Really Great Lyrics

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 1:19pm

What are some lyrics that have always stood out to you?

[hanabana]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 1:49pm

If we are talking about recent shows, I think the lyrics for the entire Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder score is pretty awesome! It's very witty. Whenever I listen to "Lady Hyacinth Abroad," I can't help but laugh out a bit.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 2:02pm

Well-crafted traditionally rhymed lyrics that have real meaning are always a joy, but lately I've come to appreciate the non-rhyming lyrics in great pieces such as "Another Life" and "The World Inside a Frame" from THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY. I could listen to Jason Robert Brown's words and music from that show all day.

[Fantod]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 2:28pm

Put on Your Sunday Clothes from Hello, Dolly! as well as most things by Cole Porter, particularly Anything Goes or You're the Top

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 2:30pm

"Now life has killed the dream I dreamed"
"Stay a child where you can be a child with me"

[rjm516]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 2:32pm

"See him with his camera at his eye, and see her grasping at his hand, afraid he doesn't know she's there." You can just picture it SO freaking exactly.

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 2:37pm

There's something about the lyrics to "What Would you Do?" From Cabaret. I really love them.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 2:52pm

One of my favorite single lyrics is in from "They're Playing Our Song" in the song "Fallin" when he is talking about how his relationships have always ended in pain and he sings:

"You'd think by now I'd learn, play with fire you get burned. But fire can be oh so warm, and that's why I returned"

[PianoMann]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 3:21pm

One of the most witty lyrics (that comes to mind of late because I've been listening to Into the Woods a lot in anticipation of the film) is Jack's Mother's "We've no time to sit and dither / while her withers wither with her" - I always marvel at the line!

[Smaxie]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 3:30pm

Alan Jay Lerner's lyric for "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" is a marvel. I love: "The wee folk and the grown folk/Who wander to and fro/Have ways known to their own folk/We throne folk don't know" and "They obviously outshine us/at turning tears to mirth/
Have tricks a royal highness/is minus from birth."

[Junior Babcock]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 4:03pm

I'm Still Here from Follies
The Ladies Who Lunch from Company
Brush Up Your Shakespeare from Kiss Me Kate
Shakespeare Lied from How Now Dow Jones
It Might as Well be Spring from State Fair

and most lyrics by W.C. Gilbert

[Queen of the Night]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 4:14pm

I love the lyrics to "When I grow up" from Matilda. I think it's a perfect look at adulthood from the viewpoint of a child and a wistful look back at childhood from adults. It works on multiple levels and gets right at the heart of things that matter to a kid.

Updated On: 11/25/14 at 04:14 PM

[rjm516]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 4:31pm

Oh yes Matilda's lyrics are genius! When I Grow Up and Quiet, Naughty and the School Song. SO much brilliance.

Spring Awakening has some fantastic poetry-like lyrics, the kind where you have to trust that it will make sense and it will to you.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 4:43pm

^ All the trust in the world couldn't make those lyrics make sense to me. I loved SPRING AWAKENING's music but those words were so hopeless that it ruined any enjoyment the show could have for me.

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 8:55pm

The lyrics to children will listen are so important to me. I actually have them framed in my room.
"Careful the tale you tell
that is the spell
Children will listen."

[Michael Kras]

Posted: 11/26/14 at 11:54pm

Adam Guettel's lyric for Dividing Day from 'The Light in the Piazza'... if only for the line "I can see the winter in your eyes."

Gorgeous.

Also, Guettel's entire lyric for How Glory Goes from Floyd Collins.

[MCfan2]

Posted: 11/27/14 at 12:35am

Good call, Smaxie! I love the "Simple Folk" lyrics. And many of the other "Camelot" lyrics as well -- "Lusty Month of May," "Then You May Take Me to the Fair," etc. -- are really clever. Lerner did some of his best work there.

I recently saw "Edwin Drood" again, and there are some wonderful lyrics in there. "A man could go quite mad/And not be all that bad/Consider each superb, disturbing urge you've ever had . . ."

[BwayWatcher555]

Posted: 11/27/14 at 4:04am

JRB JRB JRB!

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 11/27/14 at 7:23am

"I could've never known that love like this existed,
but then you kissed me and you left and then I knew,
Is that we loved, But what is true
and that I loved, and that I love
And I will always love
And love is always better"

-Bridges of Madison County

"Let's live before we die,
let's laugh before we cry,
let's hold each other tight and dance"

- Addams Family

"We want four, we had none,
We've got three.
We need one.
It takes two."

"So into the woods you go again
You have to every now and then."

- Into the Woods

[jnb9872]

Posted: 11/27/14 at 12:56pm

So many great lyrics! I wholeheartedly agree with the love for all the Sondheim, MATILDA, and the mention of THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG's "Falling" which is a song I dearly, dearly love.

On the Lerner & Loewe tip, CAMELOT has one of the most simple, incredible songs I've ever heard. "How to Handle a Woman" moves me every time.

Also a stunningly simple, gorgeous lyric? "My head started reeling / you gave me the feeling / the room had no ceiling or floor." Perfect line from a perfect song from CINDERELLA.

I could go on and on, and maybe I will later.

[Pasdechat]

Posted: 11/27/14 at 1:24pm

Funny, I love "Bridges..." and listen to it all the time but find many of the lyrics to be kind of bland or even tacky, e.g. the "Always Better" one... I'm undecided about this one line in "Almost real" ("and there were no cigarettes, and no haircuts..."), whether this is really stupid or somewhat endearing.


I love West Side Story's lyrics on "One hand, one heart" ("make of our hands, one hand..... make of our lives, one life, day after day, one life....") or "Somewhere", always makes me cry.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/27/14 at 6:14pm

I agree with Fantod that "Sunday Clothes" shows how Jerry Herman can hold his own with anyone, except perhaps Sondheim. (Alas, Mr. Herman loses points for "It Only Takes a Moment".)

And I agree with Someone's recent enjoyment of songs based on identities instead of rhymes. This isn't a new technique, of course: Hammerstein was known for it and even Sondheim songs such as "Being Alive" use identities peppered with occasional rhymes.

Another good example of the above is "Marry with Me" from GRASS HARP. (Yes, I know there are rhymes, but I doubt that's what the listener takes away from the song.)

All that being said, however, "The Ladies Who Lunch" may be the perfect theater lyric. Not only is the rhyme scheme almost impossibly intricate, the lyric manages to tell us everything we need to know, not just about the character singing, but about her entire sub-culture. And it's so specific, it becomes universal: "Look into their eyes and you'll see what they know: everybody dies!"

Updated On: 11/27/14 at 06:14 PM