"Put away your swords, don't you know that it's all over? It was nice, but now it's gone, Why are you obsessed with fighting? Stick to fishing from now on." ~Jesus Christ Superstar
I cannot be the only one that finds that stupidly hilarious... in a... loving way?
So let the party and the sounds rock on, I'm gonna shake it till the life has gone, gone, gone - rose tints my world and keeps me safe from my trouble and pain!
I nominate the whole of "June Is Bustin' Out All Over." Let this excerpt represent the whole song:
June in bustin' out all over To ladies and men are payin' court Lotsa ships are kept at anchor Jest because the captains hanker Fer the comfort they ken only get in port!
With regards to the WICKED line "I'd sooner buy defying gravity," I'm wondering if you think that it is meant like "I'd sooner purchase defying gravity."
I think it is meant as "I'd sooner believe defying gravity." At least that's what I inferred.
Maybe you knew this and still thought it was stupid, but I don't think it's that dumb.
What's the one from Milk and Honey...Let's Not Waste A Moment...it goes something like this:
Let's not waste a moment Let's not lose a day There's a short forever...
The line after that is the one that drives me nuts...but I seem to have banished it from my brain. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a beauitful song, but that last line makes me crazy!
But if you kiss me,
If we touch,
Warning's fair:
I don't care
Very much
Oh, and I think "dinosaurs surviving the crunch" is a great metaphor!
Rosencrantz: "Be happy - if you're not even HAPPY what's so good about surviving? We'll be all right. I suppose we just go on."
- from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
the only line I didn't like from avenue q is the line "watching actors never reach the ending of their oscar speech!" in Schadenfreude. They say it like its a big punch line, but its not really funny or anything.
The erection song in FAME (I think it's called "I just Can't Keep it down") sung by a teen boy. What did THAT have to with the plot??
And then there's the embarassingly amateurish lyrics in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks." Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
I think a lot of people are demonstrating personal biases instead of responding to what the post actually asked for: the worst lyric from a musical, EVER. Schwartz, Sondheim, and Rice have all written bad lyrics, but all three of them are too good with words to qualify for the worst lyric EVER.
Let's focus on efforts that are wholly disastrous. Say what you will, but seventy percent of the lyrics in Rent are, in my opinion, bordering on unlistenable. The rhymes are desperate and clunky, and don't begin to approach the poetry of really fine lyrics. I don't listen to the show often (guess why) so I don't have the libretto in front of me, and I can't recall a specific example, but there would be too many to choose from.
This song wasn't in the Broadway version of the show, but The World Has Gone Insane from Jekyll and Hyde is laughable. One memorable line: The world has gone insane/ And parasites are eating at my brain.
Come on. The bridges line from Wicked is Shakespeare next to that dreck (and I actually think the bridge line is beautiful if you take two seconds to understand what it means).
"You are my wife, My second self, Come be my wife, My little elf"
-Jane Eyre
Ooo, who in that production heard that lyric and said "Go ahead, leave it in!" That's the kind of lyric I wouldn't allow onstage if I were the director of the show.
Also, most of Starlight Express.
Come on, people, come up with truly bad lyrics, not lines from shows with which you have an ax to grind.
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