The best rhymes in musical theater history

[chanel]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 4:22pm

Both of my favorites are by Sondheim:

*"Personable" and "coercin' a bull" in "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" (Company)

*And "Each in her style a Delilah reborn'"in "Beautiful Girls" (Follies)

Your faves?

 

[mamaleh]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 5:29pm

"Such lovely Blue Danube-y

Music, how can you be

Still"

(DO I HEAR A WALTZ?--Sondheim lyric)

[UrNotAMachine]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 5:44pm

Every line by the British Admiral in "Please Hello" from "Pacific Overtures

Not only is it full of brilliant quadruple rhymes, but every line in each quatrain also consists of an internal rhyme.

 

"Hello, I come with letters from Her Majesty Victoria 
Who, learning how you're trading now, sang "Hallelujah, Gloria!" 
And sent me to convey to you her positive euphoria 
As well as little gifts from Britain's various emporia."

"Her letters do contain a few proposals to your Emperor 
Which if, of course, he won't endorse, will put in her in a temper or, 
More happily, should he agree, will serve to keep her placid, or 
At least till I am followed by a permanent ambassador"

"Her Majesty considers the arrangements to be tentative 
Until we ship a proper diplomatic representative. 
We don't foresee that you will be the least bit argumentative, 
So please ignore the man-of-war we brought as a preventative."

"Great Britain wishes her position clear and indisputable: 
We're not amused at being used and therefore stand immutable. 
And though you Japs are foxy chaps and damnably inscrutable 
Reviewing it from where we sit, the facts are irrefutable"

"The British feel these latest dealings verge on immorality. 
The element of precedent imperils our neutrality. 
We're rather vexed, your giving extraterritoriality. 
We must insist you offer this to every nationality!"

"One moment, please, I think that these assure us exclusivity 
For Western ports and other sorts of maritime activity, 
And if you mean to intervene, as is the Dutch proclivity, 
We'll blow you nits to little bits, with suitable festivity. "

 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 6:12pm

"Please Hello" is great fun as a pastiche number.

But compare it to "Ladies Who Lunch" or the original lyric to "We're Gonna Be Alright", both of which are just as full of internal rhyme without calling unnecessary attention.

(I.e., I'm acknowledging that the rhyming of "Please Hello" is a deliberate and skillful spoof of Gilbert, but arguing that even greater skill was require to do the same thing less intrusively in other songs.)

***

And while I'm sounding cranky (I'm not, really; I'm just saying), I think "It's harder than a matador coercin' a bull" is far worse than anything in "I Feel Pretty", a lyric which Sondheim allowed Sheldon Harnick to ruin for him. I realize "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" is a comment song and doesn't have to follow strict rules of character, but the "bull" line is virtually incomprehensible in the theater (unless you already know it from the recording). The problem is that the listener needs the image of a matador coercing (not the verb anyone would use) a bull to understand "to try to get you off of your rump"; yet the listener also needs the rump image to understand the coercing. The lyric just goes by too fast to do all those calculations on first hearing.

Quite uncharacteristic for Sondheim, if you ask me.

[BroadwayMan5]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 6:21pm

Just remembering you've had an "and" when you're back to "or"

Makes the "or" mean more than it did before

[gypsy101]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 6:27pm

"i feel dizzy, i feel sunny, i feel fizzy and funny and fine"

"though you may not agree today, in time, mais oui, we may"

"Which do you pick: where you're safe, out of sight and yourself but where everything's wrong? or where everything's right and you know that you'll never belong?"

"it's a very short road from the pinch and the punch to the paunch and the pouch and the pension. it's a very short road to the ten thousandth lunch and the belch and the grouch and the sigh"

"Mama said: honey, mustn't be blue. it's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do."

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 6:39pm

I think Gentleman's Guide has some of the best lyrics in years. "Poison in my pocket"'s my favorite.

[Jarethan]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 7:04pm

I fear that the lyrics may not be exactly as I remember them (and frequently sing to myself), but it doesn't change the brilliance of the precise lyrics.  Here goes:

SONDHEIM:

Lucy is juicy but terribly drab

Jessie is dressy but cold as a slab

Jessie wants to be Lucy

Lucy wants to be Jessie

Thats the sorrowful precis

Its very messy

 

Wear your hair down and a flower

Don't use make-up, dress in white

She'll grow older by the hour

And be hopelessly shattered by Saturday night

 

That's the puddle where the poodle did the piddle

 

It's you for me 

And me for you

We'll muddle through

Whatever we do

 

 

 

NON-SONDHEIM:

The entire song 'You're the Top'...if I had to single out a segment:

You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss

You're a Shakespeare sonnet

A Bendel bonnet

You're Mickey Mouse

 

I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS AMONG THE BEST OR WORSE:

You get enough germs to catch pneumonia

After you do, he'll never phone ya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hork]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 7:05pm

My two favorites are:

 

Rent:

"Well, you missed a sleeve!"

"Hell, it's Christmas Eve!"

 

In the Heights:

"C'mon, I'll have enough to knock your ass off its axis."

