Sondheim's weaker lyrics/rhymes- Page 2

[indytallguy]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 7:02am

What I like most about that line from Passion is how it ends:

Has cut into a life
I wanted left alone.

[kdogg36]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 7:19am

Ray and tallguy, thanks for jumping in. I think there's plenty to like about that lyric, so I'll leave it there.

I will bring up one more questionable Sondheim lyric (the only other one I can think of!) from Sweeney Todd:

Meaning no offense it
Happens they resents it,
Ladies in their sensitivities, my lord.

At least when the Beadle is otherwise portrayed as using something like Received Pronunciation, it sticks out like a sore thumb to me when he uses a verbal agreement pattern that typifies a very different dialect of English.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 4:58pm

"Too busy to know that they're fools."

No, they are not.

Um, yes, they are. Joanne is talking about women who fill their lives with breathless activity to avoid confronting their real anxieties. It's the same concept as Plato's "unexamined life".

"You're always sorry, You're always grateful."

Wow, what profound insight, so brilliantly expressed!

There are entire cultures (Mesoamerican, medieval Japanese) that express complexity with the paradox of unresolved and unqualified opposites. Why shouldn't Sondheim do the same in one song?

Considering the Broadway convention of giving characters full and perfect knowledge of themselves when they sing, "Sorry/Grateful" was one of the most shocking--and ultimately moving--lyrics of the late 60s/early 70s. Updated On: 12/26/13 at 04:58 PM

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 6:59pm

Just for fun, I made a list of songs that After Eighty would love had they been written by one of his cadre of dead songwriters. As they're by Sondheim...at best they inspire disinterest bordering on disgust:

"Ah, But Underneath"
"Ah! Paris!"
"All for You"
"Anyone Can Whistle"
"Back in Business"
"Beautiful Girls"
"The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened"
"The Boy From..."
"Broadway Baby"
"By the Sea"
"Can That Boy Foxtrot!"
"Children Will Listen"
"Come Play Wiz Me"
"Comedy Tonight"
"Company"
"Echo Song"
"Ever After"
"Everybody Ought to Have a Maid"
"Everybody Says Don't"
"Free"
"Getting Married Today"
"Giants in the Sky"
"The Glamorous Life"
"Good Thing Going"
"Goodbye For Now"
"Growing Up"
"Have I Got a Girl for You"
"I Do Like You"
"I Never Do Anything Twice"
"I Remember Sky"
"I'm Calm"
"I'm Still Here"
"I've Got You to Lean On"
"Impossible"
"In Buddy's Eyes"
"Isn't He Something!"
"It Takes Two"
"Johanna"
"Like It Was"
"A Little Priest"
"Little White House"
"Live Alone and Like It"
"Losing My Mind"
"Love is in the Air"
"Love Will See Us Through"
"Lovely"
"Loving You"
"Maybe They're Magic"
"Me and My Town"
"The Miller's Son"
"No More"
"No One is Alone"
"Not a Day Goes By"
"Now You Know"
"Old Friends"
"On the Steps of the Palace"
"One More Kiss"
"Opening Doors"
"Our Time"
"A Parade in Town"
"Pretty Lady"
"Pretty Little Picture"
"Pretty Women"
"Putting It Together"
"Rain on the Roof "
"Remember?"
"Send in the Clowns"
"Side by Side by Side"
"So Many People"
"Soon"
"The Story of Lucy and Jessie"
"The Sun Won't Set"
"Take Me to the World"
"There Won't Be Trumpets"
"Too Many Mornings"
"Wait"
"A Weekend in the Country"
"What Would We Do Without You?"
"Who Could Be Blue?"
"Who's That Woman?"
"With So Little to Be Sure Of"
"You Could Drive a Person Crazy"
"You Must Meet My Wife"
"You're Gonna Love Tomorrow"
"Your Eyes Are Blue"

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 8:15pm

The only lyric that's ever bothered me is from Sorry/Grateful. To be fair, I hate that song to begin with.

Good things get better.
Bad get worse.
Wait, I think I meant that in reverse.

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 9:39pm

"Um, yes, they are. "

Uh, no they are not. "The ones who play by the rules." The "ones?" Now there's a nice phrase for you. So if a woman "plays by the rules," that makes her a fool? What a crock of bull. And if a woman picks up her child at school, or donates her time to support her child's education, that makes her a fool as well? Well, sorry, but no, no, and no. The misogynistic gall of it is astounding. How dare we be subjected to such insulting, sickening tripe!



Updated On: 12/26/13 at 09:39 PM

[justoldbill]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 9:56pm

"We have so much in common,
It's a phenomenon."
GYPSY - Good.

"That is a phenomenon nobody doubts,
Yet it's very common on nights hereabouts."
SONG OF NORWAY - Better.

[artscallion]

Posted: 12/26/13 at 10:10pm

"So if a woman "plays by the rules," that makes her a fool? What a crock of bull. And if a woman picks up her child at school, or donates her time to support her child's education, that makes her a fool as well? Well, sorry, but no, no, and no. The misogynistic gall of it is astounding. How dare we be subjected to such insulting, sickening tripe!"

