Worst Broadway Lyric ever? — Page 6

"If you're gonna eat here you'd better like chop suey," from FLOWER DRUM SONG.

"I love islands."
"Oh, I love pink."
"I love lemons!"
-Pretty Little Picture, Forum.

From the Life:

"When I say get on the stick, better do it Nestle's Quik"

A song
Played on a solo saxophone
A crazy sound
A lonely sound
A cry
That tells us love
Goes on and on
Played on a solo saxophone (in case we didn't get that the first time)
It's telling me
To hold you tight
And dance
Like it's the last night
Of the world

You are sunlight and I moon
Joined by the gods of for-tchoon
Midnight and high noon
Sharing the sky
We have been blessed
You and I

By the way, the lyrics are Richard Maltby Jr., not Boublil and Schoenberg.

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Updated On: 3/10/05 at 11:38 AM

Just a note to everyone who doesn't know why the lines "I'll call...I hate the fall" and "Happy spring!" are in Rent.

It's not the most well-integrated way of doing it, but since the second act of the show takes place over the course of a year, they keep dropping hints as to what time of year it is, until, by Finale B, it's back to Christmas Eve again.

Personally, I really dislike the first rhyme in Wicked

"The wickedest witch there ever was
The enemy of all of us here in Oz"

Was does not in any way, shape or form rhyme with Oz. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't

a) the first "rhyme" in the entire show
b) pronounced by the cast so that it clearly does NOT rhyme

musicaldude57, when i critisized "Bui Doi" from Miss Saigon, i wasn't saying anything about the source material. I was critisizing the grating lyrics, not what they're about. Yes it is a sad and tragic chapter in history, but why did such attrocious lyrics have to be married to it?

And anyway, when you think "Vietnam War" you don't exactly think "hit broadway musical!"
I think it's a little wrong to write a musical about a subject that's still so painful to so many people. I'm not saying musicals can't be serious and respectful to the subject matter, as Les Miserables demonstrated, as one example, but the musical isn't a genre that accurately reflects the carnage and suffering of the Vietnam War, especially a musical so awfully done as Miss Saigon.

Anyhow, i've gone completely off-topic.

Stephen Sondheim, although being one of the greatest lyricists/composers broadway has ever seen, has written some very bad lyrics. West Side Story's lyrics in places seem very very outdated, as much as they are great throughout most of it. Bernstein's ingenious score glosses all of Sondheim's stinker lyrics over.

My new philosophy:

No life ios free and easy, much more philosophezy!

ooo, i cringe when i sing it.

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"Let's talk about, talk about, talk about, talk about me!" from "Biggest Blame Fool" - Seussical the Musical. If wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't being sung by the Bird Girls, who have NO reason to be singing that about Mayzie... it's a failing attempt at a transition.

I happen to think Maltby's lyrics for Miss Saigon are great, if not brilliant. They paint an excellent picture of the surroundings, and perfectly illustrate the simple connection that Kim and Chris are just beginning to feel. They are not eloquent people with complicated vocabularies- they are a simple uneducated girl from a destroyed village and a young soldier. I think the lyrics are suitable, and quite moving at that. Miss Saigon was a HUGE hit, that touched many lives. I know I was very touched when I saw it, as were many people I know, including those alive during Vietnam, and my uncle, who even fought in it. Bui Doi has some very moving lyrics. If the love songs' lyrics are a bit generic, that's for a good reason. They're honest!! Kim and Chris have only known each other for what, two hours? They don't have details to sing about, they don't even know what's going on, so they can't clarify their feelings any farther than "a song on a solo saxophone". They're trying to find common ground in simple things, and I think Maltby shows this excellently.

