Bad Lyrics

[ChiChi]

Gee we love to eat
And we need something sweet
to love

and (another William Finn)

I met a man
In the can

[After Eight]

Here's some bad grammar from Alan Jay Lerner, in On a Clear Day's "Hurry, It's Lovely Up Here."

"Up with which below can't compare with."

[Bettyboy72]

As much as I love Dolly Parton with my entire being, a lot of the 9 to 5 score was cringe worthy with its rhymey rhymey lyrics. There are far too many to cite, but Dolly like her lines to rhyme perfectly it seems.

[Emmaloucbway]

I hate the "Nessa, Confess-a" rhyme in WICKED.

[michellek45]

My favorite is "Touch me...where the figs lie" from Spring Awakening. Like, what on earth is that?

There are LOADS in West Side Story. How about: "The world is full of light/With suns and moons all over the place" or pretty much all of "One Hand One Heart."

And then quite a few in Rent as well. "Let's go eat I'll just get fat/It's the one vice fat when you're dead meat" in "Christmas Bells" and then Benny's background "Forces are gathering" in "Rent."

I could go on and on..

[AC126748]

Every William Finn song sounds like it was written in 3 minutes.

[qolbinau]

What I hate about that Wicked lyric is the way it is performed. Has anyone ever intentionally paused on "confess" briefly and then said "a" to make it sound like they are two different words?

Whenever I have seen it performed (I guess it's always been the same guy though and the cast recording) they kind of merge it as "confessa" reason..(although maybe it's important for the 'rhyme')

[henrikegerman]

Take me to a zoo that's got chimpanzees
Tell me on a Sunday please

[SondheimFan5]

When a person's personality is personable, He should not sit like a lump.
It's harder than a matador coercin' a bull to try to get you off of your rump.


Ohhhh wait....that's pure brilliance!

[themysteriousgrowl]

henrik! LOL

[henrikegerman]

I know, Mysterious, you can't get any worse than that right?

And adding insult to injury, I actually like that song (OTHERWISE!).

[After Eight]

"I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly."

If the child is fleetly fleeing, why is she standing there singing at a snail's pace?

"adieu, adieu, to yieu, and yieu, and yieu."

I wonder if Hammerstein wished he could fleetly flee from that one?

[henrikegerman]

Because, AfterEight, "So Long, Farewell" is meant to realistically convey a casual home-made entertainment by seven children to be performed for their father's dinner guests written with the help of their governess who, rather than being a professional lyricist or even a BMI student, is on leave from a convent.

Accordingly, the music is intentionally unsophisticated, the words deliberately pedestrian, and the effect completely charming.

[After Eight]

I have no problems with the music, or the song itself, actually.

As for those lyrics, I still find them bad. "Deliberately pedestrian?" I don't know about that.

[jpbran]

Yeah, people always cite "'Nessa/confess-a" but as qolbinau points out it's really supposed to be "...confess: a reason why..."

"...she who's winsome, she wins him" annoys me more.

[doodlenyc]

"My favorite is "Touch me...where the figs lie" from Spring Awakening. Like, what on earth is that?"

It's his crotch.

[fingerlakessinger]

Oh I like "She's whose winsome' part...I think "I'm not that girl" is a superb song really but thats just my fanboy comin out haha

I dont like ALOT of lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar...

[GlindatheGood22]

Evita:

Another Suitcase in Another Hall-

"Where am I going to?"

Breaks my grammar Nazi heart.

[pinoyidol2006]

I love listening to the score of "In the Height," especially when I'm in a bad mood. However, in "The Club," the whole Benny/Nina exchange annoys the crap out of me, but these section particularly throws me off. I don't know why.

BENNY
He loves to remind me that I'll never be good enough for your family
For you
NINA
You don't know me
BENNY
Poor you
NINA
I thought you were different

I think that my brain was expecting an ABAB rhyme scheme when Benny rhymed "For you" and "Poor you." But Nina didn't join in with the rhyming.

[beautywickedlover]

Any of the lyrics from that mess of a musical, "101 Dalmatians", that toured last year.

[broadway7117]

aw I love that Tell me on a Sunday lyric. haha

[themysteriousgrowl]

aw haha

[Nettik]

I really like the "touch me... where the figs lie" lyric. I've always thought it made perfect sense if you hear it as fig [leaves] lie. (Like pictures of Adam and Eve.)

That said, most of the lyrics in Spring Awakening I find confusing. This one is from the same song, and I've never gotten the reference.

"Where I go when I go there,
no more shadows anymore.
Only men with golden fins,
The rhythm in them, rocking with them to shore"

[Mattbrain]

Don Black's "translated" lyrics for Gerard Presgurvic's Romeo et Juliette.

[lucy5]

"A lot of the 9 to 5 score was cringe worthy with its rhymey rhymey lyrics. There are far too many to cite, but Dolly like her lines to rhyme perfectly it seems."

Are you being ironic? That score is filled with false rhymes, not "perfect" ones.

[Gaveston2]

Chichi and AC, I love William Finn second only to Sondheim among active composers and lyricists, but I agree he sometimes allows his rhyming to lead a lyric astray. To wit:

"It's not genetic.
Everything can be copacetic."

(Okay, that one sort of works because there's a running joke about Mendel getting tangled in his own language, but basically the "copacetic" line isn't something we need to hear.)

But cooking/feeding/eating as metaphors for loving are central to all THE MARVIN PLAYS, so in that context,

"We love to eat
And we need something sweet
To Love"

Seems a culmination of all the feeding/loving imagery that has come before.

Just my opinion, of course.