Worst Broadway Lyric ever? — Page 20

Stand on your crutches with pride world!
You've gotta save you're own hide world!
-Dear World by Jerry Herman

And these are Giradeux's characters singing.

"Now it sure was a real cheery set-up,
The wind breezing through that organ.
Max shuffling around and a dead ape dumped on the shelf,
And her staring like a Gorgon."

Cringe worthy, along with most of the crap Joe sings in Sunset Boulevard...

Updated On: 2/5/08 at 08:35 PM

I think that that Once Upon a Mattress lyric is great as well.

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don't know if this has been said or not:
Mark- Have you ever doubted a kiss?
Joanne- this is... Spooky!

i always thought that was dumb.

The line is actually "Have you ever doubted a kiss or two?
This is...spooky. "

Everything he is saying is hitting too close to home and it's spooky to her how he knows exactly what she is going through. That specific line is just Mark asking if he ever felt that Maureen was being a bit too affectionate for no reason (as to cover up cheating or something).

It's funny how many lines people hate and think make no sense when in reality they just heard the line wrong or didn't understand a double meaning.

Also how has no one mentioned any Spring Awakening lyrics? Seriously, most of "My Junk" would qualify.

Updated On: 2/6/08 at 04:22 PM

"Greatest man since Noah,
Only goes to show-a"

It's actually Shoah, which is Hebrew for the Holocaust. I suppose Tim Rice was attempting to be "cutesy" and "clever" with this play on words, but referencing the genocide of millions of Jews in an otherwise seemingly happy musical about a Jewish family just seems... odd.

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I think it's deliberate, but at the same time "boys and girls" trips off the tongue better.

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TONS of stuff from Chess in my opinion, while most of it is good...some of it is just out there & random!?

And lots of stuff from Jekyll & Hyde, like:
"To kill outside St. Pauls/
Requires a lot of balls"

"'cause the houses 'round here
are all flasy & shwanky
& the front bid,
that's what's called the Facade"

Tons more, and just about the whole song of "Sunset Boulevard". HAHA Honestly, ... ...!

Nessa/Confessa from Wicked.

There was a comment a great number of pages back and I just wanted to say that in "Defying Gravity" the whole line with the "I'd sooner buy Defying Gravity" goes "Well if that's love it comes at much too high a cost, I'd sooner buy Defying Gravity" and I think that she's saying that the cost of love was too much, that she'd rather defy gravity instead of getting love. But that's just my take on it, anyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Updated On: 2/6/08 at 09:32 PM

Ladyofthelake, regarding the "He's A Tramp" lyrics, it's "I guess he's just a no-'ccount pup," short for "account." And the "but I wish that he were double" just refers to Peg wishing she had a Tramp of her own instead of just the one, always roaming around.

Oh, and SM, I really don't think Tim Rice was referencing the Holocaust. He just meant it to be a cutesy (but exceptionally stupid) rhyme.

I always thought Ave Q could be exempt from cheesy lyric scrutiny because it was supposed to be cheesy. (Just from reading parts of the thread)

Little Women has too much to cite.
Pirate Queen (Which has cheese galore):
"I love my new map
Knowing better the topography of Ireland"
It goes on several lines later to say...
"I am consistently defied by this
Female"

Someday from the Wedding Singer makes my skin crawl.
"Someday when it’s me
I’ll know our love
Was meant to be"

Young Frankenstein:
"I’m insane about the Brain"

Wicked's worst lyrics come from Madame Morrible and the ensemble's singing. Though, considering Mr. Schwartz also wrote the very charming verse at the end of The Wizard and I and What Is This Feeling, this could be disputed. In the former, he rhymes "felt-melt" and "esteem-scream-team" which appeared on my third grade vocabulary tests. Not to mention the "So it will be for the rest of my life and I'll want nothing else till I die." No kidding. In the latter, there's "new-you," "flame-name," "all-small-crawl," "fast-last," "good-could"...
But I suppose those are just unoriginal. Not downright awful, par se.

Updated On: 2/7/08 at 12:55 AM

Since a lot of people have brought up Jekyll & Hyde as having some of the worst lyrics, how about Dracula? Maybe Wildhorn's problem is that he needs a decent lyricist in order for his shows to be successful....

From "Fresh Blood:"

Fresh blood to restore me
Wild nights by the Thames
Fresh blood waiting for me
And countless requiems
Fresh blood burning through me
I'll bleed London dry
Fresh blood will renew me
And I shall never die

First of all... rhyming Thames/requiems is ridiculous. And you're already dead, Dracula... you're a friggin' vampire.

From "The Mist:"

My soul was floating
Above a moonlit sea
At the same time I was drowning
Yet felt somehow free

What? You're floating AND drowning at the same time, but still you feel free? What?

From "At Last:"

My heart and I have all the answers
I know how I want our lives to go

My heart and I? I guess I never realized that our hearts were people too.

From "Before the Summer Ends:"

To catch a butterfly and just tear off its wings
It's worse than all of these things

Talk about cheesy, not to mention cruel to that poor butterfly...

There are many more, but that's what I have for you now.