Sondheim's Best Lyrics in...

[Mildred Plotka]

Posted: 8/23/10 at 11:15pm

West Side Story, Gypsy, and Do I Hear a Waltz? I'm making a chronological Sondheim CD for a friend and am going to include one from each show. Which song (from each) has his best lyrics in your opinion?

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 8/23/10 at 11:33pm

From Gypsy, I'd probably have to go with You Gotta Get a Gimmick, with one of my favorites being "Dressy Tessie Tura is so much more demure-er / Than all them other ladies because"

As for West Side Story, I'd probably say A Boy Like That/I Have a Love, with this verse being particularly powerful
"I have a love, and it's all that I have.
Right or wrong, what else can I do?
I love him; I'm his,
And everything he is
I am, too.
I have a love, and it's all that I need,
Right or wrong, and he needs me, too.
I love him, we're one;
There's nothing to be done,
Not a thing I can do
But hold him, hold him forever,
Be with him now, tomorrow
And all of my life!"


I don't really know Do I Hear a Waltz? very well, so I can't say anything from that.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 8/23/10 at 11:49pm

I absolutely love the lyrics to "Do I Hear a Waltz?"

Such lovely blue danube music
How can you be still?

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 8/23/10 at 11:50pm

WEST SIDE STORY: 'Something's Coming' or 'A Boy Like That/I Have A Love'
GYPSY: 'You Gotta Get a Gimmick" or 'If Momma was Married'

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 8/23/10 at 11:55pm

I also like "Somebody Woke Up" and "This Week Americans" from DO I HEAR A WALTZ?

[LuminousBeing]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 12:08am

At a talk Sondheim gave in Boston, he told the audience that he thinks the single best lyric in "WSS" is:

Maria
I just met a girl named Maria.

He said that most of the rest of the lyrics in the show were dreadful and amateur. I just found that interesting, and though you might, too. :)

Re: "Gypsy," my favorite lyrics are in "Together Wherever We Go," especially this one:

Rose: And any I. O. U., I owe, you owe?
Herbie: Who, me-oh! No, you owe.
Louise: No, we owe.
Rose, Louise & Herbie: Together!

It's not the best song of the show, but I have the most fun listening to the lyrics to that song when I revisit the show (with the exception of the "Gypsy Strip," of course).

[BroadwayNorth2]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 12:20am

I thought Sondheim was quoted as saying his fave was, "I just KISSED a girl named Maria"

[jewishboy]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 12:32am

In West Side, I would have to say that "Gee, Officer Krupke" holds his best lyrics. In Gypsy, either "Roses's Turn," or "You Gotta Get A Gimmick." And in Do I Hear A Waltz I would say "We're Gonna Be Alright." Although I don't think the original cast recording has my favorite lyrics in the song, "Sometimes she drinks in bead. Sometimes he's homosexual." The scrabble recording does though.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 12:37am

I remember a recent interview with Sondheim saying the lyrics he likes in WSS are "Something's Coming" and most of "Jet Song", the former being my favorite.

[jasonf]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 12:41am

In Gypsy, my favorite lyric is in "All I Need Now Is the Girl":

Once my clothes were shabby
Tailors called me cabby
So I took a vow, said this bum'll be Beau Brummel

Now I'm smooth and snappy
Now my tailor's happy
I'm the cat's meow, my wardrobe is a wow
Paris silk, Harris tweed, there's only one thing I need...

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 1:18am

My favorite lyrics in West Side Story are probably in "Something's Coming"...I think it's the perfect marriage of music and lyric, particularly with those syncopated, pulsing phrases coupled with the anticipatory lyrics:
There's something due any day
I will know right away
Soon as it shows..

It's only just out of reach
Down the block, on a beach
Under a tree...

etc.

And for Gypsy I've always loved "You Gotta Get A Gimmick," if only for, "If you wanna bump it, bump it with a trumpet!"

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 1:41am

DO I HEAR A WALTZ?:
I really love Someone Woke Up and Thank You So Much.

Although the song on the airplane is great, too.

GYPSY:
I really love Together or Gimmick.

WEST SIDE:
America.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 4:33am

West Side Story:

Gee, Officer Krupke

Gypsy:

Together Wherever We Go

or

Everything's Coming Up Roses.

And I like the title song from Do I Hear A Waltz?

[LuminousBeing]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 8:14am

He might have been quoted saying that as well, at another point, but during the talk I attended, he said his favorite lyric was "I just met a girl named Maria." Maybe he changed his mind?

[tazber]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 8:50am

It depends on how you are qualifying "best" lyrics.

Krupke probably has the most clever rhymes and wordplay, but Maria/Tonight have so much emotion and heart. Simplicity is elegance very often. And it requires just as much discipline and talent.

Same with Gypsy. Gimmick, All I Need Is The Girl, and even Some People are lyrical wonders, but the craft and emotion of Roses Turn is masterful. Rarely have lyrics so perfectly captured a character's inner feelings.

I have a suggestion, perhaps choose two songs from each show. One as an example of his lyrical dexterity and one as an example of his brilliance in creating depth of character.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 9:43am

tazber, he has said on multiple occasions that he hates the Tonight lyrics because they're not things that street kids would say. Leonard Bernstein wanted poetic lyrics, but Sondheim knew that two Manhattan teenagers with gang connections would not say that "today, the world was just an address, a place for me to live in..." or "what was just a world is a star". There is no doubt that those lyrics are beautiful, but neither of their characters would be likely to say those things. "Something's Coming" and "Gee, Officer Krupkee" are songs that are more in character.

[newintown]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 9:57am

I think caution should be taken with West Side, until the day comes when it's revealed precisely which lyrics are Sondheim's and which were written by Bernstein. If such a day can come. Maybe no one remembers it exactly anymore.

[JRybka]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 10:09am

It is not a sung lyric but the best hands down is from A Little Night Music... "To flirt with rescue when one has no intention of being saved" -- it said by Fredrick to Desiree in the middle of Send in the Clowns.

[Cearsgk]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 10:51am

You beat me to it. Another vote for; "this bum'll be Beau Brummel"!

[Jewtopia]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 10:52am

Please Hello from Pacific Overtures. Hands down.

[musikman]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 3:26pm

From Gypsy, I've always loved this lyric from Dainty June and her Farmboys:

"She loves a man cow, a tan cow, who can cow her with a glance!"

As for West Side Story, the lyrics to "Somewhere." So simple, yet so beautiful.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 3:33pm

I think Sondheim's best lyrics in WSS are in "Gee, Officer Krupke." I also love "Something's Coming."

My favorite Sondheim lyrics of all time, not in the shows you mentioned, are in "The Miller's Son."

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 6:35pm

It's a wink and a wiggle and a giggle in the grass
and i'll trip the light fandango...

[jv92]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 8:22pm

West Side: "Something's Coming"
Gypsy: "Everything's Coming Up Roses"
Waltz?: "What Do We Do? We Fly!"

[TonyVincent]

Posted: 8/24/10 at 8:52pm

As for West Side Story, the lyrics to "Somewhere." So simple, yet so beautiful.

Or, how Sondheim and others refer to it, "The Uh Song."

I think Sondheim is especially critical of WSS because it was his first major work, and it's easy to see what you would have done differently with hindsight that includes further experience. I'm sure all of us cringe when listening to old recordings of ourselves, reading old essays, watching old videos, etc., as we accentuate the negatives as we're embarrassed of our seemingly ignorant former selves.