Cringeworthy Lyrics

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GlindatheGood22
#100Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/4/12 at 4:23pm

I know it's easy to pick on Carrie, but I just really have a problem with, "I prayed this day would never come/ I should have know/ I should have known/ Now I'm alone."

And, as much as I love Newsies and King of New York - "This is gonna make both the Delanceys pee in their pantsies."


I know you. I know you. I know you.

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bdn223
#101Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/4/12 at 6:07pm

Galindathegood I have to agree a lot of Newsies lyrics take out of context are cringe worthy, but when you think about it the entire cast with the exception of Metalarkin, Kathrine, Pulitzer and his cronies, and possibly David, don't have more than an elementary school education so it makes perfect sense that they are using the most basic vocabulary. After all most of them can't even read the papers their selling.

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suttonfoster
#102Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/4/12 at 7:49pm

why has NO ONE mentioned "There's a chip on my shoulder and it's as big as a boulder" CMON

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Wynbish
#103Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/4/12 at 8:36pm

Addams Family:

I wanna demonstrate that fear is my ideal/
Girl believe me fear is your ideal/
Cause in the moment that you're frightened life is real/
Then my life must be real real!

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onedaymore
#104Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 2:32am

From Maury Yeston's Phantom...

"It must be seen like a torch,
we'll engrave it on the porch!"

Really? Engrave it on the porch? That's the best you can do to make yourself known?


Whoever says money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to shop. - Bo Derek

The Scorpion
#105Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 5:17am

Can't believe someone hasn't mentioned this yet:

From Jesus Christ Superstar:

"Always hoped that I'd be an apostle
Knew that I would make it if I tried
Then when we retire we can write the gospels
So they'll still talk about us when we've died"

There is absolutely no way any director or any cast could make that stanza work. EVER. So weird.


I love those! It's typical Tim Rice. I have a feeling his wit and sense of humour, which is admittedly very English, just doesn't translate that well across the pond where he's considerably more bashed for what in Britain are generally considered rather witty lyrics.

Another cringeworthy lyric that comes to mind, this time from Wicked:

"There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed"

Updated On: 7/5/12 at 05:17 AM

After Eight
#106Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 5:20am

I heard this one on the Tony Awards show and busted out laughing in disbelief:

"I'm walking on moonbeams."

Uh, message to Once songwriters: It's 2012 now, not 1912.

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henrikegerman
#107Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 9:28am

"I always thought that Chapter Three was WAY too early for that particular sort of reveal. He just need an ee rhyme."

Owen, I think you;re being too literal; it really doesn't matter if chapter three is too early.

Lyrics are meant to take liberties. For instance, it is silly to complain that "This Can't Be Love" starts with "In Verona my late cousin Romeo," because Antipholus being an ancient couldn't have possibly known Romeo; it's wit. And one suspends disbelief just as one does in accepting that a character is bursting into song. While the fact that Romeo rhymes with Dromio inform the choice of the lyric, it doesn't diminish it.

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finebydesign
#108Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 12:29pm

From Aida:

I appreciate too well, the squalor at which you excel
It isn't very hard to tell, evil's a distinctive smell

Roscoe
#109Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 12:43pm

From THE PIRATE QUEEN, the song "Boys Will Be Boys":

She's confused about gender
She been too long "at sea"
I may well have to beach her
Take her inland and teach her
What a woman should be.


"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/

Owen22
#110Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 2:35pm

"Lyrics are meant to take liberties."

No, they're not. ????? Wha?????

michellek45
#111Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/5/12 at 2:37pm

My favorite isn't really a lyric, it's from one of the spoken parts of "I'm On My Way" from Paint Your Wagon: "C'mon, little banjo, lead me to the rainbow!" or something similar. I laugh every time I hear that one.

somethininthestars
#112Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/6/12 at 3:13am

How can you top this?

I got Brooklyn in the blood
Racing through my veins.
Roaming through my body like a subway train.

Brooklyn in the blood sounds like something maybe a little penicillin might clear up. And why o why is it not RUNNING through my body like a subway train (or better yet, running through my veins, RACING[...] like a subway train)? I hope the subway trains aren't roaming... (imean, i know sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards, but still) Taxis can roam, i think subways had best stick to their route.

After Eight
#113Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/6/12 at 7:00am

In conjunction with the new Merrily We Roll Along recording, there's the endless droning of "day after day, after day, after day......"

Hey, Frank, the audience doesn't have all day to listen to this....

Nor does it want to.

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emlodik
#114Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/6/12 at 9:46am

The entire "Wizard and Me" song from "Wicked." I just can't get through it, it's the Holocaust of the English language.


"But your despicable class is dead! Look who they are calling for now!"

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g.d.e.l.g.i.
#115Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/6/12 at 11:08pm

I admit to cringing at a lot of Tim Rice's lines in JCS, much as I love the show. "This common crowd / Is much too loud..." *cringe* "What's that in the bread! / It's gone to my head..." *cringe* In fact, one could start a drinking game on rhymes like that.


Formerly gvendo2005
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05

Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky

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boggess
#116Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/7/12 at 2:19pm

Not the worst, but I hate in Les Mis when they sing Eponine as "Ponine".

Once more 'Ponine saving the day
Dearest Cosette, my friend 'Ponine

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LuminousBeing
#117Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/7/12 at 10:19pm

I love Sondheim more than chocolate, but every time I get to "could've turned him into STONE! Or a DOG! Or a CHAIR!" when watching the "Into the Woods" DVD, I cringe.

lizabombs
#118Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/7/12 at 10:31pm

A few Sondheim lyrics that I hate:

"Wishes are children."

Just insipid. And the rest of "Children Will Listen" isn't that hot, either.

"And me and you
We'll be singing it like the birds
Me with music
And you the words"

Ouch. Is it just me, or does "birds" not REALLY rhyme with "words." It forces the singer to pronounce "words" and "werds" and it just makes me shiver with embarrassment.

Almost anything the solders sing in "Passion" is cringe-worthy, too, especially:

"Uniforms! Uniforms!"

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binau
#119Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/7/12 at 10:42pm

Birds sounds like a pretty fine rhyme of Words to me, at least in my Australian accent.


"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022) "Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009) "Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000

erikinthecity2
#120Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/7/12 at 11:12pm

Side Show -

"Now I am the one blushing red eating humble pie."

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Wynbish
#121Cringeworthy Lyrics
Posted: 7/11/12 at 3:04pm

"Feast my friend, enjoy your little dinner.
And pay attention now, you little dickens!
This is where the story will get interesting.
As we Italians say, 'the plot she thickens!'"

Woman in White