Favorite Sondheim Lyrics

A true genius when it comes to lyrics. He has such a deep understanding human nature and brilliantly expresses it through words. My favorites are a few phrases that are more low key and less popular in this topic. They are lines from Children and Art. They are:

Mama spent money when she had none

"Mama said, "Honey, mustn't be blue
It's not so much do what you like
as it is that you like what you do""

and

"Isn't it lovely how artists can capture us?"


While these aren't his most poetic or insightful, the beauty and simplicity of the lyrics really strike a chord with me. I think part of what makes Sondheim so brilliant at it is that he know when to be showy and wordy and also when to be subtle and simple.

Your Thoughts??

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"In Buddy's Eyes"

And all I ever dreamed I'd be,
The best I ever thought of me,
Is every minute there to see
In Buddy's eyes.

Updated On: 7/26/10 at 05:35 PM

Rose's Turn

"Why did i do it?
What did it get me?
scrap books full of me in the background.
give them love and what does it get you?
what does it get you?
one quick look as each of them leaves you.
all your life and what does it get you?
'thanks a lot!' and out with the garbage.
They take bows while you're betting zero...."

ultimate lyrics ever written i think for me haha

Practically everything from "Into The Woods". (Favorite line out of all of his shows is also from this show "I was only trying to be a good mother"!)

"Phone rings, door chimes, in comes Company"

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Once my clothes were shabby. Tailors called me Cabbie. So I took a vow, said this bum'll be Beau Brummel...

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My favorite from Merrily


"Trouble is, Charley,
That's what everyone does:
Blames the way it is
On the way it was,
On the way it never ever was."

Oh my god...sooo hard to pick.

"Sometimes the things you most wished for are not to be touched"
"Ask the wolf's mother."
"Careful before you say listen to me - children will listen."

Notice that all of those lines are from the same character in the same musical. Into the Woods is practically like Shakespeare. Pure brilliance.

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Updated On: 7/26/10 at 11:08 PM

In the depths of her interior
Were fears she was inferior
And something even eerier,
But no one dared to query her
Superior exterior.

- Ah, But Underneath

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All of "A Little Priest"...simply brilliant...I can't get enough!

Also not his most insightful or 'brilliant' etc.. but I love the way these words roll off the tongue.

A love as pure as breath, as permanent as death.
Implacable as stone
A love that, like a knife, has cut into a life
I wanted left alone.

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Please Hello from Pacific Overtures has the best lyrics of any song ever written IMHO

One of my favorites, his use of language is beautiful:

"It's a wink and a wiggle and a giggle in the grass
And I'll trip the light fandango,
A pinch and a diddle in the middle of what passes by.
It's a very short road
From the pinch and the punch
To the paunch and the pouch
And the pension.
It's a very short road
To the ten thousandth lunch
And the belch and the grouch
And the sigh"

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Well, when the world goes mad
Then they've got to be shown,
And when the hero quits
Then you're left on your own,
And when you want things done
You have to do them yourself
Alone!

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