Lyrics

Ah, so you decided to read this article on lyrics. Well, there is a lot that can be said about lyrics. I'm not going to do that, because I don't really want to write as much, and you don't want to read as much.

I will divide this article into three sections, starting simple, and as we continue, it'll get increasingly practical and in-depth. We’ll be discussing instrumental music and rhyme in this part. Part 2 will be about rhythm.

Without further ado, let's dive into this!

Instrumental

A landscape of sounds, without any words spoken. Like a poetic stanza (more on that later), except all words are swallowed. Think Brian Eno. Look it up and enjoy! You'd think that such songs have no lyrics. Well… You'd be correct, unless you count silence as a part of speech, which is technically also correct, but not the most practical perspective. That's like mentioning on an instrumental track every artist that didn't sing on the track. That perspective makes this section even longer than it should be. “There be no lyrics here, look further.” would have sufficed.

But still, the human voice is a very popular instrument. Yes, you heard that right, you naughty degenerate primate-friend who is still concerningly incapable of poetry, the voice is an actual musical instrument! Sometimes, even in instrumental tracks, the human voice sneaks in. Not to speak, but to wail, hum, moan, scat, or soar. No words, but the voice is doing something deeply lyrical.

Think of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky,” where Richard Wright supposedly felt inspired to only use vocalizations after a single line of lyrics lyrics because, during the demo recording on a hot day, he walked into the studio in flip-flops, sat down behind the black and white of the keyboard, and after uttering only a single line, caught his pinky toe under the pedal while playing, causing all kinds of vocalization. Ha! Got you!I Completely made that story up. But now you know what vocalizations are.

Why Rhythm and Rhyme? (A Caveman’s Guide to Poetry)

Let’s start with a question:

Why do we love rhythm and rhyme?

Here’s a spoiler: because it feels good. It tickles something ancient in our brains—something deep, tribal, and slightly hairy. Rhythm and rhyme create familiarity, predictability, and pleasure. And the caveman inside all of us still craves three basic things:

1. Predictability

2. Familiarity

3. A cave date with Oöma and showing off your shiny new club to impress her.

First things first: make your club wet to make it shiny and make the color pop. Shiny is good. Still works 50,000 years later on car tires.

Once our ancestors figured out they could make noise to communicate, they quickly discovered something even better: they could make those noises beautiful. Add some chest-thumping beats with a stick, throw in some hums, grunts, and repeated sounds… and boom! Singing! Portable emotional expression. Prehistoric playlists.

Then someone had a flash of genius:

“What if I holler with rhythm?”

“What if I repeat a few syllables?”

“What if it sounds cool?”

Welcome to the birth of poetry.

But not everyone nailed it. Meet Hunuloo. Hunuloo fancies himself a poet of the soul. He stands in the middle of the village, arms wide, and bellows:

“Oöma… you smell like bison.

And the bison… is… lonely.

Also, I am… a leaf in wind.”

Oöma blinks. The village's children look confused. A cricket coughs.

Now contrast that with our approach. We step up, beat in hand, voice steady, and sing:

“Oöma, Oöma, strong and kind,

Beautiful and brilliant mind.

Left and right breast look the same,

Flat forehead looks very lame.”

Oöma blushes as she laughs. The villagers cheer. Children point and giggle at Hunuloo’s Neanderthal brow and forehead. Hunuloo storms off muttering about "the tyranny of structure."

Homo sapiens’ poetry wins.

Neanderthal goes extinct.

Now, a quick disclaimer: not all poetry uses end rhyme like “kind/mind” or “same/lame.” Traditional and ancient poems often used patterns of sounds, mirrored syllables, repeated rhythms… Whatever made things easier to remember and more satisfying to chant around a fire. We’ll dig into those styles later.

But for now, let’s talk about pattern recognition, because that’s what makes rhythm and rhyme work. It’s also what kept your ancestors alive.

Try this:

Water, rock. Air, rock. Bird, rock. Tree, rock. Astrophysics, …

(You said “rock.” You’re human. Well done.)

Let’s try another:

Gravel, ground. Boulder, bedrock. Sand, …

(If you said “stone,” “shale,” or “sediment,” you earned your mammoth ration of today)

That’s the power of pattern. It creates expectation. It builds tension… …and relieves it. And it feels amazing when it clicks into place.

One more:

Your village is surrounded by shrubberies with red and blue berries.

You eat a blue berry. Yum.

Eat another. Yum again.

Try a red one. Yuck!

Blue? Yum.

Red? Yuck! (Now with bonus stomach cramps.)

