Who Are The Finest Lyricists on Broadway Today?

brian yorkey!!!

I'm not sure any of what I would call the best new lyricists have had enough produced work to evaluate a "career" yet, but I've enjoyed the work of Michael Korie, Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, Bobby Lopez, Steven Lutvak, and the aforementioned Minchin and Kron.

Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Tim Minchin

Minchin's lyrics for Matilda are brilliant. He should have won a Tony for "School Song" alone.

I'm curious to see such wide support here for Tim Michin from posters I often agree with. Not in this case.

I only know his work from MATILDA, and I do indeed admire "School Song", it's true, but Tim Minchin for me is mostly the poster child for a lyricist who loves to show off and hasn't the basic craftsmanship to back it up. His lyrics are so dense and so stuffed with false rhymes that I had no idea what was being said in most songs till I could study the CD over and over long after I'd left the theater. Shouldn't a basic requirement of good lyric writing be that the words are comprehensible on first (or 2nd or 3rd) listen?

And Lord knows the sacredness of the true rhyme has fallen into disrepute in this age of Parker and Stone, Miranda and Something Rotten's dreaded Kirkpatrick brothers. But is this really the best Tim could do:

"But what if you haven't got a fairy to fix it?
Sometimes you have to make a little bit of mischief....

"'Cause if you're little you can do a lot, you
Mustn't let a little thing like, 'little' stop you...

"Nobody but me is gonna change my story
sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty."

Purist that I am, these lines are nails on a chalkboard for me.

Updated On: 10/3/15 at 03:08 PM

Yea, Minchin strays from perfect rhymes a lot.

But lyrics, to me, aren't just about rhyming.

They're about getting into a character's head and delivering a nuanced reflection of their soul.

They're also about the way they fit with the music. The best lyricists, imo, are the ones who also write their own music. (Fred Ebb gets a pass because...Fred Ebb).

Minchin is not not for everyone. I get that.

But to me, his work is one of the best collection of songs I've ever heard.

Updated On: 10/3/15 at 03:25 PM

I've admittedly only listened to the London and Broadway recordings of Matilda one time each (and I liked them moderately, despite all the awful British accents) but how anyone can write a lyric like "My mummy says I'm a miracle / one look at my face, and it's plain to see / ever since the day doc chopped the umbilical cord / It's been clear there's no peer for a miracle like me" and be called "brilliant" or a "master" is completely beyond me. Miracle clearly doesn't rhyme with umbilical. The lyrics to Matilda on the whole I found to be filled with awful rhyme schemes and poorly stressed syllables. But to each his own, I suppose.

I agree that some of the best working lyricists are Adam Guettel, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jason Robert Brown. Oh, I also like Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's work from Smash and Hairspray.

Updated On: 10/3/15 at 04:09 PM

Count me in as one who doesn't see the brilliance of Minchin. His lyrics in Matilda sound messy and simplistic to me. Sometimes it sounds like he had to hammer the lyrics into the music.

I love Miranda, though. I agree with what Someone in a Tree said about the sacredness of the true rhyme, but I don't think I've ever heard a more purely satisfying rhyme than:

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

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

I just am in total awe of Miranda. The way he worked all the historical facts into the lyrics is incredible. And on top it off, the lyrics advance the character development at the same time. (Wait for It being the quintessential example to me). Setting aside the content, some of my favorites in terms of pure sound of the words are:

"I've been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine

So men say that I'm intense or I'm insane.

You want a revolution? I want a revelation

So listen to my declaration"

"So I'm the oldest and the wittiest and the gossip in New York City is insidious..."

"would you like to join us, or stay mellow, doing whatever the hell it is you do in Monticello?"

"Somebody gimme some dirt on this vacuous mass so we can at last unmask him."

"If Washington isn't gon' listen to disciplined dissidents, this is the difference: This kid is out!"

I like the messy almost chaotic sound of Minchin's lyrics. They're witty and they really do fit Roald Dahl's style. I can't call him a great lyricist yet since he's only written one musical. I like how some of his lyrics are meant to rhyme while in an accent (Cinderella/cellar) which sometimes causes them to have a bit of a wonky sound to us Americans.

Tim Minchin's lyrics work best in his cabaret where he can stop, wait for an audience to get the joke, then move on.

It's a bad sign when you have to read the cd booklet to understand what is being sung.

It's not a Broadway career, but I really liked Stew's lyrics in 'Passing Strange'.