Crappy Lyrics- Page 2

[Fosse76]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 12:43pm

From Wicked: "Listen Nessa, uh Nessa, I've got something to confess a reason why, well, I asked you here tonight." and "Nessa, ah Nessa, surely now I'll matter less to you..."

That must be some of the laziest writing I've ever heard.

[carolinaguy]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 1:02pm

I can't decide whether this from "Wicked" reveals Schwartz as a genius or a hack:

Don't be offended by my frank analysis
Think of it as personality dialysis
Now that I've chosen to become a pal, a sis-
Ter and adviser
There's nobody wiser


But I do hate the attempt to rhyme "Oz" and "was" in "Defying Gravity".

[StageStruckLad]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 2:43pm

Speaking of CHESS, there's this gem from "How Many Women":

All of my struggles for qualifications -
My nights with Goethe and Proust
Recklessly abandoned
For you who thinks Chekhov is king to G3
And Joyce my college roommate!

----

For years I never realized that Tim Rice is referring to James Joyce here. I thought he was just tossing in some oddball comment about Florence's college roommate!

[After Eight]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 2:56pm

From Company:

"But alone
Is alone
Not alive"

That must have come as news to all the living, breathing single members of the audience.

Updated On: 4/16/14 at 02:56 PM

[newintown]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 3:01pm

That lyric is actually "But alone is alone, not alive."

Whether you like it or not, it's always good to quote accurately.

EDIT - for those of you tuning in late, After Eight had originally written "Being alone is alone, not alive."
Updated On: 4/16/14 at 03:01 PM

[busylizzie238]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 3:58pm

"Listen Nessa, uh Nessa, I've got something to confess a reason why, well, I asked you here tonight." and "Nessa, ah Nessa, surely now I'll matter less to you..."

Fosse76, I thought that lyric was clever as it is just in Boq's character to sing something like that. It captures how hesitant he feels and how he doesn't want to offend Nessa no?

The only one I can think of is IN THE HEIGHTS where it goes: "I am Usnavi and you probably never heard my name reports of my fame are greatly exaggerated exacerbated by the fact that my syntax is highly complicated cos I emigrated..."

How can your syntax exacerbate the fact that you have reports of being famous?

[Kad]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 4:10pm

The problem I have with the "Nessa/confess a" and "dialyasis / a pal, a sis-" rhymes is that they are extremely forced and unnatural, in terms of how they scan. Schwartz scrifices natural speech patterns for "clever" rhymes.

[NewSynchopation]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 4:16pm

I love the music of Children of Eden so freaking much, but the book and lyrics are so bad they make me squirm, particularly Civilized Society:

Chill out Charlie, get out of my way
Ain't got no time for manners today

What? That's supposed to convince us that everybody on the planet deserves to die?

[StageManager2]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 7:10pm

But I do hate the attempt to rhyme "Oz" and "was" in "Defying Gravity".

To be fair, E.Y. Harburg did it in The Wizard of Oz.

We're off to see the Wizard
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
We hear he is a whiz of a wiz
If ever a wiz there was
If ever oh ever a wiz there was
The Wizard of Oz is one because
Because, because, because, because
Because of the wonderful things he does
We're off to see the Wizard
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 7:30pm

The following Les Miz lyrics bugged me:
"A man like you can never change. A man such as you."

Javert could have said something stronger there. It's obvious that he's talking about Valjean so the "such as you" is unnecessary.

Another
"One more day til revolution. We will nip it in the bud."

It is an old-fashioned saying and apparently it has been around since the 17th century but it seems so.........cliché.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 7:56pm

I want to be a
part of B.A.
Buenos Aires
Big Apple

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 8:09pm

I mean seriously? Talk about taking a listener out of the moment...in a pretentious sort of way to boot. (with regards to Les Mis not-rhyming "full of toys" with "boys and girls" instead of "girls and boys"


"Herbert Kretzmer said in The Barricade newsletter that he didn't want it to rhyme, because it would telegraph itself. Plus something about how this little girl shouldn't be that articulate with rhyme given her circumstances."

LizzyCurry...I had read that before. I still think it's dumb. If he didn't want it to rhyme..fine, find different lyrics that are not an ANTI-RHYME. It's just silly and takes you out of the emotion of the song. I mean if he has to explain WHY it doesn't rhyme..it's probably unnecessary. My opinion...

[StageManager2]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 9:39pm

King Triton in The Little Mermaid has two really bad ones:

How could she just suddenly
Completely disappear into thin water?

I realize they're trying to adapt the idiom "vanish into thin air" for the ocean, but it just sounds... stupid.


