AIG and Lheman crapped the
Bedlam in Afghanistan
The Big Three self-destruct
Jessie Jackson threatened to cut off Obama's
Nutjobs made a bigfoot
And Spitzer's friend turned tricks
Duchovny went to rehab 'coz he couldn't control his
Dick needed a kickstart, the US needed gas
Harry showed the world his wand and Miley showed her
Ask me any question, I'll give it to you straight
For your sake kid I sure do hope '09 ain't like '08

  • "Flavor of the Month" by Black Sheep:

Just a brown fellow
Who's not afraid of Jello
To the people of the world
I would like to say G'day

  • Tally Hall presents a pseudo-example of this for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gag in the song "Haiku":

I've never thought much of formulaic verse anyway
And rhymes are not my forte. [correctly pronounced as "fort"]

Some people use the front door
But that's never been my way
Just 'cause i slip in back doors,
Well, that doesn't make me...hey!

  • Multiply double-subverted in Anthrax's song "I'm the Man":

"Drink the drinks, the drinks they drank
I put my money in the bank
They cut their crack, they offer joints
We don't do drugs, do you get our..."
"Meaning!"
"Point! Point! Watch the beat!"

  • A lovely little song entitled Sweet Violets does this trope for the entirety of the song. A snippet:

There once was a farmer who took a young miss
behind the barnyard and gave her a lecture
on gooses and chickens and eggs
and told her she had the most beautiful manners
that suited a girl of her charm
a girl that he'd like to take up in his washing and ironing
and then if she did
then they could get married and raise lots of sweet violets!

    • The aforementioned "Assumption Song" uses the same tune but this one's much cleaner!
  • The Rick Moranis song "9 More Gallons" pulls this in the first two verses (the third verse has a similar subverted intent, but manages to rhyme anyway):

I work all day
To pay the rent
Before the money's earned
It's all been allocated

    • And in the second:

Work all night
I'm always tired.
Hope my boss
Doesn't get me laid off.

  • Brook Benton's "Boll Weevil Song":

The boll weevil said to the farmer
"Farmer, I'd like to wish you well"
Farmer said to the boll weevil
"Yeah, and I wish that you went...lookin' for a home..."

  • Fairly common in the song Oh, You'll Never Go To Heaven:

Oh you'll never go to heaven on a blade of grass,
'Cos a blade of grass will cut your leg.
Oh you'll never go to heaven in a portaloo,
'Cos a portaloo is full of water.

Your name is Clive, and you're forty-five
But you don't let that come between us
And you make me hold your hand.

  • The Pixies' "Vamos":

They'll come and play
Their friends will say
Your daddy's rich
Your mama's a pretty thing

  • The Violent Femmes' "Gimme The Car", where the profane rhymes are suddenly interrupted by guitar slides:

Come on dad, I ain't no runt
Come on girl, gimme your- * sproing*

  • Every verse of "The Air Is Getting Slippery" by Primus ends on one of these:

Now if you want an encore
You might hear "Is It Luck?"
But me, I'd rather play Residents
'Cause I don't give a-
Forgive me if I hesitate

    • Also from Primus; Mr Knowitall

They call me Mr. Knowitall
I am so eloquent.
Perfection is my middle name
And whatever rhymes with eloquent.

  • "Please Play This Song On The Radio" by NoFX (Written as 'rhyme' but pronounced another way):

Almost every line in sung in time
Almost every verse ends in a rim

  • "Stutter Rap" by Morris Minor and the Majors uses this well in two separate ways:

And it breaks my heart that we're not on the chart
'cause the record's nearly over when the vocals start
And I'm down and out, and I'm down on my luck
And I'm livin' on my own and I'm dying for a f-riend to say "You're great!"
But I'm under the hammer
'cause all I seem to do is s-s-s-st--

    • Another example from "Stutter Rap", in this case people expecting to hear 'nineteen'...

Well no-one's ever seen what I mean
From the age of n-n-n-n-n-n-thirteen

    • ...and yet again from "Stutter Rap", misdirected 'No Sleep 'til Brooklyn' lyrics:

NO! SLEEP! 'TIL BEDTIME!

      • The B-side of this record, Another Boring B-Side, contained this double example, where the first averted rhyme becomes the set-up for the second:

If the A-side makes a hit
We don't care if this is missed
'Cause the sonner we get finished
The sooner we get home

Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck
I think she finally wants to fffffffffforget about yesterday.

  • In the song "Into Your Arms" by The Maine, the first few lines go as follows:

There was a new girl in town
She had it all figured out.
And I'll state something rash,
She had the most amazing...smile.
I bet you didn't expect that,
But she made me change my ways...

C'mon, people, don't you look so down
 You know the rainman's comin' to town
He'll change your weather, change your luck
And then he'll teach you how to...find yourself!

  • Many Country Music songs subvert a rhyme to "ass": "Honky Tonk Attitude" by Joe Diffie, "You Ain't Much Fun" by Toby Keith, "Men" by The Forester Sisters, etc. Diffie uses a "well", and the other two use a "yeah". Also in Jo Dee Messina's "I'm Alright", she just doesn't say the word at all: "Been on top of the world and off on our…" When Phil Vassar (who wrote the song) did his own rendition for a Greatest Hits Album, he sang "asses."
    • Chad Brock's "Lightning Does the Work" takes it a step further:

I've seen lightning blow a cypress tree in half
The thunder's busy talkin', and lightning's kickin'...(thunderclap)

I'm talkin' jet skis and inner tubes
Pretty girls with big ol'...blue eyes

  • And yet another, from "The Truth About Men" by Tracy Byrd:

If you wanna know what we're all thinkin'
It's nothin' too complex
Just somethin' cold for drinkin'
And a whole lotta S-E-yeah, that's the truth about men...

  • Little Texas gets the most brazen award for country songs that subvert a rhyme to "ass" here...not completing the rhyme, in the chorus, and then using said non-completion as the title of their song, in "Kick a Little". (Though you might not know it because they set it up to rhyme with "last".
  • Chico Buarque, Brazilian musician, once used this in his song "Cálice". This song was a heavy protest against the military dictatorship that occupied Brazil back then. The subverted rhyme was a way of Getting Crap Past the Radar, making it a rare non-comedic example. Being such a serious and powerful song, most people appreciate the subtlety. AND it actually rhymes better this way. Yes, Chico is a genius!! It's also unusual in that the substituted part is before the part it is supposed to rhyme (he substituted the word puta, that means bitch or whore, for the word outra, other).

De que me vale ser filho da santa
Melhor seria ser filho da outra
Outra realidade menos morta
Tanta mentira, tanta força bruta

    • I kinda did a translation for English-speaking people, sorry if it's bad, Cálice is very hard to translate.

