A Sondheim rhyme that bothers me- Page 5

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 2:52pm

The lyric is still somewhat of a cheat, because the fairly common expression Rose's husband was using would ONLY be used in the singular, not the plural: the point being that "There goes Rose--taking another class" not "There goes Rose--taking more classes" (which spoils the simplicity of the joke).

If Sondheim had had more syllables available to, he could have said "Rushing to another class, this time in Optical Art, wishing that it too would pass"--the "it" would still have a somewhat unclear antecedent, but...

Well, pity a lyricist alone, with limited syllables, and the best rhymes in songdom.

[jasonf]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 3:27pm

"Well, pity a lyricist alone, with limited syllables, and the best rhymes in songdom."

Score one for you.

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 4:07pm

"By the way, this style of lyric writing is a direct nod to his mentor Oscar Hammerstein, who so famously wrote:
"Because he's ... I don't know ... because he's just my Bill."
That was for Show Boat in 1927."

@ Best12bars, Sorry to be clinical here but that part of the lyric to "Bill" was written by P.G. Wodehouse in 1918 for the same Kern melody but for a different show. Kern and Hammerstein then appropriated the song for "Showboat", whereupon Hammerstein rewrote about half of the song's lyrics to better fit the torch song tone of the new scene. But the "because he's...I don't know... because he's just my Bill" was indeed Wodehouse's original.

Nothing wrong with Sondheim making a direct nod to that master as well of course.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 4:52pm

^ Thanks for the clarification! Didn't mean to shortchange Wodehouse.

Updated On: 10/30/11 at 04:52 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 4:55pm

Score one for charlesjguiteau...and pip! pip! for Pelham Grenville!

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 5:03pm

Oh, good God. Don't you have a Follies thread to start?

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 5:27pm

Since it's never happened before--and who's to say it will ever happen again?--I want to take this moment to agree with After Eight that "harder than a matador coercin' a bull" is a terrible line in an otherwise great score.

Fortunately, the line is also virtually indecipherable in the theater so no harm no foul.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 5:45pm

^ When I first heard that line, I had no idea what she was singing. I had to read it on the jacket sleeve (yes, records).

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 6:07pm

I had to look it up, too, best12. I have no idea what Sondheim was thinking. In addition to the linguistic awkwardness, there's nothing about the image of a matador and a balky bull that fits the context of the show, song or character!

It's not as if "When a person's personality is personable..." is such a great line that he simply had to create that clunker to rhyme with it. Though of course he may have been preparing us for "When her withers whither with her...". But at least the latter can be understood (and because it's a fairy tale, I accept overly clever diction more readily).

Posted: 10/30/11 at 8:02pm

I think that's fair enough. Sondheim always says that the most important thing is clarity--the audience should understand the lyric with one listen, and that's an example where I bet a number of them don't (I suppose some could argue that that pastiche song makes its point clear before that part, so to use clever wordplay they might not pick up on but still get the gist of is fair game, but...)

The one time I sometimes get frustrated with Sondheim is when he's not content to just have a rhyming couplet but streteches it out to have three or four rhymes, almost just because he can't resist. (I can't think of an example right now, but...) It does sometimes pull me out of the show because I think "Wow think of all the clever rhymes"

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 11:48pm

"harder than a matador coercin' a bull"

I never knew that was the lyric. I had no idea what that lyric was and was resigned that I would never know.

And now I wish I didn't.

Posted: 10/30/11 at 11:56pm

"Isn't it nice to know a lot/and a little bit not..."

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/30/11 at 11:59pm

Yeah, henrik, that's it:

When a person's personality is personable,
He shouldn't ought to sit like a lump.
It's harder than a matador coercin' a bull
To try to get you off of your rump.

Of course, "shouldn't ought to" is redundant and the "of" in "off of" is unnecessary, but I can shrug those off as character speech. There's no explaining the matador.

And the next two lines rhyme "attractive a man" with "the act of a man." You and I will both agree there is no American dialect in which the "tive" in attractive is pronounced so it rhymes with the word "of". Which is exactly the point Sondheim would be making were this a Larry Hart lyric.

And yet "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" is a genuine show-stopper in a consistently great score. So much for rules about clarity.
Updated On: 10/30/11 at 11:59 PM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 12:37am

You said it, Eric!!!!

yes, Gaveston, and I think we'd all have to agree that tempo is very forgiving. No way he would have dared put those words together to a slower beat.

[FrauleinKost]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 8:23am

I have to say though, as awkward as that phrase is, "it's harder than a matador coercin' a bull" is one of my favorite Sondheim phrases to sing. musically, "personable" and "coercin' a bull" sound pretty f*ckin cool. good or bad, it takes a pretty genius brain to even think to rhyme that!!

and omg, "while her withers whither with her" is genius, you mean the rest of the world doesn't think that??????