"You'll have a knapsack full of jack after taxes."

[MargaretSchafer]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 7:12pm

One of my favorites, although certainly not the best, is from Into the Woods:

"Into the woods to get the thing that makes it worth the journeying."

I don't know why I love it so much, I just do.

[bwayandstuff]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 7:13pm

You can't argue that Lin is crazy when it comes to rhymes.

 

I'm in the cabinet. I am complicit in

Watching him grabbing at power and kiss it

If Washington isn't gon listen 

To disciplined dissidents, this is the difference...

[JudyDenmark]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 7:33pm

From Little Shop:

What we have here is an ethical dilemma
'Less I help him get the mask removed he doesn't have a prayer
True the gun was never fired
But the way events transpired
I could finish him with simple laissez faire

And from Reefer Madness: (...there are so many good ones in Reefer Madness!)

The wafers now don't taste so great
They won't transubstantiate

 

Updated On: 1/16/17 at 07:33 PM

[¿Macavity?]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 8:10pm

Modern Major General comes to mind.

[NOWaWarning]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 8:22pm

The entirety of "Unusual Way," from Nine is pretty stunning to me.

 

I also really get a kick out of "Uh-oh! You made the wrong sucker a cuckold. It's time to pay the Piper for the pants you unbuckled," from Hamilton. 

[NOWaWarning]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 8:22pm

The entirety of "Unusual Way," from Nine is pretty stunning to me.

 

I also really get a kick out of "Uh-oh! You made the wrong sucker a cuckold. It's time to pay the Piper for the pants you unbuckled," from Hamilton. 

[Dfgtoronto]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 8:31pm

My favorite lyricist was Lorenz Hart and Babes in Arms may have been his greatest show. There are two many beautiful rhymes in "My Funny Valentine" to quote.  In the song "Way Out West," I've always liked:

Those 'forty niners

Who would stake a claim were hearty

I'll join the diners 

And I'll claim a steak at Sardi!

In A Connecticut Yankee, "To Keep My Love Alive" is filled with brilliant rhymes. For example:

Sir Thomas played the harp, I cussed the thing

I crowned him with the harp to bust the thing

And now he plays where harps are just the thing 

Other favorites:

Sondheim/West Side Story: I Feel Pretty (already mentioned) 

Lerner/My Fair Lady & Camelot 

For example in C'est Moi:

I've never strayed from all I believe 

I'm blessed with an iron will

If I'd been made the partner of Eve 

We'd be in Eden still! 

Updated On: 1/16/17 at 08:31 PM

[BakerWilliams]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 8:51pm

You're the Nile,

You're the Tower of Pisa,

You're the smile on the Mona Lisa

[Stage Door Sally]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 9:18pm

If I stumbled and I busted my what-you-may-call-it
I could lie on your floor unnoticed
'Till my body had turned to carrion.... Madam Librarian

[PatrickDC]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 10:14pm

Far from the best but one I find catchy is: 

"I'll bet that you'll regret lettin' a, 

Little bullet wreck your retina."

From A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE MUSICAL

 

[chewy5000]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 10:17pm

"I was unwise with eyes unable to see" gets me every time, but now that it's been mentioned, "pneumonia / phone ya" is surely the best rhyme ever written, period.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 1/16/17 at 11:04pm

As long as no one tries to suggest frank analysis/personality dialysis we're all. A horrible rhyme in a score that I actually enjoy more than most.

[Californian]

Posted: 1/17/17 at 1:15am

Two Sondheim rhymes are at the top of my list - 

"We've no time to sit and dither,
While her wither's wither with her, and no one keeps a cow for a friend." from Into the Woods, and 

And from A Little Night Music - 

"It's a very short road 
From the pinch and the punch 
To the paunch and the pouch and the pension 
It's a very short road 
To the ten thousandth lunch 
And the belch and the grouch and the sigh"

[NoName3]

Posted: 1/17/17 at 3:35am

As Gaveston pointed out above, Please Hello from Pacific Overtures is a deliberate, intentional and obvious parody of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Gilbert is my favorite lyricist, followed closely by Hart, Porter, Hammerstein, Carilyn Leigh, Ira Gershwin, and others, not necessarily in that order.

One of my favorite clever lyrics is from Sunday in the Park with George:

What's the muddle in the middle?

That's the puddle where the poodle did the piddle.

The internal rhymes are wonderful in and of themselves but in context, the self-consciousness draws attention to itself and takes you right of the show, which I hate.  It should have been cut.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 1/17/17 at 6:33am

From Not Getting Married: 

Go!  Can't you go, why is nobody listening?

Goodbye, go and cry at another person's wake.

If you're quick, for a kick, you could pick up a christening, 

But please, on my knees, there's a human life at stake!

 

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 1/17/17 at 8:24am

Since this has fast turned into the thread of "Why Steve is a Better Lyricist than I Am," I'm gonna contribute one that's not from him.

The whole of "You've Got Possibilities" from It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman is one of my favorite lyrics of all time. I would do that show JUST so I could sing the song.