clever lyrics

[NoDayButToday2]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 10:48pm

from wicked:

i love how they make 'nessa' rhyme with 'confess a' and 'think personality dialysis' with 'become a pal, a sis'ter...

i also love how larson was able to make all the random things mentioned in la vie boheme rhyme and fit together perfectly

any specific lyrics that you want to comment on?

[TheGirlinTheFrock]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 10:50pm

I thought the Nessa/confess a rhyme was a little week.

One of my favorite randome lines from RENT is:

I got a tweed from a greedy broker who when broke, and then broke down.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 10:50pm

His name was Stephen Sondheim.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 10:52pm

Uh, pardon, Sum. His name is Stephen Sondheim.
-d.b.j-

[jonartdesigns]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 10:52pm

the double entandres (sp?) in when your good to mama

the entirety of nicest kids in town

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 10:54pm

All hail Sondheim and his clever lyrics

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 10:58pm

You are sadly mistaken Nugget. The Sondheim who wrote Bounce is a new and strange Sondheim to my ears.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:08pm

The furher is causing a furor.

[Glebb]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:12pm

BOUNCE was not easy to make it through.

[Derek2]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:13pm

I agree, the lyrics to WICKED are very clever. Some of them are a little strange and cheesey but I think it's supposed to be cuz the dialogue is like that at points. I think it's like a certain "OZ" language. Funny though...I don't remember it to be like that in the Wizard of Oz lol

[GovernorSlaton]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:18pm

One of my favorite Sondheim lines:

"Evenings of the Budapest playing Vivaldi, and Munch doing bits of Ravel; I'll get Leontyne Price to sing her medley from "Meistersinger", and Margot Fonteyn to dance "Giselle"...
Won't it be perfectly swell?"-Bobby and Jackie and Jack (Merrily We Roll Along)

[Unknown User]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:20pm

Sondheim= perfection

Sondheim is very clever with everything he does in creating a masterpiece. In SITPWG, everything correlates together somehow perfectly with minor concoctions(sp?) throughout the show to bring it all together... brilliant!

[alterego]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:20pm

I have always liked the Dorothy Fields lyric from Sweet Charity (Charity's Soliloquy):

While I really didn't begrudge it
When I figured out my budget...

It makes me me smile everytime I hear it.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:21pm

Some of my favorites are:

"One of the a JUDGE other one his BEADLE
every day they'd NUDGE and they'd WEEDLE
still she wouldn't BUDGE from her NEEDLE."

AGHHH
geniusss.
-d.b.j-

[Derek2]

Posted: 8/15/04 at 11:30pm

O yeah! I forgot Sweet Charity. I love the lyrics to that song as well. I also think "All That Jazz" has good lyrics. Not really all of Chicago, just that song. When you hear it and all it's talking about, you know you're listening to a very free spirit song that takes place in the 20's lol

[pab]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 12:44am

I think some of the most clever lyrics I've ever heard are in "A Little Priest".

[judy_in_disguise]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 12:47am

what thinkst thou, SticktoPriest?

[venticelli]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 12:52am

I love Howard Ashman - Somewhere That's Green - has some of my favorite lyrics to date.

[cutiepie0882]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 12:53am

I like how in Wicked they refer to the Wizard of Oz a lot like in the 'Wizard and I' - " I'd be so happy I could meet" or "There will be a celebration throughout Oz all to do with me" I think that's pretty clever

[M J R]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 12:54am

Mother isn't here now.

Who knows what she'd say?

Nothing's quite so clear now-

Feel you've lost your way?

You are not alone,

Believe me.

No one is alone.

Truly...

Perhaps not the most "clever" of Sondheim's lyrics, but among the most touching, I think...

Updated On: 8/16/04 at 12:54 AM

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 12:56am

EXAMPLES OF SONDHEIM BRILLIANCE

High in a tower--
Like yours was, but higher--
A beauty asleep.
All 'round the tower,
A thicket of briar
A hundred feet deep.
Agony! No frustration more keen,
When the one thing you want
Is a thing that you've not even seen.

RP: I've found a casket
Entirely of glass--
No, it's unbreakable.
Inside--don't ask it--
A maiden, alas,
Just as unwakeable--
Both: What unmistakable agony! Is the way always barred?
RP: She has skin white as snow--
CP: Did you learn her name?
RP: No, there's a dwarf standing guard.
Both: Agony! Such that princes must weep!
Always in thrall most
To anything almost,
Or something asleep.

CP: If it were not for the thicket--
RP: A thicket's no trick. Is it thick?
CP: It's the thickest.
RP: The quickest is pick it apart with a stick--
CP: Yes, but even one prick--
It's my thing about blood.
RP: Well, it's sick!
CP: It's no sicker than your thing with dwarves.
RP: Dwarves.
CP: Dwarves...
RP: Dwarves are very upsetting.
Both: Not forgetting the tasks unachievable,
Mountains unscalable--
If it's conceivable
But unavailable,
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah--

Agony!
CP: Misery!
RP: Woe!
Both: Not to know what you miss.
CP: While they lie there for years--
RP: And you cry on their biers--
Both: What unbearable bliss!
Agony, that can cut like a knife!

