Is There a Word for That?

Photo by Alice Triquet on Unsplash

Have you ever heard a song where they set up an obvious rhyme and then don’t deliver on it? The most famous example I can think of is the song “In Summer” from the movie Frozen. Olaf sings, “Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle/But put me in summer and I’ll be a happy snowman.” It’s impossible to hear the first line and not want to end the second line with “puddle”. It’s right there. It’s so obvious. But the songwriters purposely left us hanging.

The Rolling Stones have a song called “Dear Doctor” where they do it too. The line in the Stones’ song is, “I put the ring in my pocket, but there was a note/And my heart it jumped into my mouth.” It would be so natural to say throat there. I’m sure Mick and Keith knew that when they were writing the song and they were just messing with us.

So, what I want to know is this. Is there a word for it? Poetry has a lot of terminology. Everything from slant rhymes to villanelle. So, it seems like they must have a word for it, but I can’t find one. Are there any poetry geeks out there that can help me?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.