"Dead Mom" from Beetlejuice is the best song ever written

[americanboy99]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 5:02pm

Don't @ me 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=191&v=MQVnwXpAeRQ

[haterobics]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 5:45pm

@americanboy99, I listened to about 12 seconds and am pretty sure that isn't true.

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 5:46pm

No.

[WldKingdomHM]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 5:48pm

Don't quit the day job 

[AngusN]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 5:54pm

Too late for April Fool’s Day, sorry.

[dmwnc1959]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 6:07pm

haterobics said: "@americanboy99, I listened to about 12 seconds and am pretty sure that isn't true."

 

You got about 10x further than I did. Hope it’s better in the actual show.

 

Updated On: 4/4/19 at 06:07 PM

[Midnight Radio]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 6:42pm

I will say, there is a payoff to perpetual "Dead Mom" that I thought was the funniest part of the show. I actually burst out laughing when that finally came around

Updated On: 4/4/19 at 06:42 PM

[Fosse76]

Posted: 4/4/19 at 8:24pm

I saw the show once in DC and once at the Winter Garden and honestly don't even remember the song. I could click the link, but why bother.

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 12:31am

I actually like the song, but yeah no.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 12:45am

Sondheim should take note here of how to really write a song, I guess.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 9:11am

Some of those rhymes, oof.

[YvanEhtNioj]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 9:12am

IdinaBellFoster said: "I actually like the song, but yeah no. "

Same 

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 9:31am

SporkGoddess said: "Some of those rhymes, oof."

Some? That implies there are rhymes that do rise above “oof” status!

Help and Myself don’t rhyme. Like, not at all. The entire score is like this. A complete embarrassment in terms of lyric writing. There’s no cleverness or whimsy- it’s simply clunky. Even total hack lyric jobs like those found in Scandalous and Amazing Grace had better rhymes. 

 

[macnyc]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 10:25am

Midnight Radio said: "I will say, there is a payoff to perpetual "Dead Mom"that I thought was the funniest part of the show. I actually burst out laughing when that finally came around"

What is the payoff? I saw the show last night and have forgotten it already. 

Posted: 4/5/19 at 12:59pm

WhizzerMarvin said: "Help and Myself don’t rhyme. Like, not at all. The entire score is like this."

Slant rhymes are a thing. "Country" and "hungry" don't rhyme but that didn't stop Lin Manuel from writing "I'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry." Hamilton has probably 500 slant rhymes. In one song there are 9 in a row. Their existence does not inherently make a score subpar.

Also, "help" and "myself" share the same "el" sound with a different finishing consonant. So saying they don't rhyme "at all" is obviously false. It's fine if you don't subjectively like the song, but at least try to make arguments that aren't clearly wrong on their face.

[Loopin’theloop]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 1:23pm

ctorres23 said: "WhizzerMarvinsaid: "Help and Myself don’t rhyme. Like, not at all. The entire score is likethis."

Slant rhymes are a thing. "Country" and "hungry" don't rhyme but that didn't stop Lin Manuel from writing "I'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry." Hamilton has probably 500 slant rhymes. In one song there are 9 in a row. Their existence does not inherently make a score subpar.

Also, "help" and "myself" share the same "el" sound with a different finishing consonant. So saying they don't rhyme "at all" is obviously false. It's fine if you don't subjectively like the song, but at least try to make arguments that aren't clearly wrong on their face."

I think the hundreds of lyricists who take their craft very seriously and believe in perfect would disagree with you. 

Something either rhymes or it doesn’t. Scant rhymes, near rhymes or whatever new term you want to assign to it them are not a thing. It smacks of laziness. Just because people do it, doesn’t make it any less lazy.

 

[darquegk]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 1:48pm

Lin-Manuel Miranda's lyric writing is playing by a different set of poetic rules, because one of the standard building blocks of modern hip-hop is their reliance on polyrhythmic rhyming based on assonance and consonance, not just on "precise rhyme at the end of the line." The fact that COUN-TRY and HUN-GRY isn't a precise rhyme matters less to the flow of the piece than the jUSt like my CoUNT-rEE I'm yoUNg scrapp-EE and hUNg-rEE.

Most rap-derived music in the past twenty years has focused on this sort of polyrhythmic rhyming over a delivery building to proper end rhymes. Some have theorized that this is to avoid easy comparison to the early years of toasting-derived hip-hop, whose sing-song delivery and often forced rhyming made it an easy target of parody.

[Loopin’theloop]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 1:51pm

darquegk said: "Lin-Manuel Miranda's lyric writing is playing by a different set of poetic rules, because one of the standard building blocks of modern hip-hop is their reliance on polyrhythmic rhyming based on assonance and consonance, not just on "precise rhyme at the end of the line." The fact that COUN-TRY and HUN-GRY isn't a precise rhyme matters less to the flow of the piece than the jUSt like my CoUNT-rEE I'm yoUNg scrapp-EE and hUNg-rEE.