Don’t try that same old song!
I’ll have you grounded ‘til next year!
Am I clear?

Here he's berating Ariel for saving Eric, but it just sounds hokey, especially the grounding part.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 9:40pm

God, seconding "I want to be a part of B.A...", which took me ages to hear properly. For the longest time I honestly thought she was saying "I wanna be Eva, not be a Buenos Aires Big Apple", which I took as just one of those weird lyrics.

Also agreeing with "full of toys/boys and girls", it just sounds weird. Also, the defense doesn't really stand up given that the rest of the song is a series of the most basic rhyming couplets I've ever heard in a musical. It actually stands out MORE because it's like the only thing that DOESN'T rhyme.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 9:51pm

Also from The Little Mermaid:

She barely sticks a toe in
Down at the tidal pool

One of Ariel's sisters sings this in "She's in Love" when they're trying to figure out why she's so giddy. First of all, they're mermaids, so they don't have feet, much less toes. (At least, not yet Ariel). Secondly, a tidal pool is a pool of water remaining on land after a tide has retreated, and since they're not allowed to go to the surface or been close to shore, how would they know what one is? And third, what the hell does it even mean?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 10:27pm

^Those are Glenn Slater lyrics. Just be happy they're remotely related to the topic at hand.

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 10:53pm

"Music of the Night" has so many different versions, between the significantly different "Highlights" London cast album (i.e., the concept album) and the two current versions, which mostly divide up into West End and Broadway, that it would be surprising if some of them didn't have clunky lyrics. In one spot, the Broadway version is "Softly, deftly, music shall caress you, hear it, feel it secretly possess you." The London version, "Softly, deftly, music shall surround you, hear it feel it closing in around you" sounds forced, probably because there is no actual rhyme -- both lines end in "round you." Rhyming "surround you" might have worked with something like "Softly, deftly, music shall surround you, hear it, feel it, let its soul astound you," but the words themselves would be silly.

With the Broadway version being so much more elegant, I was surprised to hear surround/around in the U.S. tour.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 11:05pm

^The Phantom lyric inconsistencies from production to production really bother me too. Most shows get frozen. Phantom still performs the two different versions of "Wandering Child" in NY and London as well. I wish they would pick one.

[Dave516]

Posted: 4/17/14 at 12:30am

Or my personal favorite:

Victor, Victoria
Victor, Victoria
Victoria, what a Victor you are!

Brilliance.

[James885]

Posted: 4/17/14 at 12:40am

Love Never Dies has some real clunkers:

I think it's beautiful
Beautiful, beautiful notes
Beautiful, beautiful sounds
Don't you agree?
It's beautiful

The song was beautiful
It sounded beautiful
Every note, every word
And it felt beautiful
And I felt beautiful

And let's not forget this little gem:


It's that idiot Raoul!
Why, I'll kill that drunken fool!

It just feels like very lazy lyric writing in my opinion.

Updated On: 4/17/14 at 12:40 AM

[wicked1492]

Posted: 4/17/14 at 12:55am

Another WICKED one: "Down at the Ozdust, if only beCAUSE dust is what we come to do"

Seriously makes my skin crawl.

[MeowCookie]

Posted: 4/17/14 at 1:06am

I really can't handle a lot of Glenn Slater's additional lyrics for Mermaid. The entire lyric for "One Step Closer" is just so literal and in-your-face that it leaves nowhere for the song to go. "Dancing is a language which is felt instead of heard" makes me cringe.

Also, an honorable mention to Richard Stilgoe's original lyrics for All I Ask of You:

I could bring you flowers to mingle with your hair
but what good would be flowers?
They only last for hours

Clever, but completely inappropriate. Charles Hart's lyrics may be rife with imperfect rhymes and repetitive words but at least they suit the music.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/17/14 at 1:47am

That Wicked lyric is "If only because dust is what we come to" not "to do." Not that it makes it any better...

Updated On: 4/17/14 at 01:47 AM

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 4/17/14 at 9:04am

Despite this show being a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, I hate the line, "there are bridges you crossed you didn't know you crossed until you crossed" from Wicked.

I love that lyric, its says so much. It's brilliant

[carolinaguy]

Posted: 4/21/14 at 3:17pm

This gem from "Miss Saigon"'s Telephone Song:

She is no whore!
You saw her too.
She's really more
Like the April moon.

This is terrible on several levels. Other than just being sappy (a Marine is saying this?!?), it doesn't even really rhyme. And on top of that, you couldn't come up with a rhyme for "too"?