What's the worth of being son of the saint
Would be better being son of the other
Another reality, less dead
So many lies, so much brute force

I know a girl called Dorothea,
She is very sick, she's got...a cold

  • Mr. Brown by Glow:

Yes, Mr. Brown just doesn't look as if he's rich
Cause all the money he earns goes directly in the bank

Single, double, triple, home run
For the celebration I'll shoot my gun
I like my friend, he's a real guy's guy
He's not a loudmouth like that cunthole, Steve!

    • Which is in fact a reference another example in an older song, "Just 2 Guyz": I like playing games in the pool/Who invited Steve? That dude's a cunt!"
    • Similarly in "Natalie's Rap" (featuring Natalie Portman):

When I was in Harvard I smoked weed every day
I cheated every test and snorted all the yay
I gotta def posse, you gotta bunch of dudes
I'll sit right down on your face and take a shit!

  • "A Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash.

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun
And I called him my pa, and he called me his son
And I came away with a different point of view
And I think about him, now and then
Every time I try and every time I win
And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him...Bill or George! Anything but Sue! I still hate that name!

On behalf of my behind
I feel it is my duty to my booty
To be head of the class
When it comes to...butts

  • Some of the alternate verses to "Old Time Religion" play with this, but specifically Lampshaded in:

I will worship the great god Loki,
he's the Norse god of chaos
that's why this verse doesn't have any meter or rhyme scheme or anything like that
and that's good enough for me.

They may tell you it's only their job,
But they love it every bit,
So when they say it's not their way they're talking a lot of hypocrisy
They hate you!

  • Most iterations of the chorus to A Tribe Called Quest's "Ham N' Eggs" do use the expected rhyme ("Not at all"), but towards the end of the song it's momentarily switched to:

I don't eat no ham n' eggs
Cuz they're high in cholesterol
Afrika do you eat 'em? No.
Pos, do you eat 'em?
Hell yeah, all the time!

    • Also "Can I kick it", 'hair' is forced to rhyme with everything else, but not 'wear' or 'air'

Make a note on the rhythm we gave ya
Feel free, drop your pants, check your ha-ir
Do you like the garments that we wear?
I instruct you to be the obeyer
A rhythm recipe that you`ll savor
Doesn`t matter if you`re minor or major
Yes, the tribe of the game, rhythm player
As you inhale like a breath of fresh air

  • Dream Theater's "As I Am". Might not be intentional, but it works anyway. The phrase seems like it should be "You cannot touch the way I roll"

You're thinking too much
Where is your soul?
You cannot touch the way I
Play
Or tell me what to say

  • Toy Matinee's "Turn it on Salvador" contains this. Quoted directly from the lyrics insert:

Even tied, eggs you fried, out of luck
What the [some 15th century German word]
[some 15th century German word]

    • This may render the lyrics impossible for anyone to sing ever again, since the singer/main songwriter died, others might not remember the word, and it is incomprehensibly slurred and trailing-off; it sounds a tiny bit similar to "squawk."
  • "Chippy Tea" by The Lancashire Hotpots:

Her inspiration's Ready Steady Cook
Am I eating it? Am I...It's Friday night, I want a chippy tea!

    • "I Met a Girl on Myspace" is even better:

It were from a lass in Lancashire, her page had loads of hits
I saw the pictures in her profile, she had absolutely massive too-ra-loo-ra-aye!
and:
She said she had no transport, so a lift she'd cadge
And if I played my cards right, I'd get to feel her too-ra-loo-ra-aye!

  • In Eric Bogle's "Introduction Song", in which the members of the band introduce themselves, the bass player gets this:

I play electric bass,
With an educated thumb,
If you think my face is hairy,
(instrumental line)

  • of Montreal's "My Favorite Boxer":

Hector Ormano is my favorite boxer.
He goes smasho and everyone cheers.
He turns big men into whimpering cowards.
He's so strong and...how I adore him.

  • Then there is the Emilie Autumn version of the popular "Miss Lucy" song- here's just a part of it. (The rest can be found here.

Miss Lucy had some leeches
Her leeches liked to suck
And when they drank up all her blood
She didn't give a
Funny

  • Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden with "Big Fat John" (Prescott, that is):

He came from Hull, he was true grit.
He was full of hope and he was full of integrity.

  • Played straight in Bob Rivers' A Visit From Saint Nicholson:

And a stiff drink for Mommy in a nice tall glass
She could really use something to kill that bug up her chimney

  • The bridge of Rin Barton's Favorite Tiny Cat has this:

Everything that happens, I know it's just bad luck

Even when I get home to find you've managed to poop on the wall, how did you even do that, what the fff-
—favorite tiny cat, you're my favorite tiny cat...

I feel insane
Every single time
I'm asked to compromise
'Cause I'm afraid
And stuck in my ways
And that`s the way it stays

    • And later:

Shame
Pulses though my heart
From the things I`ve done to you
It`s hard to face
But the fact remains that
This is nothing new

  • Barenaked Ladies' "It's All Been Done":

If I put my fingers here
And if I say "I love you, dear"
And if I play the same three chords
Will you just yawn and say, "oh --
It's all been done"

  • Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans":

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
If we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eye
We held our fire 'til we seed their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em -- well...

    • Spoofed with "The Battle of Kookamunga" by Homer and Jethro. The missing word is not a profanity, though it would make the song racier.

We kept real still and we had our eyes a-glued
We saw how they were dressed, they were swimming in the- well now...

  • Frank Zappa's "Father O'Blivion" has a rather prolonged one:

He was looking rather bleary
He forgot to watch the clock
'Cause the night before behind the door
A leprechaun had stroked, yes...
The night before behind the door
A leprechaun had stroked (he stroked it!)
The night before behind the door
A leprechaun had stroked his...
Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh - stroked his smock!

  • Harry Chapin's "W.O.L.D." serves up a mild variation of this, only with the "offending" word replaced with the thump of a drum rather than a different word:

There's a tire around my gut
From sittin' on my (* thump* )

  • And then there's Wodega, which is an entire song built on this.
  • Jon Lajoie's rap parody "I Kill People" manages to rhyme most of the time, however awkward and beige they may be. But when he decides to praise his own lines, well...read it and see.

My lyrics are like the movie The Shawshank Redemption
[Awkward pause]
They're really good

  • The last verse of "The Games People Play":

Look around tell me what you see
What's happening to you and me?
God grant me the serentity,
To remember who I am.
Cause you're giving up your sanity,
For your pride and your vanity,
Turn your back on humanity,
And you don't give a da da-da da-da...

  • Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer"

I am just a poor boy,
Though my story's seldom told.
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises.

  • Lady Gaga's song LoveGame:

I can see you staring there from across the block
With a smile on your mouth and your hand on your HUH!

