Really Crappy Lyrics

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 7:49pm

I was reading this page and thought it was hilarious.
What do you think?

http://www.rationalmagic.com/Bursting/ReallyCrappyLyrics.html

[Fantod]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 7:57pm

A. Those Camelot lyrics and Mack and Mabel lyrics aren't nearly as bad as that person says in my opinion

B. I don't think there is a single worse lyric written for theatre than:

Oh Noah
You Go-ah
All the Way Back to the Protozoa!

Updated On: 11/24/14 at 07:57 PM

[broadwaytbay]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 8:23pm

That lyric from Generations from Children of Eden is my single favourite terrible lyric of all time... sometimes I listen to that song on repeat when I get up in the morning because it makes me laugh

[Fantod]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 8:27pm

It's especially horrible because it references evolution, which is contradictory to the concept of the story of Adam and Eve. Obviously, it's fictional, but it's just weird in the context of the show.

[broadwaytbay]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 8:37pm

Well we now know Stephen Schwartz is an evolutionary creationist... or intelligent design enthusiast?

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 8:45pm

"I'd sooner buy defying gravity"

[broadwaytbay]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 8:46pm

is that next ocean front property in Arizona? If you'll buy that I'll throw the Golden Gate in free

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 9:25pm

Not a classic like those referenced at the link, but I'll never forget an off-off-Broadway musical starring the husband of a friend:

"Marriage means monogamy,
They'll never make a hog of me."

Not a perfect rhyme, but the first lines of the opening number and sung several times. I still don't know what the authors thought it meant.

****

As for the original link, I like (or rather don't like) most of the examples, but shame on the writer for not knowing Carolyn Leigh's work.

"And I'll be up like a rose bud, high on the vine.
Don't thumb your nose, Bud, take a tip from mine."

Perhaps not Leigh's best lyric (see, instead, most of LITTLE ME), but the rose bud isn't a symbol of victory, it's something that is high ("I'll be up"). And "Take a tip from mine" means keep you nose up (and your spirits, too).

The character singing is not an intellectual. If we're going to damn Sondheim for a reference to hara-kiri (a mistaken criticism since the character is singing an Irving Berlin song in a Follies, not speaking in her own vernacular), then we have to allow Leigh to write for a character who is no wordsmith.

[NoName3]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 9:43pm

I can't remember it exactly, but there's a lyric in Flahooley that rhymes "reindeer" with "rain, dear." Oh dear.

And there was a lyric in Into the Light that rhymed data with tomato and they pronounced it dahta and tuhmahta to make it work.

Updated On: 11/24/14 at 09:43 PM

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 9:46pm

I think all of Facade is pretty bad.

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 9:48pm

Especially the lyrics

"Life is terribly hard,
When your life's a facade"

[KC91WFU]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 9:53pm

From Lysistrata Jones "When She Smiles":

This won't be another road that I didn't take
Not another day with the same mistake
Not another cake that I didn't bake
Not another Snow White that I didn't wake

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 9:59pm

Also in The Producers, they over use the rhyming words with 'Leo' in 'We can do it'

"Come on Leo, Don't you see oh
You see Rio I see jail."

And in 'Along Came Bialy'

"So romantic, we were frantic'

Makes me cringe, too. Updated On: 11/24/14 at 09:59 PM

[FloydJoe2]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 10:05pm

Bonnie and Clyde
"City Hall is low on kindness, but it don't run out of flags!"

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 11/24/14 at 10:21pm

All of Wicked is pretty bad.
I'm sure that there are a few very meh lyrics in Rent.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 12:19am

I actually love that line about the beelzebubble bursting.

Here's my submission: "Ode to the Brooklyn Bridge" from KELLY

Oh you mammoth suspension
Liking’ the Bowry with Red Hook
Permitting a free exchange of ideas and bringing civilization as we know it to both sides
Of the Brook

Oh you big big bastion
Stretching’ across the watery ditch
Ya don’t bitch
Ya just stick it out
And it’s sticking out all over you (?????)
Majestic monument who don’t say boo

Oh you great big bridge
Connecting Brooklyn with New York
You don’t squawk
you just do ya job
And it’s a hell of a job you do
Connecting Lynbrook with Yoooork, New!

Truly terrible.

Updated On: 11/25/14 at 12:19 AM

[JBroadway]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 12:31am

"Now that we're in here, you'll know we've been here before we are done" - One Short Day, Wicked.

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 1:02am

"Poor Galinda, forced to reside
With someone so disgusticified
We just want to tell you:
We're all on your side!"

That one Nessa/confessa line in Dancing Through Life is simply awful too.

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 1:41am

I also kind of hate these lyrics in Wicked:

Did that really just happen?
Have I actually understood?
This weird quirk I've tried
To suppress or hide
Is a talent that could
Help me meet the Wizard
If I make good
So I'll make good

Kinda Cheesey

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 1:49am

But I think we can all agree that the lyrics in Victor/Victoria are just plain awful.

[Jay94]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 3:27am

Indeed a lot of Victor/Victoria is terrible. Especially, Louis Says.

I know they say of Marie Antoinette
My reputation is a go-getter
So when I met Louis Sixteenth of Bourbon
t'was so disturbin', I thought a Bourbon
Once in ev'ry while would keep me smiling.
Louis says he's king of France
Not by chance that I wed him
They all do as Louis says.
My, oh, yez... I just bed him. Updated On: 11/25/14 at 03:27 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 7:23am

The inept, stupid, or foolish ones don't bother me nearly as much as the forced, strained, smug, self-congratulatory, gee-look-how-clever-I-am ones that assault both our ears and common sense.

Things like "While her withers whither with her, " and "a matador coercin' a bull."

What bull.

And to think that we are told that this person is a great lyricist. Hell, the same people decree him to be a great composer, too, despite all evidence being entirely to the contrary.

A bad joke, you say? Well, yes, surely.

Its perpetrators, however, are laughing heartily.



Updated On: 11/26/14 at 07:23 AM

[tazber]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 8:07am

Rent:

You want to produce films and write songs?
You need somewhere to do it!
It's what we used to dream about
Think twice before you pooh-pooh it

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 8:08am

After spending the weekend seeing some truly amazing shows, including the absolute perfect On The Town, I don't think I shall take anything you say seriously again. You are clearly some contrived troll here to upset people - and I must say Good Job, for you had me going there for a minute. And I'd anyone is "smug, self-congratulatory, gee-look-how-clever-I-am" it's you hon.

[Consistency]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 9:54am

Yes dearie - it's all a conspiracy. People have spent 50 years pretending to like someone's work they don't really like just to irritate you.

Incidentally, I would agree that those are pretty crappy lyrics. They just happen to be in shows that also have a lot of really great lyrics.

...And I can't think of a single lyricist who didn't write an occasional clunker. It's just that Sondheim - along with Porter, Hammerstein, Berlin, Gilbert, and Harnick (among a few other "greats") - are more consistently good than most.