Most rap-derived music in the past twenty years has focused on this sort of polyrhythmic rhyming over a delivery building to proper end rhymes. Some have theorized that this is to avoid easy comparison to the early years of toasting-derived hip-hop, whose sing-song delivery and often forced rhyming made it an easy target of parody."

I can let them off in rap for sure. When none rhymes are written to be sung, they land on the ear terribly. 

[JayG 2]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 2:07pm

These are lazy, sloppy lyrics. They are NOT slant rhymes. A slant rhyme is words that look like they should rhyme, but don’t quite. For example, “pain” and “again “ or “food” and “wood”. What is passing for lyrics today is total garbage.

Posted: 4/5/19 at 2:17pm

Let me circle back around to my original point: this person's argument was that the song, and by extension the score was bad, by definition, because of slant rhymes. That was their whole argument.

My argument is that, objectively, that is not true because there are a ton of critically acclaimed, beloved songs that use slant rhymes. Slant rhymes alone do not invalidate the quality of a song. Just off the top of my head here are some non-rap slant rhymes:

From last season's best song, Omar Sharif (came / waves): "The ship from Egypt always came, sailing in on radio waves"

From the Greatest Showman, a triple slant rhyme (dark / parts / scars): "I am not a stranger to the dark; Hide away, they say, cause we don't want your broken parts; I've learned to be ashamed of all my scars."

There are dozens of these in almost every show. If you're a lyrical purist, that's fine, but then your argument isn't so much "Dead Mom is a bad song" but rather "I hate all modern musicals", which, you know, I can understand.

[kdogg36]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 2:29pm

JayG 2 said: "These are lazy, sloppy lyrics. They are NOT slant rhymes. A slant rhyme is words that look like they should rhyme, but don’t quite. For example, “pain” and “again “ or “food” and “wood”. What is passing for lyrics today is total garbage."

Just as a point of information, what you're describing here is an eye rhyme. A slant rhyme is just an imperfect rhyme, like the one being discussed here. Furthermore - here I'm responding to an earlier post - although traditional musical theater generally prefers perfect rhyme, slant rhyme is definitely "a thing" in both poetry and song lyrics. 

[kdogg36]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 2:34pm

Vaguely on topic, there's a rhyme by Sondheim, of all people, that's always bothered me a little: "I chose and my world was shaken; so what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not." To me - and, according to dictionary sources, Americans in general - these words don't rhyme: what rhymes with cut while not rhymes with cot. I think the two words do rhyme in British English, where both rhyme with cot, and that may be Sondheim's justification. As I said, though, this has always bothered me a little in a context where I otherwise expect only perfect rhymes.

[SweetLips22]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 3:08pm

It's pronounced M.U.M

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 3:42pm

I admit that Eddie Perfect isn’t the sole perpetrator who has used a slant rhyme. I do find them lazy in any circumstance, but if one is deployed once or twice in a show, then those are minor flaws. 

The problem with this song and Beetlejuice’s score as a whole is that the slant rhymes seem to outnumber the perfect rhymes. Myself and help is far from the only pair. Pretenders is rhymed with advances(?!) and at me is rhymed with get happy. 

It’s sloppy. I flash to James Cromwell trying to wipe James Coco’s face in Murder By Death and saying, “Sloppy, Sloppy!”

Yes, I know slant rhymes (or worse) are used in pop music all the time, but I would like to think that we should hold our lyricists to a higher standard than a Kesha track. 

Even Larry Hart or Alan J Lerner may have written a clunker lyric or two, but these are the small exceptions in their vast outputs. Eddie Perfect has served up two scores this season that smell something rotten. 

[Loopin’theloop]

Posted: 4/5/19 at 4:21pm

ctorres23 said: "Let me circle back around to my original point: this person's argument was that the song, and by extension the score was bad, by definition, because of slant rhymes. That was their whole argument.

My argument is that, objectively, that is not true because there are a ton of critically acclaimed, beloved songs that use slant rhymes. Slant rhymes alone do not invalidate the quality of a song. Just off the top of my head here are some non-rap slant rhymes:

From last season's best song, Omar Sharif (came / waves): "The ship from Egypt always came, sailing in on radio waves"

From the Greatest Showman, a triple slant rhyme (dark / parts / scars): "I am not a stranger to the dark; Hide away, they say, cause we don't want your broken parts;I've learned to be ashamed of all my scars."

There are dozens of these in almost every show. If you're a lyrical purist, that's fine, but then your argument isn't so much "Dead Mom is a bad song" but rather "I hate all modern musicals", which, you know, I can understand."

All the examples you’ve listed are of lazy lyric writing. Critical plaudits and popularity are not the same as quality.