    • Also the chorus:

Let's have some fun, This beat is sick
I wanna take a ride on your disco stick

  • The song "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale" by Love uses an interesting variation of this. The last line of every stanza always trails off before a rhyme, but the word you'd expect to go there is then used as the first word of the next stanza. Thus:

What is happening, and how have you been?
Gotta go, but I'll see you again
And oh, the music is so loud
And then, I fade into the...
Crowds of people standing everywhere
'Cross the street I'm at the slop affair

Perhaps I'll look beneath the couch
Perhaps I'll look behind the corn
Or in my closet in the back
Behind the questionable periodicals

  • From "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" by Big & Rich:

I'm a thoroughbred
That's what she said
In the back of my truck bed
As I was getting
Buzzed on suds

  • "Check Yes Juliet", by We The Kings, starts thus:

Check yes Juliet, are you with me
Rain keeps falling down on the sidewalk

    • And every time he hears it, this troper's mind completes the second line with city...
  • Another subverted rhyme to add emphasis to the lyrics is in Yoko Ono's "I Felt Like Smashing My Face in a Clear Glass Window"

I never had a chance to choose my own parents
I never know why I should be stuck with mine
Mommy's always trying not to eat
And daddy's always smelling like he's pickled in booze

  • Done acappella with mermaids here.
  • Oded Gross's "Song That Doesn't Rhyme" is built on this trope:

This is a song I wrote, it's a song that doesn't rhyme.
'Cause I was in a hurry, and I didn't have the...patience.

Well you and me
We make a pretty good team
So let's go melt some ice
If you know what I mean
You grab my stick
I'll grab your puck
Feels so good
Baby, let's play to win

You, by the phone
You, all alone
It's a long way back to Germany
It's a long way back to Germany

    • The expected rhyme being "home".
  • There's this bit from Ludo's Rotten Town:

Heigh, heigh, yo-ho
O're the Atlantic we go
Drinkin' 'till we all get sick,
And comin' up with limericks
But we never quite remember how they end

  • The rap group Insane Clown Posse never blush at spewing filthy language, so they usually don't employ this trope. But, ironically, they do use it in an unexpected way in the opening verse of "The Headless Boogie":

It's Friday night
Dark, scary
Lonely walkin' through the park
Cemetery
And it's foggy
Cold and smoggy
I hear a dog
A how-a-lin' doggy
I'm scared
Shoulda brought my shotgun
Woulda, shoulda
But I ain't got one
So I watch my back
Hey, what's that?
The caretaker
A dirty old hunchback
I'd better run!
Hide!
Quick!
Fast!
He's comin' for my ass with a shovel (instead of "pick")!

  • From Angelspit's "Kill Kitty"

I am the fire
You use me to light the gas.
You are the paper
I use you to wipe my.

  • Double subverted by "Down in a Ditch" by Joe Diffie:

I'm runnin' this shovel way down in a ditch
When you're down in a ditch, it's a son of a gun
Every fool knows you'll never get rich
When you're down in a ditch in the Tennessee sun.

  • Jo Dee Messina's "I'm Done" subverts the rhyme because, if the word were there, it'd throw the meter off:

Oh, you had to scratch that itch
You deserve what you get, yeah, you and that…
Walkin' around, talk of the town...

  • "One More Drinkin' Song" by Jerrod Niemann:

And here's to bartenders tryin' to get paid
While the rest of us are tryin' to get...
Hey hey hey, what's so wrong
With one more drinkin' song...

  • A rather odd case in The Cave, by Mumford and Sons.

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

Sergeant: Tell that mean Iraqi nut--
Chorus: Tell that mean Iraqi nut!
Sergeant: We will never kiss his--
Man: Whoa, Sarge! Never say never.

There's a a face in every window of the Songwriters' Neighborhood
Everybody's your best friend when you're doing well...I mean good

  • "I Want Your Socks", a parody of George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" by Mark Jonathan Davis (before he became Richard Cheese), has:

Socks are thin and socks are thick
You can even wear one on your...hand.

  • Sykotik Sinfoney's "Manic Depresso", best known for its use in b-movie Bad Channels:

Grandma knits me a great big sweater
My little life can't get no better
Life's so happy and full of joy
I'm lying, it really sucks!

  • Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like A Lady" has a variation, setting up one obvious rhyme (given the subject matter) but then rhyming with a different word instead.

Love put me wise
To her love in disguise
She had the body of a Venus
Lord, imagine my surprise!

  • Carcass' "Don't Believe a Word" has this few verses:

Fact and fantasy united as one
Real power stems form the barrel of a pen

  • An example from Art Brut's "Ice Hockey" where Eddie Argos sings;

My time on earth was a lot of fun
But the adventure has only just started

  • Dead Kennedys' cover of "I Fought the Law" does this at the outset, mostly to starkly contrast their modified version of the lyrics from the original's:

Drinkin' beer in the hot sun
I fought the law and I won
I needed sex and I got mine
I fought the law and I won

  • The W.A.S.P. song "Blind In Texas" has this verse:

Raisin' hell in Austin, just after sundown
when the hoosegow police decided to come 'round.
They said, "What's the matter with you?
Whatcha tryin' to do?"
I looked at the man, and I said...
(Blackie's obvious response isn't censored, but simply omitted as the song moves along to the chorus.)

  • From Bela Fleck's "The Message":

Taxes for the poor, none for the rich
People starving in America, now ain't that a bummer

  • "Fish" by Craig Campbell:

I had everything we needed in the back of my truck
Turns out my baby loves to...
Fish, she wants to do it all the time
Early in the morning, in the middle of the night
She's hooked and now she can't get enough
Man, that girl sure loves to fish

  • "Beat Up Guitar" by the Hooters [The Frankford El is an elevated train line in Philadelphia. The couplet is older than the song, being used in jumprope rhymes years before the song was released.]:

Oh you can't get to Heaven on the Frankford El
Cause the Frankford El goes straight to Frankford

Well I stumble my way into my local bar
Where I saw the devil in my glass
The bartender told me it was time to go
I told him that he could lick my sack

A J-pop song comes on we start to rock (wo-oh)
She reached up my leg to grab my...hand (wo-oh)

  • Eminem skirts this in "Criminal":

I drink more liquor to fuck you up quicker
Than you wanna fuck me up for saying the word...(left unsaid since he's white)

The blue ladies rode the bikes
And what they were, we assumed, rhymed with bikes

"When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and "The Mountains of Mourne"
In his search for Celtic chiché, the man has left no stone unturned
'Til he embarks upon the harp that once through terraced halls
Accompanying himself on the Bodhrán, which takes a lot of...courage.

    • "World Cup Fever":

And when some stupid damn committee gave the match to Melbourne City
Though it made us all feel quite...annoyed, we didn't cause a fuss.

