Is using a rhyming dictionary or a thesaurus cheating?
Last week-end, I was chatting with my friend Mark from Wilberforce and we discussed the subject of using a thesaurus when writing lyrics. He felt that perhaps it was cheating and he wasn’t comfortable with the idea. So is using a rhyming dictionary or a thesaurus when writing lyrics cheating? I use both a rhyming dictionary and a thesaurus when writing, or rewriting, lines for my songs. Do I feel like I am cheating? No. Writing a song is all about the words YOU choose and about how YOU use them. The fact you might get the idea to use a word because you saw it in a list of rhyming words will not make the line good, even if it rhymes. It’s all about the words fitting in with the context of the lyrics and being able to use the words well so the lyrics flow, make sense and sing well. Yes, perhaps there is some value in having a huge amount of vocabulary in your head but I don’t think the value of a lyricist comes from his or her ability to be a walking human rhyming dictionary or thesaurus
