Ah, that's the tell-tale clue..! An unusual time-stretch, or hard-to count (feel..?) beat or pause, I can live with . There are many examples of such in classical music, and folk singers often use time in this fashion. But it has to be consistent or, as you say, it all falls apart. If the bloke can't understand that, or doesn't even notice that it's all gone South, there's not much can be done. I doubt that writing it out, in any notation, would help. In my long-distant youth, one of our friends would play guitar, as we all did, but with no sense of timing, melody or structure. He was surprised that he wasn't invited to join any of the 'buddy bands' that sprung up spontaneously all around. It's true that his lyrics were painfully , too, which didn't help.