The Color Purple Lyric Question - What is a 'Blade of Corn'?

[fbueller]

Posted: 1/5/08 at 10:47pm

What exactly is a blade of corn? Is this the green leaf of a corn stalk?

[jpbran]

Posted: 1/5/08 at 10:52pm

My partner from Iowa says it is most likely the leaf.

But Google also lists it as a scraper for corns on your feet...

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:06am

I thought the lyric was "Plate of corn." ???

[jv92]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:25am

I think the lyricists should first tell us why they've allowed slant rhymes to be sung on a Broadway stage.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:28am

It wouldn't be the first time...

[Joshua488]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:30am

God forbid somebody does something different.

[jv92]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:32am

"It wouldn't be the first time..."

Very true.

"God forbid somebody does something different."

Are you calling slant rhymes...good? They don't belong in the musical theatre. Period. The musical theatre is the only place I go to to listen to lyrics. I like them to be good thank you very much.

[jake6970]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:34am

There's no musical theatre lyric formula anyone has to follow, so of course they can "belong" there if that's what the lyricist wants.

[jv92]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:38am

Okay, sorry for the threadjack. But just to finish-

Oscar Hammerstein, Larry Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerry Herman, Sheldon Harnick, Frank Loesser, Fred Ebb, Stephen Sondheim, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Maury Yeston, the list goes on. These people don't use slant rhymes in their lyrics! They're our history, our musical theatre history. Any lyric writer who knows musical theatre history realizes that. So new ones like Michael Korie or Adam Guettel or Michael John LaChuisa or so on don't use slants. They respect and admire the past. Along come the folks who wrote Color Purple and Steven Sater who could give a rat's behind about musical theatre and look what happens? Slant rhymes. It's not really called for and I certainly don't welcome it.
End of my rant. Carry on with your corn discussion.

[jake6970]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 12:41am

Ok, congrats. But but rhymes don't make a musical. Your list proves nothing. All it does it show what composers rhymed. So now no one is allowed to try to push the envelope, or do anything new? It's people like you that push musical theatre backwards.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 4:03am

In all honesty using a slant rhyme is not pushing the envelope. Totally ****** was pushing the envelope. Slant rhymes are just lazy.

[fbueller]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 11:31am

What is a slant rhyme? I am thinking this is a 'cheat rhyme' which is created to form a rhyme rather than making sense.

[uncageg]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 11:38am

There was a discussion about this when the show first opened and it was explained. Not sure if the thread is still around though.

[Izzie2]

Posted: 1/6/08 at 11:53am

I agree. We can bash the legitimacy of the Color Purple where at least the characters are SINGING. Or we can all talk about the internal Monologue singing of Totally ******.

[jpbran]

Posted: 1/7/08 at 1:20pm

I second the question: what is a slant rhyme exactly? Just cheating to fake a rhyme?

[Lavieboheme3090]

Posted: 1/7/08 at 1:24pm

slant rhyme
–noun Prosody.
rhyme in which either the vowels or the consonants of stressed syllables are identical, as in eyes, light; years, yours.