phantomtenor, I do NOT mean to attack you, but I do want to voice my opinions on two things that you said:
"And anyway, when you think "Vietnam War" you don't exactly think "hit broadway musical!" "
That's exactly how all great (often hit) Broadway musicals that have challenged us AND the art form have started out. Hello, Rent? How can anyone write a musical about modern- day people in the Village dying of AIDS? And they did, and it was brilliant. Oklahoma was laughed at at first, for this same reason. A hit Broadway musical with no dancing girls? With a serious plot? That starts off with an older lady churning butter? What about Hair? A hit musical made of ROCK MUSIC? How could that be? And how could anyone write a musical where the lead character is stuck in a cave for its entirety? How could anyone write a musical about a married man who leaves his wife and son for his gay lover but wants everyone to be best friends? Floyd Collins and Falsettos!!! I could go on...

"I think it's a little wrong to write a musical about a subject that's still so painful to so many people."
So we shouldn't be using theater to express ourselves, we should be using it to put on performances about things we think people will be comfortable with???
Do you also want to ban all shows having to do with the war in Iraq? About politics in our particular day in age? Those subjects might be painful for some people... Maybe the Civil Rights struggle is still painful for some people- Caroline or Change should never have been allowed to be on Broadway!
The beauty of theater is that it's honest, and uncensored, and allows people to challenge and change the way they see the world.

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I don't like Wicked, but in Schwartz's defense "was" and "oz" are very much near rhymes. Otherwise, yes, bad first rhyme, worst lyric ever? Probably not. There are much worse ones in the rest of the show.

It's hard to pick on old shows because speech evolves. I'm glad no one has been dumb enough to cite a Gilbert and Sullivan song. In reference to CAMELOT, the lad/cad rhyme at least makes sense. Also, think about WHO'S saying it. Guinevere from 500 YEARS AGO. I'm sure the word "cad" is not too old-fashioned for her. It's definitely not the worst lyric ever, but it's not nearly as kick-ass as the rest of the CAMELOT score.

InfiniteTheaterFrenzy, so you're saying that miss saigon was purely an artistic venture? That Boubil/Schonburg set out to make a statement about the vietnam war, and not as an attempt to follow up the massive smash they had with Les Miserables?

Rent isn't all that original. It's taken to a different time, place, and social context, but it's essentially La Boheme with a pop score.

And just cause a musical breaks the mould and/or becomes a hit, it doesn't necessarily mean it is good.
What i said about it being insensitive was probably badly thought out. But I wasn't saying that portraying the Vietnam War onstage was a tasteless excercise in itself, but that the way that miss saigon in particular is done, is tastless.
Sure, Miss Saigon has its moments, but it was produced as a money-making excercise, not to express anyone's views, or from some brilliant inspiration, and to show the critics and the public that the team could do it again. It is a plastic, over-produced musical in the mould of the other mega-musicals of the 80s/90s. Now, i love many of these megamusicals, like POTO and Les Mis, which i adore, but how can you say that miss saigon goes somewhere no other musical went before it?
It relies greatly on spectacle, and the score possesses none of the brilliance that made les miserables a hit.
It's nothing special.
And why is a man who can write lyrics like everyday speech regarded as a brilliant lyricist? I can do that, and my wordsmith skills are severly lacking. Resorting to feeble rhymes like damn and Vietnam just because that's what an ordinary person would do, does not a brilliant poet make. And this arguement misses the fact that real people do not sing their thoughts to music. Musical theatre is a presentational form of drama. No sane person forget they were watching a play and mistake a broadway musical for real life, as can happen with realist drama. So what's the point in writing lyrics (in RHYME) that sound similar to how an actual person might say something, if they wrote song lyrics?!

Even the lyrics to POTO are better than Miss Saigon's, and Phantom's lyrics get pretty appalling.

Having said all that, i do respect your opinion entirely, and i acknowledge that each person's opinion differs as to a work's artistic merit.

there are countless verses in BKLYN. Oh, God this musical...

for those who don't know.

BKLYN - BROOKLYN feat. Eden Espinosa

Updated On: 3/16/05 at 02:09 PM