  • From the Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers song "Counterclockwise"

Well the gringo boys got their dark sunglasses
And the girls on the beach are all shaking their fingers
'Cause no matter how dark the lenses they can see
That the eyes and the minds of the boys are somewhere they ain't supposed to be.

  • There's one from a recent upoad by Anthony and Those Other Guys: Thormas Time

Thormas Time
Is in its prime
That rhyme really sucked
But if thou doth not sacrifice
Then thine life will be fff-false and meaningless

  • Rappy Mcrapperson's song, "Curse In your Verses", is all about how he cusses too much, yet doesn't contain a single cuss. This is as close as it gets:

Saying swears a whole lot, not a little bit
Cursing in my verses, cause I don't give a whaaat!

  • MF DOOM is fond of doing this. Just one of many examples:

As a few good men set sights to link with your chick
You have to find a new hen fight to drink your liq'
Ten years later, see how Enzyte'll shrink your...wallet

  • 1960s group Doug Clark & the Hot Nuts does this in their Double Entendre-loaded "Hot Nuts Theme #1"

Well roses are red and ready for plucking
And girls out of high school are ready for...college

The fact that it is subverted makes this possibly one of the cleanest lines in the song.

A couple nice girly bits
Quit freaking out over bosoms

  • Los Campesinos!' "Baby I Got the Death Rattle"

And I chewed my only necktie from the metal frame of my bed
Where I tied your wrists together spent all night giving oh you get the message don't you?

  • The Charlie Daniels Band's "Uneasy Rider" has this piece:

I called up the station down the road a-ways
He said he wasn't very busy today
And he could have someone out there in just about ten minutes or so
He said, "Now you just stay right where you're at,"
And I didn't bother to tell the durn fool
That I sure as hell didn't have any place else to go

  • And of course, there is the chorus line for "Last Kiss" by J. Franklin Wilson and the Cavaliers:

Well, where oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven, so I've got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world

  • "Hot Problems" by Double Take.

They see my blonde hair, blue eyes and class
But they don't know I have a really big heart

Musical Theater

  • "Fie on Goodness" in the musical Camelot contains the following lines:

Ah, my heart is still in Scotland
Where the lasses woo the best
On some bonny hill in Scotland
Stroking someone's bonny...

Fie on Scotland, fie!
Fie on Scotland, fie!

  • In the musical My Fair Lady, Eliza causes pandemonium at the Ascot races by shouting, "Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin' arse!" Shortly afterwards, Freddie is about to rhyme "farce" by repeating her words when Mrs. Pearce interrupts him.
    • Later, Eliza sings in "Without You":

You, dear friend, who talk so well,
You can go to
Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire.

    • Higgins' "Why Can't the English" has a very subtle one:

In France, every Frenchman
Knows his language from A to Zed
(The French don't care what they do actually
As long as they do it in bed pronounce it properly.)

Julia: So you're back where you started,
On your way to success.
So
Will you sing at my wedding?
A beat.
Robbie: NOOOOOOOO.

Mrs. Lovett: Is that just revolting,
All greasy and gritty?
It looks like it's moulting,
And tastes like...
Well, pity
A woman alone...

    • At the very end of the show, Todd and Mrs. Lovett are singing a reprise of "A Little Priest": "Life is for the alive, my dear, / So let's keep living it, really living it—" and then Todd flings her into the oven, making the implied, but never sung, last line "in here!"
  • Although it's not used for comedic effect, Company features one in "Poor Baby":

There's no one
In his life,
Robert ought to have a woman...

  • In a reversal of this trope's conventional use, "Feelings," from the Bock and Harnick musical The Apple Tree: after Eve sings at some length about how nervous and dreamy she gets around Adam, she concludes with:

Is there a source for this congestion
That I must learn to rise above?
Is there a name for this condition?
Yes, there's a name, and it is hell!

  • From a sanitized version of "Beauty School Dropout" in a junior high production of Grease:

Well, they couldn't teach you anything; you think you're such a looker,
But no customer would go to you unless she was a...fool!

And when all your neighbors are upper class
You won't know your Joneses from your Astors.
...
When we're in the dough and off of the nut,
You won't know your banker from your butler.

  • In the Lippa version of The Wild Party, Burrs sings in "Make Me Happy" (while waving a loaded pistol):

We've got a situation:
Shit or get off the pot!
Whaddaya say? You wanna give her away
Or do you wanna get--
On your knees?

  • In The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, Katisha is trying to reveal to the chorus that Nanki-Poo is the son of the Mikado, but she keeps getting interrupted: "No minstrel he, despite bravado! He is the son of..."; "I'll spoil your gay gambado! He is the son of..."; and so on. Fortunately for Nanki-Poo, the chorus is Genre Blind enough that they don't realize that the word that keeps getting cut off must be "Mikado".
  • "They Couldn't Compare To You" from Out of This World:

Mercury: There was Mélisande,
A platinum blonde
(How I loved to ruffle her locks).
There was bright Aurora,
Then Pandora,
Who let me open her--
Chorus Girls (not half a beat too late): They couldn't compare to us!

  • In Curtains, near the end of the song "It's a Business", after using several inappropriate words without qualms:

Carmen: Yes, green's my favorite color,
And I don't mean on the grass
It's a business.
And the shows I do do business,
And I'm good at doin' business,
And if you don't like my business, sweetie,
Blow it out your...
Guys: Business!

    • Played with in the song "Thataway". The script offers this line to alternate with the original or be used in its place for younger productions.

Cowboys: What's that music?
What's that dance?
What's that stirring?
It's romance!

    • The original line?

Cowboys:What's that stirring?
In my pants?

  • It's not exactly a rhyme, since it's just the same word over and over again, but from The Book of Mormon:

"Here's the butcher! He has AIDS! Here's the teacher! She has AIDS! Here's the doctor! He has AIDS! Here's my daughter! She has Aaaaaaaa wonderful disposition..."

  • In Wicked, during Elphaba's birth in "No One Mourns the Wicked":

I see a nose!
I see a curl!
It's a healthy, perfect, lovely little - (her father and the midwife realize she's green and start screaming)

  • The song "Random Black Girl" from "Homemade Fusion" by Kooman and Dimond:

The designers can't light me
Director don't know my name
And the makeup artists think
We all wear the same shade
And Mr. Stage Manager thinks I got too much sass
And the costumer don't know what to do with my big old...black...head, oh!


Radio

  • A The Now Show example from someone other than Mitch; Marcus Brigstocke's Dr Seuss poem about the Copenhagen summit has Gordon Brown taking a stand:

He suggested the EU should lead from the front
So the Mail and Telegraph called him something very unpleasant indeed

    • Laura Shavin:

Twenty years ago, a man called John Gray, a genius,
Wrote a book called Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus,
All about the differences between us,
And it's not just that men have got...a Y-chromosome...it's Radio 4...not sure we can say penis.

