#sondheim

Hang on, I gotta go consult the Hat Box real quick.

Okay, so.

Saturday Night:

"Someone's shouting for quiet. Someone's starting a brawl. Down the block there's a riot-- And I'll buy it All" -"What More Do I Need?"

Sondheim was so adept at pulling an inner rhyme. This is just one example in the song, and each one keeps the pace hot and the focus sharp.

West Side Story

"Nobody knows in America Puerto Rico's in America" -"America"

WSS has a lot of wonderful lyrics from which to pick, including the romantic, "say it loud and there's music playing--//say it soft and it's almost like praying--," or the succinct "Gee, Officer Krupke--//Krup you." But this one is just a sharp smack.

Gypsy

"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!" -"Together, Wherever We Go"

Quadruple rhyme, hell yeah. Sondheim called this a high point in his lyric-writing life because it got a delighted gasp out of Cole Porter, who hadn't seen the quadruple "amigos" rhyme coming.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

"Nothing that's grim, Nothing that's Greek, She plays Medea later this week" -"Comedy Tonight"

An opening number can make or break a show, and I am begging contemporary songwriters to remember that. When was the last time we had an opening number for the history books?

Anyone Can Whistle

"She almost looks human, It must be the lighting" -"There's Always a Woman" (cut)

I don't care that it was cut. I love this song. It's so catty and fun, and a comic delight.

Do I Hear a Waltz?

"Sometimes she drinks in bed, Sometimes he's homosexual, But why be vicious? They keep it out of sight." -"We're Gonna Be All Right" (cut version)

I've gotta stop picking cut lyrics. Hang on.

"Some cry at weddings, some at the moon, I cry promptly Mondays at high noon." -"Someone Woke Up"

There, that's better.

Company

We've reached the point in which I could pick a dozen different lyrics and all of them would be right. The wrenching "Being Alive," the sly "children you destroy together," the audacity to rhyme "personable" with "coercin' a bull"??? Finally settled on a lyric I'll fight for to the death.

"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 Ladies who Lunch"

Look at that rhyme. Look at the implications and layers. The depth, the genius, the double-meanings. None of which that bullshit replacement line in the revival comes close to. "girls in their prime" "copy of Time" FUCK OFF. Is it not perfectly in character for Joanne to reference a defunct magazine??? I'm going to move on before I get angry.

Follies

Another show in which I could simply present you the libretto and wash my hands of the burden of choice. Every single song contains a favorite lyric. I am in tears. Help.

"Could I bury my rage With a boy half your age In the grass? Bet your ass." -"Could I Leave You?"

But also. The real answer:

"She sits at the Ritz with her splits of Mumm's And starts to pine for a stein with her village chums, But with a Schlitz in her mitts down in Fitzroy's Bar She thinks of the Ritz--oh, it's so schizo" -"Uptown/Downtown" (cut)

Brilliant in every way. I'm deeply enamored by this verse.

A Little Night Music

Why must you do this to me, Anon? Have I not suffered enough?

"There's a lot I'll have missed, But I'll not have been dead When I die!" -"The Miller's Son"

While I was tempted to pick one of the "Now" stanzas that Sondheim referred to as "literary masturbation," I decided not to be *that* pretentious. And then of course, there's "raisins. Ah, Liaisons!" that bears mentioning, and the "men are stupid, men are vain," verse. So, why then have I chosen an admittedly obvious answer? Well, just look at it.

The Frogs

"Here no one has a need anymore To commit a murder, wage a war. Who're you going to murder, and what for? They're all like dead." -"Hades"

That's just funny.

Pacific Overtures

"It's the fragment, not the day. It's the pebble, not the stream. It's the ripple, not the sea That is happening. Not the building but the beam, No the garden but the stone, Only cups of tea And history And someone in a tree!" -"Someone in a Tree"

I am weeping uncontrollably. Sondheim often pointed to this song as his favorite to have written, and yeah, it's perfect.

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

"Wot I calls Enterprise, Popping pussies into pies." -"The Worst Pies in London"

I know what I'm about. And in this mammoth of a musical, fuck it, let's get down in the dirt and just admit that this is the pinnacle right here.

Merrily We Roll Along

"How did you get so far off the track? Why don't you turn around and go back?" -"First Transition"

I love the transition songs in this musical. Love to the recent revival and all that, but the only time I was really enthralled was when the ensemble got to do these songs.