LES MIZ lyric question

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 6:02pm

this may have been covered before, a bit hard to search. why does the line "full of toys" in CASTLE ON A CLOUD get followed by "boys and girls" not "girls and BOYS" to rhyme? there is a couplet "sleep/sweep" just prior....anyone know?

[HistoryBoy2]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 6:09pm

I believe it is flimsily justified by the idea that Cosette is too young to rhyme consistently:

"But the child Cosette is a badly treated little girl, with no pattern to her life, no schooling or education, so you try to avoid the expected rhyme, which would indicate too advanced or orderly a mental development in one so young." ~ Herbert Kretzmer

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 6:22pm

I think that's a perfectly sensible reason, not flimsy at all, and it's borne out over the song.

[ChildrenwillListen]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 7:25pm

I'm trying to learn all of the parts to At the End of the Day, like the part where they're singing two different parts at the same time. It drives me crazy that I can't figure it out and I want to be able to sing it. Anyone know them?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 7:29pm

I love this song, and I wonder if toys/boys rhyme would sound trite and canned.

[sueb1863]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 8:24pm

None of the first two lines in the other verses rhyme, so I always thought it was just a matter of consistency.

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 9:28pm

but it is preceded by a couplet (sleep/sweep) and followed by one (loud/cloud). Then there is "touch/much" as well. it's kinda hard to buy "Cosette can't rhyme consistently" because that assumes each character is making up their own rhyme scheme, when they often share their songs and motifs between them. Sure, that age character can translate instantly into ENGLISH but miss a few couplets? c'mon. You can't tell me that the original French words had rhyming couplets for sleep, sweep, loud, cloud, touch/much, right? so that's not it. It just seems kinda..lazy. As to too much rhyming being trite, do you feel that way about MASTER OF THE HOUSE? and is there a more trite metaphor than a house full of toys, when we just called it a castle?

[wildone]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 10:58pm

I always thought it was strange that certain lines in the "Prologue: Work Song" didn't rhyme. Such as:

You are a thief!
I stole a loaf of bread!
You robbed a house!
I broke a window pane.

At that point in the song, I would have expected the fourth line to rhyme with the first or second line.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 11:05pm

Kretzmer said it was too obvious a rhyme and yes, didn't want a little girl to be that articulate with rhymes (I paraphrased that from an interview with The Barricade and have a scan somewhere, I think).

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 11:13pm

When does Cosette translate things into English?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 11:13pm

When does Cosette translate things into English? Was that one of the scenes that was cut when they shortened the show?

[LuminousBeing]

Posted: 3/23/12 at 12:42am

In the 25th Anniversary tour, they cut that verse entirely. (Either that or the little girl skipped it by accident, but I doubt it) Just a point of interest. :)

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/23/12 at 12:53am

I actually think it does kinda work for the song. Which is rare--because I think Kretzmer is a hack amongst hacks--it's too bad Europeans trust him so much to translate their works.

[p.s.]

Posted: 3/23/12 at 9:45am

During testing or tryouts, well before going on stage with it, (all/most/many of) the young girls singing girls and boys after the previous line's full of toys couldn't consistently hit the right notes. The rhyme somehow threw them off tune.

p.s.
Castle on a Cloud - 2009 thread

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 3/23/12 at 10:20am

p.s. Careful to present that answer as a fact. In the old thread, it looks like you were repeating what you sort of maybe remembered someone else kind of suggesting at some point... which is not great sourcing.

I'm perfectly happy with the idea that her life is confused and unstructured, and, thus, she doesn't rhyme consistently and don't understand what TxTwoStep's problem with the idea is. Aside from his bizarre note about her translating things into English, he complains thusly --

"but it is preceded by a couplet (sleep/sweep) and followed by one (loud/cloud). Then there is "touch/much" as well. it's kinda hard to buy 'Cosette can't rhyme consistently'"

Why is that hard to buy? You just exactly described inconsistency.

[p.s.]

Posted: 3/23/12 at 11:14am

p.s. Careful to present that answer as a fact

Noted!

p.s.

I'm only guessing, but if Lizzie could find The Barricade that's been missing for three years now, we might have a tighter answer.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 3/23/12 at 11:29am

I didn't think I'm find it so quickly! http://www.herbertkretzmer.com/pdf/alsheahen.pdf

SHEAHEN: In the hauntingly beautiful “Castle On A Cloud” a natural rhyme seems to be avoided. “There is a room that’s full of toys; there are a hundred boys and girls.” Shouldn’t that be “girls and boys” to make it rhyme ?

KRETZMER: Yes, of course, that’s how I wrote it. Trevor Nunn and/or John Caird suggested the switch because the ‘boys-toys’ rhyme telegraphed itself and lacked surprise and, secondly, the song is sung by the untutored little urchin Cosette who is not expected to be facile of speech. Still, there must be some in the audience at every performance who conclude that the little girl simply fluffed her lines.
Incidentally, speaking of “Castle On A Cloud”, Alain’s original French lyric took an altogether different line on Cosette’s plight. It had the unhappy child fantasizing about being rescued by a prince. I felt, however, that little girls of that age do not dream of men, even if they are princes. I also felt that the saviour/prince idea had been rather too famously done in the old Disney song “Someday My Prince Will Come.” So I took Cosette’s little song in another direction, and made it a plea for love and comfort in a safe place.