The Sondheim Lyrics Chain

[valmont]

Goodbye, my friends, and good riddance
Pardon while I disappear

[Bobster]

I've stuffed the dailies in my shoes
Strummed ukuleles, sung the blues
Seen all my dreams disappear but I'm here.

I've slept in shanties, guest of the W.P.A., but I'm here
Danced in my scanties
Three bucks a night was the pay, but I'm here
I've stood on bread lines with the best
Watched while the headlines did the rest

[AmyG]

I think the "I" is bolder as well. 

[valmont]

I think the "I" is bolder as well.

Oops, it should have been just "disappear"    sorry!

[MartinG]

Thank gawd for that 

Extra! Extra!
Hey, look at the headline,
Historical news
Is being made.
Extra! Extra!
They're drawing a red line
Around the biggest scoop
Of the decade.
A barrel of charm,
A fabulous thrill.
The biggest little headline
In vaudeville

[scenicdesign71]

Men in the mines to dig the iron.
Men in the mills to forge the steel.
Men at machines to turn the barrel,
Mold the trigger, shape the wheel.
It takes a lot of men to make a gun.
One gun.

A few years ago I wrote a long post on the old FTC questioning whether Sondheim had ever written for any characters who could fairly be called inarticulate -- in the sense that (I argued) Hammerstein's Billy Bigelow is, even in his most searching moments.  In his book scenes in Assassins, Czolgosz might seem to qualify.  But in the privacy of his thoughts during the musical soliloquy that begins and ends "Gun Song," SJS uses the simplest of language (90% of the words in the stanza above are monosyllables, and none would challenge a third-grader) to endow the unemployed steelworker with a kind of grim poetry.  These passages struck me powerfully when I first heard them sung by Terrence Mann at Playwrights Horizons in 1990, and they remain among my favorite Sondheim lyrics.

[valmont]

I wish the cow was full of milk.
I wish the walls were full of gold-
I wish a lot of things...
I wish...
It's not for me,
It's for my Granny in the woods.

[scenicdesign71]

It isn't true, not for me!
It's true for you, not for me.
I hear your words, and in my head
I know they're smart--
But my heart, Anita!
But my heart...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOoKi6q9ZXE

[MartinG]

F - My heart belongs to someone else.

C - Your breath so warm...

[valmont]

Stay forever
Breathing lightly
Pretty women!
Blowing out their candles

[MartinG]

Always the hurricanes blowing, 
Always the population growing . . . 
And the money owing, 
And the babies crying...

[valmont]

Five fat babies
And lots of security

[scenicdesign71]

Jessie has maturity
And plenty of security.
Whatever you can do with them, she's done.

[Bobster]

You can do it
All you need is a hand
WE can do it
MAMA IS GONNA SEE TO IT!

Curtain up!
Light the lights!

[valmont]

I dim the lights
And think about you
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you