  • At least one Abbott and Costello radio episode featured these.
  • Played straight and subverted on How Green Was My Cactus when Little Johnny Howler and John Fosters (the Cactus Island counterparts of Liberal party politicians John Howard and John Elliot) appeared as The Two Johnnies, and Fosters demonstrated that he had no understanding of what actually made the gag work:

Fosters: A brawl broke out outside Parliment House last night, during which Seanator Ros Kelly was punched in the belly...
Howler: ...the Honorable Barry Jones broke a few bones...
Fosters: ...and Senator Steele Hall was kicked in the carpark. (pause) Shouldn't that have been 'balls'?


Theater

  • From the play Saturday's Children by Maxwell Anderson:

Florrie: It's vain of its face
It's vain of its figger
It's just fat enough
But it mustn't get - larger
Willy: Rhyme it you dancing fool, rhyme it!
Florrie: Um - it never uses bad words.

Now Othello loved Desi like Adonis loved Venus.
And Desi loved Othello
'Cuz he had a big...SWORD!

    • Even before that, they've already pulled a similar trick:

Their fate pursues them, they can't seem to duck it,
(pause) And then in Act 5, they both kick the bucket.

Hamlet: (singing) For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very--pajock.

Horatio: You might have rhymed.

  • A Stanley Holloway monologue has this line:

And was George afraid? Yes, he was and he run,
And he hid there in one of the ditches,
While the Dragon, the pig, ate his ferrets and pup,
Aye, best of his prize-winning er - she dogs.

Video Games

  • In World of Warcraft the Forsaken have completely subverted a traditional rhyme with,

Roses are grey
Violets are grey
I'm dead
And colorblind.

  • In Banjo-Tooie, Jamjars, who teaches you moves, does so in a rhyming style. Sometimes, he ends up rhyming the button names, which, while always rhymed in the original version, often did not rhyme in the Xbox Live Arcade version. You'd have the same problem if you played the original game in the US—Jamjars at one point rhymes the Z button with "red," which works in the UK—where "Z" is pronounced "Zed"—but not the US, where it's pronounced "Zee."
    • Also in Banjo-Tooie, Gruntilda, who has spoken entirely in rhyming couplets all through Banjo-Kazooie, and up to that point in the sequel, says "Oh, very well then" in response to a demand by her sisters to stop the incessant rhyming.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Shantotto always speaks in rhyme during her cutscenes, except on one occasion:

A? fairly decent job, even with all the fuss,
I hereby score you a solid B minus.

Yuffie: That's the way things go, you know. Without luck, you're...Uh, okay, moving on!

  • In Left 4 Dead, there is a room full of graffiti which includes

Alison,
Roses are red
Violets are blue
You suck

Korvak: Magic makes me happy, magic makes me glad, magic makes the voices quiet, and nothing rhymes with purple.

    • There's also Bard Roberts' shanty, recapping the "Great Brain Robbery" quest: "Mi-Gor tried to stop your heart's pace / Your foe's arm part anchor, part mace / Struck without delay / But him ye did slay / made him look a total...[beat]...moron."
  • The Pac-Man ghosts: Pinky, Blinky, Inky, and Clyde.
  • In Dragon Age: Awakening, a clue for one sidequest reads as follows:

You are my hen, the mistress of my flock. You nourish my body, and tend to my...rooster.

Guybrush: We'll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange.
Haggis: And...! ...um...
Bill: Well...
Edward: ...err...
Bill: Door hinge?
Edward: No, no...
Bill: Guess the song's over, then.
Haggis: Guess so.
Edward: Okay, back to work.
Guybrush: Well, gee. I feel a little guilty, now.

  • In one part of SBCG4AP: Baddest of the Bands, the player has to help Homestar fill in the words to his song by directing him to food items. However, one of them doesn't pan out as expected:

Homestar: Bleu cheese or ranch. We can dine in, or we can take it to go.
Our food-related love makes me all tipsy, kinda queasy, like a...
[Strong Bad points to the escargot]
[[[Record Needle Scratch]]] Homestar: Plate of snails?! That...doesn't rhyme...

Fawful sings a song of bad.
Mushroom Kingdom is so sad.
All of it is for Fawful
and the...rhyme with...that.

  • In the 2011 edition of You Don't Know Jack, one of the commercials / sponsors is for a rhyming dictionary where the voice over consistently fails to rhyme any of his lines.
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2 provides us with the following gem, in a poem about the sheep of Gran Pulse titled "The Melancholy of the Lambs:"

It's hard to be sheep
out here on the plain,
Avoiding the hunters
is such a terrible strain.
Oh, I wish that once
I could munch on some grass
Without a man coming to pull
a tuft from my...side.

  • The Credits Song at the end of Portal 2, called "Want You Gone," gives us what seems like a heartwarming good-bye, but then GLaDOS proves to be...well, GLaDOS, and subverts it to make it more insulting.

Goodbye, my only friend.
Oh, did you think I meant you?
That would be funny if
It weren't so sad.


Web Comics

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
Except for Reginald's,
And Beartato also forgot his.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Get the f*** off my lawn!

There once was a man from...schmonnerhea
 You have AIDS. Ucket.

That's enough; I don't feel well.
I fall down; You go to ugh...*collapses*


Web Original

  • The trope title itself is an example. If you don't get it...we can wait.
  • Cake Wrecks does it twice in the description of a wedding cake that appears to have sperm on it First "Roses are red,/Butterflies are blue,/Um.../Pardon me, but are those sperm on your wedding cake?" and then in Poem Option #3: Roses are red/And cake can be pretty./How sad for you,'Cuz yours looks all.../[eyeing children]/...unpleasant.
  • Lampshaded in Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series, in the duel against the rhyming Paradox Brothers.

Para: We are villains who like to rhyme...
Dox: In fact, we do it all the time.
Para: You may think it's rather crass...
Dox: But you can stick your cards right up your nose.
Para: ...You were supposed to say "ass," brother. I thought we rehearsed this.

    • Also, in the middle of that duel:

Para: You have tricked us with your magic box!
Dox: We invite you to suck on our co-<Bakura interrupts with praise for the move>

    • And at the end of the duel:

Para: It seems that we ran out of luck!
Dox: It's just a card game, who gives a fu-<scene change>

Para: When we're through with you you will want to submit.
Dox: If you ask me this clip show's a pile of horse sh-<cut to next clip>

    • Also played straight in the second christmas special:

The Pharoh awoke the very next day,
Wearing an outfit that made him look...uh, handsome.

