Sorry about a lengthy post, but Im on vacation and feel a little bored love so here goes..

I mostly argue from an outsider position drawing on logic, as I do not have the experience in music business. This puts me in an observer role about what goes in practice, but I do know some about language theories in (very) broad strokes, that might fit in this discussion.

In the 20-40ies, the big aera of Broadway hits and perfect rhymes the predominant idea in language theory was that language is picture like. It can be transparent, thus the challenge was to make language as perfect as possible. It was all about choosing the right words in the right sequence, to craft a meaning that was transparent for everyone. This seems to be reflected in the lyrics of that time with perfect rhymes, no matter if the language was passive or active. The written paradigm was dominant.

In the 50'ies, new theories came (Wittgenstein as the most prominant), theorizing that language is not like a picture. Language was seen as way more blurred and the meaning of words more fluid, and not just the speaker but also the listener was taken into account. The dominant theory was slowly becoming (we are still in the process of accepting this), that the words we use can mean different things for different people, and that there are no way to be certain that the intended meaning also is the percieved meaning. According to theory, what we are doing with language are more like 'games', where author and listener play with meanings of words and negotiate their meanings in between them.

This is what we see in contemporary songs. Words are used and reused in new meanings, and the language is informal and active like when we speak (the conversational tone). The function of the rhyme seem to be the function of providing repetition and emphasis, and not just structure. Thus rhymes used to provide structure would seem old-school - the case of forced rhymes - and perhaps the case in your song, Tom?

A lot of these 'games' in music is also about recognizing genres. Genre is then the ballpark of the language game we are playing, and in practice certain opinion leaders are deciding the 'rules' - not as something objective, but as a framework of including and excluding people.

This is why what we call 'knowledge' (the rules of the game) and power is inseparable.

Theories that are widely accepted in science seem to have a way of breaking through in public opinion about 40-50 years later, so thats about now for the language game theories. Prior societies have had trouble accepting this, as the truth of the word has a dominant function in our cultures and societies. Religious fundamentalists will also never accept these theories of language.

Ideally music seem to work like a meriocracy in practice, where the succesful writers states the rules. Not just by teaching others, but also because upcoming writers are analyzing their songs for what works. So the way to be included in such a 'society' seems to be to write originally, but still honor the succesful writers of our time (honour 'tradition').

Naturally, the experiences of these writers are valid, you just don't write with obvious rhymes etc. as the rookie red light turns on right away. You gotta earn succes, by writing in tradition and adding something to it (orginality). But then again, you don't write for other songwriters..

My posts in this thread, is not so much about the earned power to decide the rules (which I respect), but about the emphasis on making decisions in favour of art. Even though Im pleased, Im surprised the business links (publishers, a&r) in music business are putting so much emphasis on originality as there are no such demands from people who uses language. Perhaps this is a percieved idea of the public expectation of the creative people (writers, musicians, artists etc.), that we have to be original? But why would there be such a criteria in the "Wallmart not Hallmark" scheme of things?

In movies (at least the big commercial Hollywood ones), writers seems to have left this premise. In science there's the same claim and needleeye you have to enter to be included, but here the principle is handled by transforming old knowledge into business (that's 'new'). And in every way the concept of 'new' and 'original' is challenged in the computer age. Remember the Mathisse painting (C'et ne pas un pipe)? When is something an original if it is done on a computer and copied (the download issues)?

Basically the re-use of metaphors, alliterations and assonances etc in a new song/context would qualify as 'new' or 'original' and would make it easier for listeners to establish a sense of 'genre'. Depending on other sections of the song, it could also be percieved as a commercially viable choice, as this would provide a sense of repetition, consequently structure. This could all be part of honouring tradition as well as using language in the new sense of the same words/metaphors etc having multiple meanings depending on use.

So setting up new songwriters with an ideal to write orginial stuff, pretending there really is an art to be honoured, while the cut's are clichéd like Hollywood films, seems to be a double bind argumentation. You have to write original, despite observing the charts says you don't?

Even though, this just for the purpose of discussion, though. I actually like the pursuit for originality within the framework of tradition, as I think of this as a particularly interesting challenge :-)

So, back to Tom's return from Taxi. Artistically, it makes sense to have a song rejected with this argument. I might not just be about the particular rhymes, though, but about the fact that they seemingly were not used in a new way, or provided any new interpretations of the subject matter. Commercially, I fail to see the rejection is valid in this theoretical discussion, with the reservation we still remains to see the lyric.

It could also be that the next screener, listen to things differently :-)