Internal rhyme is a rhyme that sits inside a line instead of at the end of it. Two words in the same line rhyme, or a word in the middle of one line rhymes with a word in the next. It makes a verse sound tight and quick without the beat getting any faster.
Internal rhyme vs end rhyme
End rhyme is the one everybody learns first. The last word of one line rhymes with the last word of another, and that gives a song its shape. You hear it coming, because the end of the line is where rhymes are supposed to be.
Internal rhyme lands somewhere else. Here is one line with nothing to rhyme with at the end, and it still has five words that rhyme.
I stay up late just to wait for the break of day
Stay, late, wait, break and day all carry the same vowel. Say it out loud and the line bounces. That bounce is the point of internal rhyme.
The kinds of internal rhyme
People use the term for a few different things. They all come down to where the rhyme sits and how long it is.
Inside one line
Two or more rhyming words in the same line, like the one above. It is the easiest kind to hear and the easiest to write, so start here.
From the middle of one line into the next
I got a cold phone and a slow heart I'm alone, and the way home is the hard part
Phone and slow in the first line meet alone and home in the second. None of those four sit at the end of a line. Meanwhile heart, hard and part carry the end rhyme. The listener hears one pattern inside the lines and another at their ends, and the two lines hold together as one thought.
Multisyllabic internal rhyme
A multisyllabic rhyme matches across two syllables or more. Patient and station share ay-shun, two syllables in a row, and here they sit side by side in the middle of a line.
I was patient at the station while the rain came down
Longer matches are harder to find, and listeners notice them for that reason. Rappers stack them on top of their end rhymes, which rap rhyme schemes explained goes into.
Why internal rhyme works
Your ear keeps track of sounds. When one comes back quickly, the line sounds planned. End rhyme brings a sound back once per line. Internal rhyme brings it back two or three times inside one line, so the verse feels denser at the same tempo.
It also ties lines together. A word in the middle of line two that rhymes with something in line one pulls the two into one unit, which is useful when a thought runs longer than a line.
Rap leans on it hardest. Big Pun, MF DOOM and Eminem are known for packing lines with it. Poets were at it long before rap, and Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven is full of it.
See it in colour
Internal rhyme is hard to spot on a page. End rhymes line up in a column down the right edge. Internal ones are scattered through the middle. Colour fixes that. The sheet below runs the same engine as our free rhyme highlighter, with a verse written for this post. Click any line and change a word.
Notice what does not light up. Spoke sounds close to wrote and notes, but it ends on a K where they end on a T, and inside a line the highlighter asks for a cleaner match than at the end. That is roughly how an ear works too. A near miss in the middle of a line tends to slip past.
How to write internal rhymes
You can wait for internal rhymes to turn up, or you can put them in on purpose. This is the on-purpose way, in four steps. If you have never written a verse before, how to write rap lyrics covers the whole job first.
1. Write the line plainly
Say what you mean with no rhyme in mind. A line that means something is worth dressing up. A line built around a rhyme usually is not.
I spent the whole night writing and I threw it all away
2. Rhyme into the heavy words
Read the line out loud and notice which words you lean on. Here it is night and writing. Put the rhymes on those words, because a rhyme on a word you say softly, like the or and, disappears. Make a short list for each. Night gives light, fight, tight and bright. Writing gives fighting and lighting. Then rebuild the line, and give it a second line if it needs room.
I spent the whole night writing, I was fighting with the page burned the light until the morning and I threw it all away
Now night meets light, writing meets fighting, and page meets away at the ends. Same idea, three rhyming pairs where there were none.
3. Say it on the beat
An internal rhyme only works when both words land where the beat puts weight, or close to it. Rap the line over the track. If a rhyme falls somewhere nobody hears it, move the word or cut it.
4. Check it in colour
Paste the verse into the rhyme highlighter. If a rhyme you meant does not light up, either it is weaker than you hear it or the engine is stricter than your ear. You decide. Alt+click the two words and they share a colour anyway. If something lights up that you did not plan, that is a rhyme you got for free.
Mistakes that make internal rhyme sound forced
- Rhyming on small words. Me against see in the middle of a line barely registers. The highlighter skips small words like me, you and it mid-line for the same reason.
- Bending the grammar to reach a rhyme. If you would never say it that way, the listener hears the rhyme and misses the line.
- Calling repetition a rhyme. Night against night is the same word twice. The highlighter does not colour it mid-line either.
- Rhyming everything. A line where every word rhymes turns into a tongue twister. Two or three rhymes in a line is plenty for most songs.
Writing it where you record it
Internal rhymes change at the mic. A syllable you thought would land falls off the beat, and you swap a word between takes. That is easier when the lyrics sit inside your music software instead of on your phone.
This is the part I make, so weigh it accordingly. Lyriquee is a plugin that keeps your lyrics inside the project in FL Studio, Ableton or whichever music software you use. It colours rhymes with the same engine as the sheet above, so when you fix a line between takes you see straight away whether the rhyme survived. Tap in the timing once and the sheet scrolls with the song while you record.
Common questions
Is internal rhyme the same as multisyllabic rhyme?
No. Internal rhyme is about where a rhyme sits, which is inside the line. Multisyllabic rhyme is about how long it is, two syllables or more. A rhyme can be both, like patient and station above.
Does an internal rhyme have to be a perfect rhyme?
No. A slant rhyme, where two words share most of a sound but not all of it, works too. It is quieter, and in the middle of a line nobody is listening for a rhyme, so a slant one is easy to miss. Use a clean match when you want it heard.
What is the difference between internal rhyme and alliteration?
Alliteration repeats the sound at the start of words, like cold coffee in the car. Rhyme repeats the sound at the end. One line can have both.
How do I find the internal rhymes in my own lyrics?
Paste them into the rhyme highlighter. It is free, needs no sign-up, and colours rhymes by how the words sound, inside lines and at their ends.