    • And in "LEATHER PANTS~"

Marik: "We don't want vinyl or chinos or briefs/I am a criminal and he is a thief/and we are hot/hot, hot hot/we are quite sexy."
Bakura: "Marik, that doesn't quite rhyme."
Marik: "SHUT UP I AM Lady Gaga!"

  • A cult YouTube video parodies the Nickelback song Rockstar with new lyrics lampooning pop singers such as Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson:

I'm gonna dress myself without an ounce of class,
Gonna make the boys all drool and stare at my...glasses

Ten Dollar Solo. Not bad so far
There's internal rhyme
Although not every instance
And the meter is occasionally a little bit bizarre

    • and, as sung by Nathan Fillion:

My wonderful me-ness
My hammer the peee--
ople can tell
That I'm awfully swell...

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Your house is covered
In piles of excrement

My car door's freaking out; it seems to be forever
In the concrete barricade; I wonder how I'm ever going to drive away.
This really isn't my day.
Sparks are flying, people dying, metal frying,
And I wonder if there's more to life or if I'll find that this is really it.
This game is a piece of work.

  • In this I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC episode with Deadpool singing: I'm sure that his power ring's a lot of fun/ but can it ever really be as cool as my M16 with laser sided scope oh my GOD I love this thing.
  • Break It Down, a short skit from the people who would later form Tally Hall, includes the following plan to make a quick buck:

"I have a better plan
I'll marry a wealthy man."
"Wouldn't that make you gay?"
"Not neccesari-lay...
...I'll sleep in a separate bed,
and I'll refrain from giving...
[beat]
...kisses."

Ian: The Transformers creators wouldn't pay us to make this rap
They told us that the script was full of NONSENSE!
I bet you thought I was gonna say "crap", cause it rhymes with "rap", but I'm better than that!

"I'm Charles Dolling, droppin' rhymes/I've been arrested seven times/I know that sounds like a lot/but three of times were for...vandalism."

  • In the The Key Of Awesome parody of The Dark Knight, Alfred almost reveals Batman's identity to the Joker:

Joker, are you busy? Let's call a truce.
I need you to help explain the plot to...Batman.

    • They also have this verse in their parody of California Girls

Nose jobs, tummy tucks
These are the girls I like to...hang out with.

Nachos, lemon head, my dad's boat
You won't go down 'cause my dick can EFFORT!!

But let's not forget that we need to perform well
In class if we want to pass our...OWLS.

    • And of course:

You're tall and fun and pretty
You're really, really skinny...
CHO CHANG!

"Merry Christmas to everybody and also goodnight to everybody!"

Remember that time that I saved your life? You were happy, I could tell.
You said something about how I was smart and I make your life a living heaven.
We do everything together like hide and go seek, your favorite game.
But I'm so glad that we found each other and I know you feel the identical way as me.

I'm five foot eleven of sex
From the tip of my head to my gorgeous...knees.

  • JibJab does this with "The Year 2008 in Review", sung to the tune of "Miss Susie". One example:

Baby Year 2008: Barrack [sic] defeated Johnny
So long to the far-right.
Now McCain has many houses,
But none of them are...
White men got passed over,
From Wasilla she was plucked;
When the maverick tapped a hockey mom
The press said, "What the..."
Truck bombs in Islamabad;
Bill Gates up and quit.
Putin stuck his chest out,
Told the Georgians to eat...
Ships were seized by pirates,
Ike and Gustav hit,
Johnny's honey had a baby,
But he said it wasn't...
HIIIIISSS-tory's now littered
With more famines, floods and wars.
If there's one thing I am grateful for,
It's that this job's now YOOOOUUUURS!

  • The Friendship Is Witchcraft episode "Neigh, Soul Sister" features a couple of these in Sweetie Belle's song about the big race:

[[AC:The race has begun<br/> We must run fast<br/> Jump over the mud<br/> Having a good time]]

and

[[AC:Making tacky jelly<br/> Put it on your head<br/> We're gonna win the race<br/> Because I am a good racer!]]

    • The opening line of her earlier song might qualify, depending on where she was going with it:

[[AC:Just because you feel upset<br/> Does not mean you have to yell]]

It burns me like this cheap whisky,
Right down to my thorax.
I'm your Nostalgia Chick,
And I speak...for underrated Dr. Seuss books from the 1970s.


Western Animation

  • Billy and Irwin sing a song like this in the Billy and Mandy episode "Go Kart 3000":

We built this car
All by ourselves,
If you don't like it
You can go to...heck!

    • There's also this classic gem.

Sassy Cat, Sassy Cat, full of sass, full of sass, if you don't like it you can kiss her BUTT!

  • Animaniacs did this in a segment of "Dot's Poetry Corner".

Dot: Beans, beans, the musical fruit.
The more you eat, the more you get kicked off the air for finishing this poem.

Chorus: Come on back; farewell, Attila
Ate three ox, and got his fill-a
He wore shorts made of chinchilla
His favorite ice cream was strawberry.
Yakko: What can I say? It's not a perfect world.

Dot: I never am vain
Yakko: She's becoming a pain in the--
Dot: But I'm also real nice

  • From the Family Guy episode "Brian Sings and Swings":

Brian: I love the work of Allen Funt.
Stewie: Or a nicely shaven leg.

    • And again, in "Road to Europe":

Brian: Cause you get a kick out of carnage and guts.
Stewie: And you get a kick out of stroking your--
Brian: Whoa whoa. You can't say that on TV.
Stewie: What, "ego"?
Brian: Never mind.

    • "I Need a Jew" was Bowdlerized into this, rhyming "Jew" with "light," "slap," and "Lord."
    • In Stewie and Brian's song at the Emmys:

Brian: Now, The Sopranos is a show I recommend.
Stewie: Because you never know just how it's gonna- (cut to black screen)

    • Peter does this in a scene where he is imagining he's in an 80's sitcom.

Peter: My black son, my black son/ Now everyday my heart is getting bigger/ Don't even remember sleeping with that lady/But I did...

  • Wendy Testaburger did a version of the "Miss Susie" song in one episode of South Park.

Mrs. Landers was a health nut,
she cooked food in a wok,
Mr. Harris was her boyfriend,
and he had a great big
Cock-a-doodle-doodle,
the rooster just won't quit,
And I don't want my breakfast,
because it tastes like
Shih Tzus make good house pets,
they're cuddly and sweet,
Monkeys aren't good to have,
'cos they like to beat their
Meeting in the office,
a meeting in the hall,
The boss he wants to see you,
so you can suck his
Balzac was a writer,
he lived with Allen Funt,
Mrs. Roberts didn't like him,
but that's 'cos she's a
Cont[1] aminated water,
can really make you sick,
Your bladder gets infected,
and blood comes out your
Dictate what I'm saying,
'cos it will bring you luck,
and if you all don't like it,
I don't give a flying fuck!