Now I hand you two baskets: one red, one blue. Which do you choose?

Exactly. You pick blue.

Your pattern recognition just saved your life.

So the next time you hear a catchy chorus, a clever rhyme, or a line that just feels right, remember:

You're not just enjoying a song.

You're tapping into an ancient, poetic instinct.

You're speaking to your inner caveman.

And if you play it right…

You’re getting that cave date with Oöma.

(And Hunuloo with his flat forehead isn't.)

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Let’s fast-forward 45,000 years.

Rhythm and rhyme? Still going strong.

Telling cool stories around a fire? Absolute hit.

And then BOOM! A wild ORAL TRADITION appears!

People weren’t just grunting anymore. They were remembering, retelling, and remixing stories. Over and over again. These tales travelled from voice to voice, village to village, campfire to temple, generation to generation.

These oral traditions are really cool. We do it all the time! Who didn't hear about the story about eating Pop Rocks with soda, that it will make your stomach explode? Who doesn't know the rules of tag? No tag-backs! The whereabouts of perverts (here in the Netherlands, we used to call them “potloodventers”, lit. Pencil salesmen because they show their wares to children. I know! Really messed up!) luring children to their van/their home/dark alley.

The longer and more complex an oral tradition is, the more variations there are. So, what are the longest texts you can recite? Indeed: songs! There are exceptions, where you find more variations (think some nursery rhymes, or even “jingle bells, Batman smells”), but generally, songs with a strong rhythm and strong rhyme tend to survive the longest.

Let's look at what one of the oldest known song in the world sounds like. But before we dive in, let’s set the mood.

Imagine an action movie. Big establishing shot of a desert. You know the one. Wind howling. Dune in the foreground. Text clacking out on the screen, typewriter-style:

“Al-Buhndi Desert, two clicks south of Al-Lone Oasis.

Februari 30th, 2100BC, 13:59z”

And in the background, you hear a woman yodeling in some Arabian language. Image that music, that yodeling, but instead singing the following:

𒌓 𒊑𒀀 𒌓 𒋤𒁺 𒊑𒀀

𒈪 𒊑𒀀 𒈪 𒁁𒁺 𒊑𒀀

𒈬 𒊑𒀀 𒈬 𒋤𒁺 𒊑𒀀

𒌓 𒌌 𒃻𒌌𒂊 𒉺 𒌓𒁺𒀀𒁀

𒌓 𒌌 𒃻𒌌𒂊 𒊩 𒍣 𒅗𒂵𒀀𒁀

𒀊 𒌦𒈠𒅗 𒃻 𒋙𒀀𒁀

𒋗𒆸𒈾 𒌦𒈠𒅗 𒃻𒋰 𒀝𒀀𒁀

𒀭 𒆠𒋫 𒁀𒁕𒁁𒁺𒀀𒁀

𒆠 𒀭𒋫 𒁀𒁕𒋩𒊏𒀀𒁀

𒈬 𒉆𒇽𒍇𒇻 𒁀𒀭

Nah, I can’t read cuneiform either. But even with no clue what these symbols mean, two things immediately stand out:

1. Every line is roughly the same length.

2. Almost every line ends in either 𒊑𒀀 or 𒀀𒁀.

Fascinating, isn’t it?

The oldest known song in the world shows both end rhyme and regular rhythm. The ancients weren’t just chanting at random. They were structuring sound, sculpting speech, crafting cadence! And they weren’t doing it for fun, but they were doing it so people would remember.

Let’s look at a phonetic transcription in Latin script. Here's the same passage:

Ud rea, ud sura rea

Ĝi rea, ĝi bara rae

Mu rea, mu sura rea

Ud ul niĝdue pa eaba

Ud ul niĝdue mi zid duggaaba

Eš kalammaka ninda šuaba

Šurinna kalammaka niĝtab akaba

An kita, badabaraaba

Ki anta, badasurraaba

Mu namluulu baanĝarraaba

Just read that out loud. You can feel the rhythm pulsing beneath it. Even without knowing the meaning, your brain is already grooving. This isn’t just a string of ancient syllables, it’s music, ritual, power!

And if you throw it into an AI like Udio?

Boom! Ancient Mesopotamian banger.

This sounds actually pretty modern, doesn't it? After hearing it a few times, I could almost sing along, without knowing any of the words! And that is why we use rhyme and rhythm! It's the reason why the Epic of Gilgamesh survived this long. Create a narrative, make it catchy, make it recitable, and it will catch on!

In part 2, you are going to learn how to write your own epic lyrics, and earn yourself that cave date with Oöna!

🧠 Contributor: MennoLente