Question About SHREK Lyrics.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 1:48pm

I was wondering, while listening to the cast recording...

Fiona sings the line that she is "a very gifted bowler" even though she lived in a tower with "very little head room"...

Where did she pick up bowling?

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 3:29pm

She only got put in the tower when she was 8.

I was just trying to work the logic of it - but I assume Lindsay-Abaire was just going for the quick laugh.

[FMills]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 7:11pm

I think there are a few options. First of all, plenty of kids bowl, so she could easily have been a great bowler before she got sent away. The other thing is, she's trying to sell herself to a potential gentleman caller, "I'm a find, I'm a catch, and a very gifted bowler," so she might not be entirely honest in that moment - because she's trying to put herself in the best possible light to appear more desirable. I think both of these are logical choices and easy for an actress to play. Or maybe it's just a funny joke - which is also valid. I laughed when I heard that lyric.

[bwaydan24601]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 8:15pm

I agree. I think it's supposed to be a quick laugh, but mostly I think it was only used to be ironic, and to rhyme with bi-polar.

[vlegra]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 8:47pm

well this show is very poorly written and is made for children. they just wanted something to laugh about.

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 8:49pm

I always cringe when I listen to that lyric. It's a silly little lyrics that they put in so there could be moderately funny rhyming lyrics.

[janice4]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 8:53pm

Poorly written????? Let's see what you have come up with

[bwaygirl211]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 10:44pm

One thing from the song "The Ballad of Farquaad" I've been wondering about...earlier in the show, when Lord Farquaad picks Fiona to be his prince, his other choices are Snow White and Cinderella. And then in this song, you learn his father is Grumpy from the seven dwarfs...so technically wouldn't he have been marrying his mother? Just an observation..

[little_sally]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 10:52pm

From "The Ballad of Farquaad", it sounds as though his mother is the princess from "The Princess and the Pea."

[KirbyCat]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 10:52pm

Well, Snow White did not give birth to the seven dwarves. She found their cottage and befriended them and so on... They were just the seven (old) brothers living in the woods when the young lady found them.
And yes. I love me some fairy tale.

Yeah, it did sound as though his mother was the princess from The Princess and the Pea. Clever ways to tie stories together... Updated On: 4/15/09 at 10:52 PM

[Anakela]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 10:55pm

Nope, his mother is the Princess and the Pea... someone else is going to have to help out with the exact lyric there, (something about daddy's bed was lumpy, 25 mattresses she slept on, etc.) but I know it's in there somewhere.

I think it still causes some confusion though with Snow White already being in a box- teen Fiona singing about her, she's a Magic Mirror choice, etc. And yet when Farquaad sings daddy is living in squalor, seven to a bed, etc.- which would indicate a Grumpy *before* Snow White came on the scene? But she should have been glass-boxed years ago, if teen Fiona's already heard her tale?

But then I realize that I'm thinking way too much about the lyrics to Shrek, and I stop.

[bwaygirl211]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 10:59pm

^ amen hahahaha

[little_sally]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 11:01pm

Twenty-five mattresses she slept upon
One night she rolled over
And momma was gone

(That's off the top of my head.)

[winston89]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 11:09pm

In terms of Fiona singing about how she is a gifted bowler, I had always thought that she was just saying that as a way to make herself more desirable to whoever it was that would come and rescue her.

As for Farquaad's mother, I am still not sure. I had thought at first that it was Snow White when he was singing about his father being grumpy etc. But, I had always not been so sure when I heard the lyric about her sleeping and falling over on a bed that was lumpy.