Sweeney Todd - A Little Priest Question — Page 3

It's a little obscure and may relate to laws of the time, but at least it's a tangible idea. I could get on board with that.

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I've always interpreted the 'being close' line as 'having a strong bond with someone' because of the 'ain't like being true': one may think someone is a friend of theirs, but this person does not care at all about them, which I think is the case: he means that Sweeney's feelings for Mrs. Lovett are a sham.

Just my interpretation :)


And, morosco, to answer your question, here are some people pronouncing the word 'been': http://pt.forvo.com/word/been/#en . Eveningstar, who is from Canada, also pronounces it like 'bean'. Toddmichael, who's from Australia, pronounces it the same way. But, yes, people with british accent pronounce been like bean.

Updated On: 5/19/14 at 11:05 AM

I always wonder why it's okay for Sweeney to have an American accent. If Len Cariou used a British, or Australian accent, would all subsequent Sweeneys?

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I think it's because Cariou was bad at accents.

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Baritone is correct: that sentence requires the subjective mood, because the conditional statement is contrary to known fact. Another example is "If I Were King of the Forest."

Updated On: 5/19/14 at 11:53 AM

This is known as the subjunctive...

'If I were a rich man' would be the correct grammatical statement.

And to confirm as an English person, 'been' rhymes perfectly with 'clean in Standard British English.

Mrs. Lovett says the politician might have been so oily that they would have to serve it on a doily.

Sweeney suggests the doily would not be absorbent enough to catch all the grease, so she'd better put it on a bun, which would absorb more of the dripping grease.

He suggests doing it preemptively, because you can never tell when the oil of the politician is going to run.

(Nothing ruins a good joke more than an explanation...)

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There was a similar joke on "Roseanne," when she had the loose meat restaurant. "We're out of napkins, so I threw in a couple of extra buns."

I always heard the 'By the sea' lyrics under the assumption that Sweeney and Lovett haven't been sleeping together, and this is her 'subtle', self-preserving way of working on legitimising the idea of it in his mind.
The whole 'rumpled bedding' section reads to me as: "It's logical: you'd enjoy moving to the seaside and retiring. We could get along better doing that if we went together. Since we won't have a socially legitimate reason to be there together without a business partnership, it'll help us both to married - (ahem, and anyway we'll be having sex of course) - ahem, see, perfectly logical plan in all respects."

I don't know if someone like Mrs Lovett would care much about marrying Sweeney if she was already shagging him. To my memory/interpretation, any seeming glimmers of middle class respectability are revealed as just her being self-serving sooner or later - the way she says "Just the thought of it's enough to make you sick / And I'm telling you them ****cats is quick"; why she really wants Sweeney to give up on revenge for his wife and focus on their nice respectable business together; why she's really throwing the prostitute out of her fine etablishment. But hey, whatever interpretation helps each of us enjoy the show the most.

I agree with those who say a wedding to Todd wouldn't "legitimize" bedding he hadn't helped to rumple.

"We shouldn't try it,
Though, 'til it's legal for two-hoo!
But a seaside wedding could be devised,
Me rumpled bedding legitimized!
Me eyelids'll flutter,
I'll turn into butter,
The moment I mutter I do-hoo!"

It's all phrased in the conditional. As single-minded as Todd, Lovett thinks she is actually tempting him with her vision of seaside respectability. And she is cautioning him that they can't be respectable as long as they go on living in sin.

Further, as passive and distracted as Sweeney is around Lovett, it's hard to imagine he resists her carnal advances.

For those of you who think Todd and Lovett are NOT sleeping together, where do you imagine Todd sleeps? In his barber chair?

Oh, but she has a very important reason to drag Todd to the altar, and one illegal as well: Lucy is still around, Lovett might be found out!