When Brian Boitano traveled through time
To the year three thousand ten,
He fought the evil robot king
And saved us all again
When Brian Boitano built the pyramids
He beat up Kubla Khan,
'Cause Brian Boitano doesn't take shit from an - y bo - dy...

Adam: Bull shark! Porcupine! I don't know what!
Going to this school's a pain in the--
Jake: Adam!
Adam: What? I was gonna say "neck".
Jake: Oh. That's okay, then.

    • The painful thing about this is that the show can't go thirty seconds without a butt joke. Censoring it in the theme song is rather misleading.
    • Let's not forget Animal School Musical...in this one song Jake was singing, he subverted every single rhyme. And the song was about his incapability to rhyme.
  • An episode of The Fairly OddParents lampshades this, with Timmy being sent to the planet Yugopotamia, which has been conquered by the Gigglepies, an alien species that wear cuteness and rhyming as a hat. When Timmy inquires to their overlord about what they will do to their planet:

Overlord: We'll do what we always do, blow the planet up and move on to the next one! ISN'T THAT CUTE?
Timmy: That's horrible! And it didn't rhyme!
Overlord: [to the Gigglepies] He's on to us! GET HIM.

  • Garfield and Friends: 47's told in verse, except the last line which is not. Don't worry, folks, he wouldn't curse, but see the twist this cat hath...made:
Garfield: And now, this tale I must suspend / For I have come to...the finish.
—"Fit For A King"

Homer Simpson: I once knew a man from Nantucket...
Bart: And?
Homer: Let's just say the stories about him are greatly exaggerated.

    • There once was a rapping tomato. That's right, I said rapping tomato. He rapped all day, from April to May...and also, guess what, it was me.
    • Also from "Fat Man and Little Boy" with its own verson of 'Miss Susie' with Homer eavesdropping:

Lisa and Jamie (singing and rhyming): "Miss Lucy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell. Miss Lucy went to Heaven and the steamboat went to-"
Homer (gasps)
Lisa and Jamie: "Hello operator, get me number 9, and if you disconnect me, I'll chop off your be-"
Homer (more gasps)
Lisa and Jamie: "-hind the refridgerator, there was a piece of glass, Miss Lucy sat upon it and cut her big, fat-"
Homer (gasps, then passes out)
Lisa and Jamie: "Ask me no more questions, I'll tell you no more-"
(Lisa gets hit by a spitball)
Lisa: "Ow! Spitballs!"

Sherri and Terri: Bart sold his soul, and that's just swell,
Now he's going straight to...
Hello, operator, give me number nine.

    • In "Homer Loves Flanders", there's a football player named Stan "The Boy" Taylor.

Crowd: STAN! STAN! HE'S OUR BOY! IF HE CAN'T DO IT, NO ONE...(Beat) WILL!

  • The Musical Recap of ReBoot's 3rd season features these lyrics:

Actor Dot: But Megabyte betrayed Bob and
He threw him deep inside the pit
The pit was closed
and Bob was hosed
and all that he could say was
Actor Bob: Noooo!

To be first in the soil which erupts in a coil
Of trees, vines, and grasses all brought to a boil
Wait, it's different somehow 'cause this land isn't mine
And my brain has been freed, I'm not thinking in...poetry stuff.

Yak:You sure are a clever guy. Now just follow Nob and I
Norb:
Dag I think you're really neat
I like to sit and watch you eat
It's cold in here, turn up the --
Dag: He--music.
Yak: LET'S TRY AGAIN! Let's not cast blame but this time Dag, just say your name!
Norb: It looks like a good baguette, please give some to brother --
Dag: Da--your name.

  • In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Unfair Science Fair", Dr. Doofenshmirtz recalls the time he tried writing poetry:

Doofenshmirtz: The movies are gray
The TV is black
The horses are running
Please bring me some food.

    • Or it could've just been a free verse poem. The comedic effect is the poem making no sense whatsoever, not because it didn't rhyme.
  • An episode of Pinky, Elymra and the Brain contained a song with these lyrics:

Romance,
A chance
To jump in someone else's arms!

Epitaph: Here lies Cynthia Snell.
She lived her life and went straight to -
Arnold: Huh. I can't read the rest.

  • And in a Pinky and The Brain cartoon set in medieval times with Pinky as a minstrel constantly missing obvious rhymes. In the climax Brain must choose between providing the right rhyme or completing the spell that will allow him to take over the world. Guess what he does.
  • From the Bagpuss song "The Boney King of Nowhere":

...Two mice came up from somewhere behind their Royal chum
They said, Dear King
Here is a thing
To warm the royal...
And stop you feeling numb
(For the non-British: the missing word is 'bum', which means 'bottom'.)

So now you know your problem you can deal with your emotion,
and have a better life when you return to the...sea

  • At the end of Dan Vs. "Ye Olde Shakespeare Dinner Theatre," Dan gloats over his victory thusly:

"I've made you cry, your theatre is burnt!
It lies in ruin, plain for all to see
And now it seems your lesson has been learnt
That should teach you not to mess with DAN!"

  • Beavis and Butthead has one episode when the boys visit a cafe with a stage, and Butt-Head steps in and saying some rhymes.

There was once a man from Venus, with a rocket ship for a...uhh...wiener.

    • And there's another episode, "At the Movies", when a cop shoots his foot and Butt-Head picks up the toes:

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
And this little piggy shot a big-ass hole through his foot.


Miscellaneous

  • From a birthday card, with the last word on the inside:

Jack wasn't nimble. Jack wasn't quick.
He sat on your cake and burned his...corduroys.

  • Inspired by the classical nursery rhyme:

Mary had a little lamb
and she also had a duck,
she put them on the mantelpiece
to see if they would fall off

    • A similar rhyme:

Mary had a little lamb
She kept it very well
One day she fed it dynamite
And blew it all to...pieces

  • An alliterative example: A number of popular science writers are fond of describing the basic drives of all animals (including humans) as involving the "Four F's: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing, and Reproducing."
  • Roses are red Violets are blue I'm schizophrenic So am I!
    • Roses are red Violets are blue I've got Multiple Personality Disorder'And so do we!
      • Roses are red Violets are blue I've got Dissociative Identity Disorder'For goodness' sake settle on a bloody name for what we've got already!
    • Roses are red Poppies are red The grass is all red SHIT THE GARDEN'S ON FIRE!
      • Violets aren't blue These poems are lazy Political correctness'Is driving us mad.
  • A piece of bathroom graffiti, riffing on a classic piece of bathroom graffiti.

Here I sit,
Broken-hearted,
Came to shit,
But my girlfriend dumped me.