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 9:11am

Certainly it takes genius, but genius calling attention to itself is something Sondheim himself decries. And rightly. Although I'm with you on the withers, that's not ostentation, that's pure joy!

More to the point though, Fraulein, I can see how it would be wonderfully fun to sing coercin' a bull!

Bottom line, again, any one as prolific as the great man is, deserves to be indulged. Especially when his sins are as delicious as these are.

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 9:47am

" Although I'm with you on the withers, that's not ostentation, that's pure joy! "

Sure seems like ostentation to me.

But since you feel it isn't, perhaps you could provide us with an example of something that is.

[jasonf]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 10:15am

The problem I had with the withers line was that I had no freaking clue what "withers" were until I looked them up. The third "with her" is a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but since the idea of three words like that working in that way appeals to the puzzler/gamer in me, I'm willing to give him a pass on that.

For me, overindulgence came in Pacific Overtures. The multiple rhymes in Chrysanthemum Tea are almost irritating to my ear - like they're there just to be there:

"But they sit there all day
In contemptuous array
With a letter to convey
And they haven't gone away
And there's every indication
That they still plan to stay."

In contemptuous array?

I don't know, that song always annoyed me.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 11:00am

Well... she's a pretty irritating character -- isn't she? -- too ingratiating by half.

"Contemptuous array" makes perfect sense to me.

The equally outlandish admirals assault Abe much the same way in "Please Hello."

[jasonf]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 11:36am

It makes sense - the lyric just screams "this is a writer writing" to me.
That doesn't always bother me, it just feels a bit forced.

And yes, the character IS meant to be annoying. That could be why I skip that song a lot on the cast album. :)

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 11:47am

I'm with mysterious on this, "contemptuous array" seems perfectly right for a haughty figure of authority facing an affront to her exalted position in 19th century Japan. It captures the image from her point of view of the ships in the bay quite well.

Aftereight, I've already weighed in that I have problems with "harder than a a matador coercin' a bul.l"

However, I don't see how something can be simultaneously unintelligible and ostentatious. They seem mutually exclusive.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 1:38pm

I always give "coercin' a bull" a pass because the song is written with a sort of Andrews-sisters vibe and it really sounds like a lot of songs from that era, which often came with similarly convoluted, playful lyrics. I've never thought it was particularly unintelligible but I can see it turning to mush in an untrained mouth.

Also, I know it's from the first page so it's probably been resolved, but Ms. Lovett's "limited wind" line makes perfect sense to me - it's a character song and that's exactly thing kind of thing she'd do, batter Sweeney with rapid-fire patter and then get to the end and say something like that.

The only Sondheim lyric that bugs me, off the top of my head, is a really arbitrary change he made to "Now You Know". In '81 Mary sang "bricks can fall outta clear blue skies", but he revised it in '85 to "bricks can tumble from clear blue skies". I really want to know what his reason was for this because it seems so random. If anything, "tumble" is the more awkward phrase. The only thing I can think is that the rhythm of "bricks can fall outta" somehow clashes with the rest of the song, but I can't imagine how. It might just be Sondheim tinkering unnecessarily with a show that shouldn't have been changed anyways, I dunno.

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 1:39pm

Seems to me "Chrysanthemum Tea" is there purely for sparkling entertainment value (like a W.S. Gilbert or Noel Coward lyric might be--2 lyricists Sondheim excoriates severely in his book). As such the wordplay simply adds to the fun. I first saw Pacific Overtures in the Boston tryout in '76 when the previous version of Chrysanthemum Tea was still being used. (Now THERE'S a boring song in performance!) But when I finally heard the finished version on the album, I was enthralled with the cascade of rhymes-- had my heart in my throat to hear the next "ay" rhyme he'd come up with, and then the next, and then yet ANOTHER one. Pure delight for me as a listener. And is anything more perfect than the lines referring to the foreigners' letter :

I decided if there weren't
Any shogun to receive it,
It would act as a deterrent
Since they'd have no place to leave it,
And they might go away, my lord...

Sondheim had already supplied plenty of examples of careful restrained poetry in the score ("There Is No Other Way" and "Poems"). Let the guy have some real fun for a change. Then we all benefit, right?

Updated On: 10/31/11 at 01:39 PM

[Jon]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 1:59pm

Not to thread jack, but does anyone else agree with me that the Shogun's Mother on the OBC sounds like Bea Arthur?

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/31/11 at 2:18pm

An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I'll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability,
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility,
So let's act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we'll soon reach senility
And lose the ability




I do not agree, Jon.