Your Wow-zah Sondheim lyric PICKS...

What are some of Sondheim's lyrics that make you think:
"Wow, this guy is what Broadway is all about"?
Some for me...

"There were these two, you see. Wanted her like mad,
One of the a Jude one t' other one his Beadle.
Every day they'd nudge and they'd weedle,
Still she wouldn't budge from her needle..."
-from Sweeney Todd

"But alone is alone, not alive"
-from Company

"Everybody says don't walk on the grass,
Don't disturb the peace,
Don't skate on the ice.
Well, I say do!
I say walk on the grass,
it was meant to feel.
I say sail,
Tilt at the windmill
and if you fail, you fail."
-from Anyone Can Whistle

more more? there are plenty...

-d.b.j-

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Updated On: 7/31/04 at 12:16 AM

A LITTLE PRIEST

'nough said.

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But just for good measure:

INTO THE WOODS~
'You many know what you want but to get what you need better see that you keep what you have.'

'But then what if he knew who I was when I know that I'm not what he thinks that he wants.'

COMPANY~
'Here's to the girls who play wife,
aren't they too much?
Keeping house but clutching a copy of LIFE,
just to keep in touch.
The ones who follow the rules
And meet themselves at the schools
Too busy to know that they're fools--
Aren't they a gem?
I'll drink to them.
Let's all drink to them!'

FOLLIES~
'I'm just a Broadway baby
Walking off my tired feet
Pounding Fourty-Second Street,
To be in a show'

'All afternoon doing every little chore,
the thought of you stays bright.
Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor,
Not going left,
Not going right.
I dim the lights
And think about you,
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you,
You said you loved me,
Or were you just being kind?
Or am I losing my mind?'

ALL of I'M STILL HERE, but particulary...

'I've run the gamut,
A to Z.
Three cheers and dammit,
C'est la vie'

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Updated On: 7/31/04 at 12:40 AM

"The difference between a cow and a bean is: a bean can start an adventure!" - Into the Woods
God, I love that quote.

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My all-time favorite Into the Woods quote, which had me rolling the first time I heard Joanna Gleason deliver it on the OBC:

If the end is right, it justifies the beans!

And from my favorite Sondheim score, Sunday in the Park With George:

Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.

In Sondheim, there are so, so many great lyrics but, for me, there a particular one that always hit me on a personal level as a creative artist (and I only edit so as not to get into copyright trouble with Mr. Sondheim or with the board monitors):

"Finishing the hat.
How you have to finish the hat.
How you watch the rest of the world
From a window
While you finish the hat.

Mapping out a sky
What you feel like planning a sky.
What you feel when voices that come
Through the window
Go
Until they distance and die,
Until there's nothing but sky.

And how you're always turning back
Too late from the grass or the stick
Or the dog or the light.
How the kind of woman willing to wait's
Not the kind that you want to find waiting
To return you to the night,
Dizzy from the height.

Coming from the hat.
Studying the hat.
Entering the world of the hat.
Reaching through the world of the hat like a window
Back to this one from that."

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Sunday: "Finishing the Hat" always chokes me up
Company: "Another Hundred People" ditto. Just a few lines, but he's captured the experience of living in NYC.

But favorite single lyric? No question. From "Merrily"--

"...we'll get Leontyne Price to sing
her medley from Meistersinger..."

It kills me every time.

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Updated On: 7/31/04 at 07:34 AM

INTO THE WOODS
"careful the things you say, children will listen
careful the wish you make, wishes are children
careful the path they take wishes come true, not free
careful the tale you tell, that is the spell"

SUNDAY IN THE PARK
anything you do let it come from you,then it will be new,
give us more to see

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I tear up during Sunday's Move On.

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Best lyric ever:

MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG:

"..and Leontyne Price'll sing her
medley from Meistersinger..."

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I love the song "Some People" from Gypsy.

"Some people sit on their butts
Got the dream yeah, but not the guts..."

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Among my favourites have to be:-

'New friends pour through the revolving door' from 'Merrily'

'It's our time, breathe it in, worlds to change and worlds to win' from 'Merrily' - always makes me tear up

Again, 'The choice may have been mistaken, the choosing was not' 'Sunday In The Park'

'We're the same, we are different...You and I are different' from 'Passion' how brilliant is that?

'Curtain up, light the lights...' I don't have to say anything more!

There are hundreds more but these are the ones which spring to mind.

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Off-Topic: I knew you couldn't say cocktail, but I find it even funnier that you can't say Hitchcock.

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