  • Songs that avert naughty words in this manner are called "teasing songs". Yet another example:

Suzanne was a lady with plenty of class
Who knocked the boys dead when she wiggled her
Eyes at the fellows as girls sometimes do

  • Here's a limerick:

There once was a lady from Brunt
Who stood in water up to her knees
This poem doesn't rhyme yet
But wait 'til the tide comes in

  • Another one:

There once was an old man named Chuck
Who loved a lady from Innsbruck
"She's too pretty for me,"
He said morosely,
"But I wish I could get her to go on a nice walk down the road so we could really get to know each other."

  • A non-limerick by Trad (or his brother Anon)

There was a young lady from Bude
Who went for a swim in a pond
A man in a punt
Stuck his pole in the water
And said "you can't swim here, it's private".

  • Or how about:

There was a young poet of Mainz
Whose limericks had no last lines.
When asked why this was,
He said "it's because

  • In a similar vein:

There was a young man of Arnoux
Whose limericks stopped at line two.

  • And taking this train of thought until it hits the buffers:

There was a young man of Verdun,

  • Of course, we won't even mention the limerick about Emperor Nero.
  • Similar:

There was a man from Rome
Who daily composed a poem
Try as he might
He just couldn't quite
Stop from putting too many words in the last line, it sounded awful.

The limerick, peculiar to English
Proved exceedingly hard to extinguish
When Congress in session
Decreed its suppression
People got around it by writing the last line without any rhyme or meter.

Little Miss-Miss, went out to pi--
--ck, some flowers;
She waded in grass, up to her aaa--
--nklebones;
She went to the coop, to take a pooo--
--rr, little chicken out;
Little Miss-Miss, went out to pick, some flowers.

  • Then of course, there was the song about the 'Three Jolly Fishermen', and one verse has them,

'All going down to Amster--SHHH!
We must not say that naughty word;
Must not say that naughty word;
They all went down to Amster--SHH!!!'

    • Gleefully subverted in the next verse, however:

'We're gonna say it anyway;
Gonna say it anyway;
Amster-Amster--DAMNDAMNDAMN!!
Amster-Amster--DAMNDAMNDAMN!!
They all went down to Amster-DAMN!!!'

  • There are many Russian kids' songs (made by kids, not for kids, of course) of this kind, with a varying grade of obscenity. I'll try to translate one here:

There's a statue on a rock,
And that statue has no--
EYES!!!
Don't you dare to spoil my rhymes! (Note: in Russian it rhymes better)
That one statue has no COCK!

    • Translated another one:

Lo! The bushes are a-wagging!
What're they doing in there? --
SHAGGING!
Don't you dare to spoil the merries!
There's a bear searching for berries!

    • There are also many rhymes/songs of the following type; for example:

I'm a di--
I'm a dignified young troper,
I have fu--
I have fun writing this song.
I like boo--
I like booze and Terry Pratchett,
Yes, my co--
Yes, my comment skill is huge ;)
And my ba-
And my badger ate a pickle.
Then my nu-
Then my nutball grandpa died. (What, you thought it would make sense?).

    • There are also so called "Eve Verses". A bit hard to translate (or, rather, compose new ones), but here is an attempt:

Old Lady Jill was out of luck
She looked for someone young to...dance
But they were no type for romance
They only cared for smoking crack.

  • A cheer that goes like this:

Rah Rah Ree!
Kick 'em in the knee!
Rah Rah Ras!
Kick 'em in the other knee!

    • And similarly:

Cigarette ashes! Cigarette butts!
We've got your team by the knees!

    • And yet again:

We like warm beer and cold duck!
But most of all we like to fffffffight, team, fight! (The drawn-out "fffffff" is essential for maximum amusement of the juvenile minds performing the cheer.)

  • That playground classic "Charlie had a Pidgeon":

Charlie had a pigeon,
A pigeon, a pigeon.
Charlie had a pigeon,
A pigeon he had.
It flew in the morning,
It flew in the night,
And when it came home

It was covered in Sh-
—Charlie had a pigeon...
  • 30 Days hath Septober

April, June and No-wonder
All the rest have peanut butter
Except Grandma
'Cus she rides a tricycle

Can you heal a leper
Or feed a crowd with fish and bread?
Can you walk on water?
Did you rise from the dead?
Did you give your life up to save humans from bad luck?
Were you born a virgin birth or did your parents--have sex?

  • The Scared Weird Little Guys do a similar thing with their comedic song Christmas Day At least until the very end...
  • A recent Lipton ice tea commercial featuring a singing fish has a great averted rhyme.

Now you can make a tasty dish
'Cause tea with citrus goes great with--chicken

  • Another Mary poem:

Mary had a little skirt,
A slit went up its side,
And every time she wore the skirt,
The boys could see her thigh.
Mary had another skirt,
The slit went up its front,
But she didnt wear that one very often.

  • We must not forget:

Ms. Lucy had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell
Ms. Lucy went to Heaven
The steamboat went to -
Hello Operator,
Please give me number nine
And if you disconnect me
I'll chop off your -
Behind the 'fridgerator
There was a piece of glass
Ms. Lucy sat upon it
And broke her little -
Ask me no more questions...

And so on.

    • This is also the Miss Susie poem mentioned in the beginning of the article.
  • Popular jump rope game a while ago;

There was a man named Tiger Woods.
He had the cash, he had the goods.
Tiger Woods had all the luck.
How many women did he...HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH?

  • An older jump rope rhyme:

"Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream
To go up to heaven in a flying machine.
The machine broke down, and down he fell,
Instead of going to heaven he went to--
Lincoln Beachey thought it was a dream..."

  • There is a Dutch poem which for the whole of the poem actually changes words to rhyme with the previous line. It's about a knight going to rescue a damsel from a dragon. The dragon agrees to let her go if the knight composes a verse on them - he doesn't get her: he can't rhyme.
  • The ABC Song, if you're British or Canadian:

Q, R, S
T, U, V
W, X,
Y and zed...

  • A military cadence:

Lulu's got a boyfriend
Her boyfriend's got a truck
Lulu likes to shift the gears
Her boyfriend likes to...steer

  • When I was in year 5 this was going around the school:

Holy Nellie I am dying
Just one thing before I go
Tie the cat unto a table
And stick a poker up its-
Holy Nellie (etc.)

  • At a certain public university in a certain eastern state, the men's glee club there maintained a deep repertoire of old and creatively dirty songs, one of which—called "High Above a Coopie's Garter"—employed an unusual version of this trope. The eight-line first verse, which the rhyme scheme clearly indicates should build toward the final word "...ass," instead ends with "...hmmmm." The second verse is then eight lines of humming, until the final word -- "...ass."
  1. ↑ In a Getting Crap Past the Radar moment they got away with this first syllable being pronounced Cunt
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