Your suggestions would probably make more sense if you had posted the set of lyrics for us all to see. Otherwise, may Bernie Taupin happen upon this thread and see all your wonderful suggestions. After all, Steve did!
For the record, I'm only talking about the lyrics here. Elton's music does its job and I think the show is actually fairly entertaining, for its flaws.
There's not much to get excited about in the lyrics. I think the nicest phrases the man came up with were "Sail Me Away" and "I Want More", both song titles. I feel like he's aping Oscar Hammerstein or throwaway lyrics for operetta with lines like "The thrill to hunt in such exotic places! To almost taste those beauties in Siam. The brown skinned boys of Mykonos and Rangoon. The shy Chinese behind their painted fans!"
Okay... example. One song pretty much covers them all, they're all about the same. The opening to "The Crimson Kiss" goes:
"For so many years we've shared this path together
Kindred spirits in search of history
For you the holy grail is where we come from
But it's a different road I crave these days for me
You dwell so on the dawn of our creation in search of ghosts from our mythology
But for now the wonders that the world can offer mean more to me than ancient family trees."
First of all, it's redundant. Not only did we find out all this information immediately prior to the conversation beginning, but the words are redundant. "We've SHARED this path TOGETHER. KINDRED spirits.. I CRAVE... fOR ME..." etc... and the text is redundant. She's saying the same thing over and over. "You want to find our mythology, but I want to LIVE Lestat, I want to LIVE!" And this whole segment takes nearly a minute. A minute to introduce the song. But once it's introduced...
She goes on to simply describe places. It's a list song. The first tenant of a list song is that it must be clever, or at the very least interesting. This song accomplishes none of that. That is pretty much the function of every song. To tell us what we already know for a minute and then to go and list off irrelevant details. And the song is almost 5 minutes long. And the music is completely boring. Carolee is practically screaming to find any energy at all. There is a subtext to the song, if you really look for it. Apparently she's saying that she appreciates how their relationship has changed since they became vampires. You would never know this though because there's never anything to indicate why or how she would feel this way because their relationship only becomes sexual.
I do agree that he writes some nice poetry for the pop music, but I think Bernie could stand to listen to a few more cast recordings. He's capable of fine writing, but here he relies on lame pedestrian imagery and mixed metaphors. I don't understand why he constantly writes in a passive voice. It makes the song impossible to follow and it makes the songs sound utterly written rather than as if the character were actually speaking words from their heart. You can always hear the writer.
There are a few times when you can tell that the characters are really speaking to him though. In the song "I Want More", which is frequently mentioned, he manages to give a character a distinctive voice. The lyrics are clumsy but still, the song works. It's a song that tells a story with a dinstinctive voice, although I don't know if I'll ever forgive him for using the line "This cat wants her cream". The same goes for Claudia's other song.
Here's a nice turn of phrase: "Should I be the little miss and while away the hours? I think not! I'd rather HUNT than cut up paper flowers."
Not only does it feel right to the time period (the phrase while away feels appropriately old, the reference to a typical little girl thing being doing crafts to pass time), but the word "hunt" has a surprisingly blunt sound (since you expect there to be a rhyme with miss here) and the rhyme of hours/flowers is appropriate. There, I found something positive. In fact, this is probably the only song in the show where you feel like the audience is actually engaged in what's going on. Good job on this one.
What isn't helping him is that the lyrics don't always sit on the music well. I often feel that the words are at odds with the music. It just doesn't flow. I don't know if this is Bernie or Elton's fault, or the fault of both.
To me the lyrics have to hold the meaning, poetry, philosophy, etc... of the musical. The music is the beating heart of the show, but the lyrics think for the show. The lyrics for Lestat rarely get underneath the surface of what was a relatively philosophical story. Dressing one character like Buddha does not add philosophy. That's why I have a hard time being positive about them. Bad lyrics is bad lyrics.
I do appreciate the production values and the performances though. The show was worth 25 bucks for that.
yr ronin,
joey
Updated On: 4/22/06 at 11:19 PM
