Gibberish lyrics in Broadway musicals? — Page 3

Plumble is funny, but in the reprise for the finale, they sing tumble instead. Anyone else notice this?

Plumble is funny, but in the reprise for the finale, they sing tumble instead. Anyone else notice this?

What? Goes to iTunes immediately. Wow. I never noticed that. ::hangs head in shame::

Remember the song that used to be sung at the end of that Canadian show when we saw it as kids on Nick Jr. in the '80s, and we thought that they originated it?

WELL, GUESS WHAT? THEY DIDN'T!

The song Skiddy-Mer-Rink-A-Dink-a-Boomp comes from this old 1910 musical The Echo, and it came at the end of the show. It was the "Boola Boola Isle" way of saying "I LOVE YOU." It's all true. I did not make that up.

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Thanks, newintown, I was going to point that out. It's also clear when you see it performed that when the entire cast sings the finale, they are sort of reminding the Chaperone what the right word is. I can't really describe what exactly they do to convey this. When they get to that word, everyone looks at the Chaperone and pointedly sings, "Tumble!" and she makes a gesture like, "Oh, yeah, that's it!"

"Agee" is pronounced with a J sound and yes, it means "to one side," so the Major General says "sat agee" to mean "to sit on a horse." Why the Major General rides sidesaddle, I have no idea, but I have always found it extremely impressive that all those words are actual words.

I always enjoy the gibberish in WICKED because it fits in with the world. I appreciate when composers write their songs to match the voice of the character, and these characters use made up words like this all throughout the dialogue, so why not in songs? That wasn't Schwartz being lazy or weird, he was writing for his characters and their world.

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The Fish-Schlapping Song from Spamalot

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Nobody ever stopped Lorenz (Larry) Hart from using a well-tuned piece of gibberish to complete a rhyme.

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"Boom Ditty Boom" from "70, Girls, 70."

In the case of Wicked, once you embrace that there is girl who is GREEN in a class taught by a GOAT they can make up all the damn words they want.


An example that popped into my head was the "auctioneer" section of Molasses to Rum in 1776 "Ya Hiiiii ye hoooo hun doooooo-oh"

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In the script of 70 Girls 70, "Boom ditty boom" is described by the leading lady as the sound her heart made the first time she stole something from a store. In the song "Boom Ditty Boom", the gang of old folks are headed off to commit a huge robbery.

...Who began to twitch
And was reduced to just a stitch
Of what was once a wicked witch!

Yip Harburg loved those rhymes. In Oz, it was the "itch" rhymes. In Finian's Rainbow, he built an entire song around "ish", and in Flahooley, a song built around "eth".

Of course, he also repeated his use of "itch" rhymes in:

When the idle poor
Become the idle rich
You'll never know just who is who
Or which is which.

et cetera...