This thread is about lyrics in which a word is split between two lines to allow the first part of the word to take part in a rhyming scheme. It was suggested to me by the "Alice's Restaurant" thread, where the following line, from Arlo Guthrie's "The Motorcycle Song", was quoted:
And I don't wanna die,
Just wanna ride on my motorcy
.
.
.
-cle.
Tom Lehrer, of course, was a master of this device, on at least one occasion using it twice in quick succession (from "We Will All Go Together When We Go"):
When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or l
   -ater those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec
   -tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
Where there is wordplay, play with dirty words is usually not far away. Showing off a couple of dog-related instances of this trick seems to be the main reason for the otherwise slightly strained "Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long" by The Magnetic Fields:
You scare me out of my wits
When you do that shi t
-zu
[...]
You've just run out of luck
I don't care what you fo[ck]
-xhounds do
Do you have other examples that have surprised, impressed, amused or exasperated you? I like this trick, being a sucker for verbal equilibrism of all sorts, but I can see that it should probably be somewhat sparingly applied. Also, I suppose it would seem rather out of place in lyrics treating more serious subject matter.
― OleM (OleM), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)
"Oh darling sugar honey
When it was nice and sunny
and we had lots of money
we would go and see Echo and the Bunny...
men."
― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:25 (twenty years ago)
"We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple mur
der on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim"
From Hurricane by Bob Dylan
― Andrew Jackson, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)
He felt the heat of the night hit him like a freight
train / Moving with a simple twist of fate.
Dylan's gotta be king of this.
― weather1ngda1eson (Brian), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)
Traffic's "Dream Gerrard"
(the word is broken over two lines, but the breaks don't produce a rhyme.)
"Hippos don't wear hats
lobsters shriek if pro
-voked"
"The night, it will be black
and white raven croa
-king"
― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)
(erp, sorry , my example's not an enjambed *word* - must rack brain...)
― weather1ngda1eson (Brian), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Riding through the night
Soon every lupin in the land
Will be in his mighty hand
He steals them from the rich
And gives them to the poor
Mr. Moore, Lupin donor, Extraor
dinary
-Monty Python
― weather1ngda1eson (Brian), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 16:00 (twenty years ago)