Eight, you do understand that it's the character putting forth those ideas, not Sondheim. He's giving her those lyrics so that we can understand who SHE is, not how IT should be.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 1:56am

I'll never be able to decide if, "But with her schlitz in her mits down at Fitz-roy's Bar, she dreams of the Ritz-Oh, it's so schizo" is brilliant or annoying as all hell.

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 4:36am

Artscallion,

So tell me then, the people who applaud this song as a "dead on" portrait of "a certain type" of woman, (a complete crock, by the way): whom are they applauding, Joanne or Sondheim?

[tazber]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 5:57am

Some of the lyrics mentioned here are my faves.

I absolutely love the career line from I'm Still Here, and the "just kept on" line from Good Thing Going is (to me) one of the best lyrics in Merrily.

[The Scorpion]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 7:09am

Sondheim's probably my favourite lyricist, and Sweeney for me is one of the very best musicals ever written (it's superb musically AND lyrically), but even then there are a couple of rhymes in that piece which for me don't work so well because, while they work in American English, they don't in British English. And given the fact that some of the lyrics appear to be written with the latter in mind (Mrs Lovett's use of "wot", for instance) -- even if they're not always performed in that accent (notably with the original cast) -- I don't think they're successful.

One is the rhyming of "erased" with "waste" and "traced" in 'A Little Priest' -- in British English, the "s" in "erase" is pronounced like a z, like "erazed". So it doesn't rhyme with "waste" or "traced".

Another is the rhyming of "esplanade" with "blade" in "By the Sea". Generally, a cockney and the British in general are more say "esplanAAAAD" (rhymes with "card" and "façade" in southern English) than "esplanaid", as it is pronounced in the States, so it wouldn't rhyme with "blade".

Minor errors that are easy to forgive, of course, especially as Sondheim isn't British himself.



Updated On: 12/27/13 at 07:09 AM

[artscallion]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 7:14am

Eight, Do you also think Sondheim advocates killing your son with Chrysanthemum tea? Do you think the people who applaud that song are applauding that notion? Maybe the disconnect you're having with this concept is the reason you dislike anything more complicated than Hello Dolly. I think we've finally gotten to the bottom of it!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 7:51am

"Assonance is getting the rhyme wrong." Rita

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 7:52am

"Assonance means getting the rhyme wrong." Rita Educated

[Kad]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 9:49am

"How dare we be subjected to such insulting, sickening tripe!"

Now you know how we feel every time you post.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 9:53am

GoSmileLaughCryClap, you have successfully claimed ownership of both this thread and After Eight today. Amazing.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 10:21am

I objected to this thread at the beginning, on principle, and stayed away from it during the holiday.

Now I see that they punishment for them what participated in it is that you all had to read After Eight's posts.

Updated On: 12/28/13 at 10:21 AM

[Kad]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 10:26am

Mm, satay!

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 10:30am

I love satay wings.

And I never miss an After Eight post, PJ. You're batty.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 10:42am

What's the principle, though, PJ? That because Sondheim is Sondheim he's above reproach? That's sort of the exact flip-side of what After Eight does.

Sondheim is a genius lyricist and writer, but it's not like he's a robot that's been programmed to never spit out a clunker.

And "Country House" is a really crappy song.

Updated On: 12/27/13 at 10:42 AM

Posted: 12/27/13 at 1:56pm

I think they're applauding the performer that just sang the song.

[MadAboutTheBoy]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 6:59pm

THe last line of this lyric has always bugged me:
The way is clear,
The light is good,
I have no fear,
Nor no one should.

The syntax seems awkward to me (is it even grammatically correct?). Why not say, "I have not fear/AND no one should"? This lyric has always distracted me.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 7:16pm

What sticks out for me, is some of the times Sondheim uses multiple rhymes--I mean when he has three or more lines in a row rhyme with each other, for whatever reason sometimes that distracts me and seems a bit like he's just being too clever.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 7:26pm

Scorpion, in my experience, Americans also says "esplanAHd." I'd never heard esplanAID" until SWEENEY and assumed it was a Britishism.

After Eight, you are changing your argument. Nice try. Originally you objected to the line "Too busy to know that they're fools" and I have any number of friends who fit that description.

If your new claim is that the entire "type" described by that stanza is a problem, that's a different matter, though you are no more right:

The ones who follow the rules (i.e., conform to the conventions of upper-middle-class women)

And meet themselves at the schools (as you know, women were pushed back into the home after WWII and "taking classes" was about the only activity left to them other than housework; I know you think they are picking up their children at school and that's possible, but I suspect they have maids who do that)

Too busy to know that they're fools (because they haven't had the resources or time or courage to honestly evaluate their obsolete habits)

Aren't they a gem? Let's drink to them.

If you ask me, Joanne is somewhat sympathetic to such women because she acknowledges at least a little kinship with them. How is this song more misogynistic than "Bosom Buddies"?

If I were going to quibble, it would only be with the collision of plural and singular in "Aren't they a gem?"



Updated On: 12/27/13 at 07:26 PM