Songwriting 6 Line Popular Music Rhyming Schemes & Examples

1. Songwriting
Six Line Rhyming
Schemes
Chris Baker
musicstudentinfo.com

2. Here are some 6 Line Schemes.
XXAXXA
The section comes in two parts with the only rhymes
landing at the end of lines 3 and 6.
Listen to Jive Talkin’ by the Bee Gees

3. XXAXXA
Oh, my child
You’ll never know
Just what you mean to me
Oh, my child
You got so much
You’re gonna take away my energy

4. AABCCB
This section has three different rhymes.
Lines 1 and 2 have the same end rhymes,
and lines 4 and 5 rhyme together but are
different from the first rhyme.
Finally, lines 3 and 6 are the same end
rhyme.
This scheme is great to use when there’s a
lot to say!

5. AABCCB
Johnny Cash A Boy named Sue.
Well my daddy left home when I was three
And he didn’t leave much to Ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze
Now, I don’t blame him ’cause he run and hid
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me “Sue

6. AABCCB
Leonard Cohen allegedly wrote 80 potential verses for Hallelujah using
this structure.

7. AABCCB
Now, I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, doya?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah

8. AAABBB
Ed Sheeran A-Team verse.
White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Lights gone, day’s end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men

9. XAAXBB
John Mayer adopts the scheme above in Why
Georgia.
I am driving up 85
In the kind of morning that lasts all afternoon
Stuck inside the gloom
Four more exits to my apartment
But I am tempted to keep the car in drive
And leave it all behind

10. AABAAB
Shawn Colvin uses this structure to lead to the major change
agent, “fire,” in her chorus of Sunny Came Home.
She says days go by
I don’t know why
I’m walking on a wire
I close my eyes
and fly out of my mind
Into the fire

11. AAAAAA
Lizzo provides a six-line monorhyme
variation in the chorus of Jerome.
Jerome, Jerome
Take your ass home
And come back when you’re grown
Jerome, Jerome
Go on, take your ass home
Where the peaches have thorns