Ah well, back to my wife...



EXAMPLE 2

Your Fault
Baker: It's because of you there's a giant in our midst, and my wife is dead!
Jack: But it isn't my fault,
I was given those beans!
You persuaded me to trade away my cow for beans!
And without those beans, there'd have been no stalk
To get up to the giant in the first place!
Baker: Wait a minute, magic beans for a cow so old
That you had to tell a lie to sell it, which you told!
Were they worthless beans? Were they oversold?
Oh, and tell us who persuaded you to steal that gold!
LRRH: (to Jack) See, it's your fault.
Jack: No!
Baker: So it's your fault..
Jack: No!
LRRH: Yes, it is!
Jack: It's not!
Baker: It's true.
Jack: Wait a minute, though--
I only stole the gold to get my cow back
From you!
LRRH: (to Baker) So it's your fault!
Jack: Yes!
Baker: No, it isn't!
I'd have kept those beans, but our house was cursed.
She made us get a cow to get the curse reversed!
Witch: It's his father's fault that the curse got placed,
And the place got cursed in the first place!
LRRH: Oh. Then it's his fault!
Witch: So.
Cinderella: It was his fault..
Jack: No.
Baker: Yes, it is, it's his.
Cinderella: I guess..
Jack: Wait a minute, though--
I chopped down the beanstalk, right? That's clear.
But without any beanstalk, then what's queer
Is how did the second giant get down here
In the first place?
..second place..
Cinderella: Yes!
LRRH: How?
Baker: Hmm..
Jack: Well, who had the other bean?
Baker: The other bean?
Cinderella: The other bean?
Jack: (to Baker) You pocketed the other bean.
Baker: I didn't!
Yes, I did.
LRRH: So it's your f--!
Baker: No, it isn't, 'cause I gave it to my wife!
LRRH: So it's her f--!
Baker: NO, IT ISN'T!
Cinderella: Then whose is it?
Baker: Wait a minute! (to Cinderella)
She exchanged that bean to obtain your shoe,
So the one who knows what happened to the bean is you!
Cinderella: You mean that old bean-- that your wife--? Oh, dear--
(as they all look at her)
But I never knew, and so I threw--
Well, don't look here!
LRRH: So it's your fault!
Cinderella: But--
Jack: See, it's her fault--
Cinderella: But--
Jack: And it isn't mine at all!
Baker: (to Cinderella) But what?
Cinderella: (to Jack) Well, if you hadn't gone back up again--
Jack: We were needy--
Cinderella: You were greedy! Did you need that hen?
Jack: But I got it for my mother--!
LRRH: So it's her fault then!
Cinderella: Yes, and what about the harp in the third place?
Baker: The harp--yes!
Jack: (referring to LRRH) She went and dared me to!
LRRH: I dared you to?
Jack: You dared me to!
(to the others) She said that I was scared--
LRRH: ME?
Jack: --to. She dared me!
LRRH: No, I didn't!
Baker, Cinderella, Jack: So it's your fault!
LRRH: Wait a minute--!
Cinderella: If you hadn't dared him to--
Baker: (to Jack) And you had left the harp alone,
We wouldn't be in trouble in the first place!
LRRH: (to Cinderella) Well, if you hadn't thrown away the bean
In the first place--!
It was your fault!
Cinderella: (referring to Witch)
Well, if she hadn't raised them in the first place--!
Jack: (to Witch) Yes, if you hadn't raised them in the first place--!
LRRH, Baker: (to Witch)
Right! It's you who raised them in the first place--!
Cinderella (simultaneously): You raised the beans in the first place!
Jack: It's YOUR fault!
Cinderella, Jack, LRRH, Baker: You're responsible!
You're the one to blame!
It's your fault!

[NYSinger1]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 1:03am

So, rumor has it that in "Together" from Gypsy. Oscar Hammerstein was listening to Stephen Sondheim sing a draft:
"Wherever I go I know he goes.
Wherever I go I know she goes.
No fits, no fights, no feuds
and no egos, Amigos, together!"

And HAmmerstein thought it was brilliant that he brought in a foreign language to rhyme with egos. It is written in a biography of Stephen Sondheim I read.....I'll find the title and such.

Anyway, Sondheim=GOD with lyrics!!!!! in all his shows!

[BalletGirl85]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 4:30am

I believe the lyrics I wrote in my song honoring the Olive Garden are ingenious, but besides my own, I think "Sunday" from Tick Tick Boom is amazing...Larson did SUCH a great job changing old school Sondheim into a modern update.

Another personal favorite is from The Human Comedy...

If I were a man
I'd go into the army with MARCUS
We'd have such fun wherever we'd go
Wherever the army would PARK US

HAHA. Not so much clever as incredibly desperate for a rhyme with Marcus.

[CurtainUp]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 11:16am

Moments in the Woods! All the and And or business, I love it!

[TheAudrey3]

Posted: 8/16/04 at 2:31pm

"I know Seymour's the greatest,
But I'm dating a semi-sadist."

Some of the Millie lines in Forget About the Boy are clever too.