Like many people, i once had a fantasy of writing the “Great American Novel”. I got so far as devising a title for it — Thrills, Spills, Chills, and Other Ills. (This came about because on car trips Jane and i would sometimes play a game in which we would start with a word, and then list all the rhymes that we could think of for that word.) After a few years of retirement, however, i accepted the fact that i would never write a novel. However, i liked my title too much to totally give up, so i decided to write a song with that title and the same theme.
With little effort, the title gave me the chorus, with a rhyme scheme of A A A A. I like to play with words, so i gave myself a challenge of using the same rhyme scheme for the verses. However, it soon became obvious that the verses would need to be more than four lines long; in fact, eight lines seemed about right. So, with some effort i devised three verses, each with a rhyme scheme of A A A A A A A A. Frankly, i was surprised that the result didn’t sound obviously forced. I did surprisingly little tweaking of the orginal lyrics to reach the final form that you can find through the link below. I’m proud of it, for it describes a period in my life pretty faithfully.