I'm as trite and gay
As a daisy in May
A cliche coming true!
I'm bromidic and bright
As a moon-happy night
Pourin' light on the dew!
That's a lot of rhyme in a short length of time. Why? Certainly rhymes reinforce the structure of the music but, in this case, they also add to the character. The excitable pile-up of rhymes reflects the giddiness of the character, Nellie Forbush, a corn-fed Kansas girl who's just fallen in love. It's a peach of a song and the rhymes are part of the peachiness. (The only mistake might be the word "bromidic" which sounds a bit out of place).
Stephen Sondheim is famously critical of some of his use of rhyme in West Side Story, especially Maria's song "I Feel Pretty" which comes as she prepares to go to her first dance:
I feel charming
Oh so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel
Not to mention the additional alliteration:
I feel fizzy and funny and fine
The argument goes that here is a poor, uneducated Puerto Rican girl coming over like Noel Coward; it's not authentic. Now I hate to disagree with Big Steve but I think this lyric does work. Rhyme doesn't always demonstrate sophistication. It can also, a la Nellie Forbush, demonstrate emotional excitement; a fine and funny kind of fizziness, if you will. It's this emotional quality of the lyric that makes it work and helps us to overlook the fact that Maria's language skills have suddenly improved. It may not be technically authentic but, more importantly, it is emotionally credible.
That's the crux of the matter. In a musical, it's not the rhymes themselves but how you use 'em. And you don't always use 'em the same way. Sometimes you don't use 'em at all. Indeed sometimes you don't even need that many words:
I'm in love
I'm in love
I'm in love
I'm in love
I'm in love
With a Wonderful Guy
Now that is a clever lyric.
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