The Sondheim Lyrics Chain

[scenicdesign71]

Less safe: "Thanks, I don't perform, except at dinner"?

More safe:

Something's better than nothing -- yes,
But nothing's better than more, more, more!
Except all, all, all.

Except... once you have it all,
You may find, all else above,
That, though things are bliss,
There's one thing you miss...
And that's

__________

He may say in the Hat book, but I don't have it handy for a look-up: is he setting us up for "...love"? (rhymes with "all else above" -- I guess "love" would be the ostensibly-expected sweet "moral" ending, unceremoniously rejected in favor of yet-more "mores" Charleston'd for eight more bars in manic defiance of both sentiment and rhyme)?

Wherever it was that I heard that, it has never quite satisfied me.  Which is unfortunate, because I love so much else about the song -- particularly the Lewis Carroll-worthy aphorism "more is better than nothing, true, but nothing's better than more," springing, no less, from a stanza that has already managed to make the shotgun wedding of Gershwin and "Material Girl" look like a match made in heaven:

I got rhythm, music too;
Just as much as before.
Got my guy and my sky of blue--
Now, however, I own the view.
More is better than nothing, true...

But, re: the ending: he takes the exact opposite tack in "The Worst Pies In London," giving Mrs. Lovett a completed rhyme which doesn't follow from where the line seems to be heading, but rather, in this case, from her decorous self-censorship:

Is that just revolting--
All greasy and gritty?
It looks like it's moulting,
And tastes like... well, pity
A woman alone...

Never mind that the resulting smooth adherence to the established rhyme-scheme and meter (even if she extends the pause a bit, she literally doesn't miss a beat) flatly contradicts what Mrs. L., if not SJS himself, clearly wants her listener to believe is an ad-lib retreat in the name of good taste.

I've always wanted to know exactly what it is that that pie does "taste like" -- in her unsparingly self-critical opinion -- that can't be broached in polite company.  And furthermore, if rhyme suggests an orderly and intelligent mind, as SJS has said, I want this apparently unspeakable analogy to also end in -ity, so that the joke becomes about swapping out the rudely distasteful rhyme we expect (whatever that might be -- "shitty" comes to mind, but only with some effort, and it's a woefully imperfect fit grammatically) in favor of the polite evasion ("well, pity...") which miraculously saves both the rhyme and the audience's innocent ears.

But then, a decade on, he steers Madonna completely off the rhyme-scheme for the sake of a "surprise" ending that, to be honest, never surprised me until years later because the supposedly "expected" one ("love"), if that's what it is, hadn't even occurred to me.  (For one thing, the tempo at that point has become so free, not to say sluggish, that I was no longer necessarily keeping "...all else above" in mind as the presumptive source of a final rhyme).

It also might not be helping matters that there are an awful lot of subordinate clauses stacked, not especially gracefully, into that final verse of "More" -- again, in marked contrast to the crisp diction that prevails elsewhere in the lyric.

But that's just me.  And I hasten to add that I'm only picking the lyric apart this mercilessly because I adore it so: this song ranks pretty high on my personal list of favorite examples of SJS at his most devastatingly clever.

you miss

[Chris L]

I've always assumed Mrs. Lovett was going to say that the pie tasted "shitty" and that the joke is her avoidance of that word, but the "like" has always bothered me. The only thing that fits the meter is "tastes like it's shitty," but absolutely no one ever says that. It's a cheap joke that only works if you don't think about it too much. I suppose even Sondheim nods.

you miss

[MartinG]

An example of a completed rhyme which I've always found oddly disturbing is in Opening Doors:

Who wants to live in New York?
I always hated the dirt, the heat, the noise.
But ever since I met you, I...

....Listen, boys...

There are of course hundreds of instances of a different character completing a rhyme, but here the fact that Charley is demonstrating a diegetic lyric, for which Joe appears to anticipate the rhyme in the 'mimetic' (I think) sense, seems illogical.

Well, anyway...


Chances that you miss.
Ignore.
Ignorance is bliss...

[scenicdesign71]

An example of a completed rhyme which I've always found oddly disturbing is in Opening Doors:

Who wants to live in New York?
I always hated the dirt, the heat, the noise.
But ever since I met you, I...

....Listen, boys...

There are of course hundreds of instances of a different character completing a rhyme, but here the fact that Charley is demonstrating a diegetic lyric, for which Joe appears to anticipate the rhyme in the 'mimetic' (I think) sense, seems illogical.

Yep! 

In this case, entirely apart from the rhyme, I'm again tempted to wonder just what the end of Charley's lyric-within-the-lyric would have been.  But, to be honest, I've always kinda loved the dopey efficiency with which "But ever since I met you, I..." converts this quirky, unpolished but appealingly unpredictable song into a rote romantic cliché  -- even without completing the rhyme (or, indeed, the thought, which hardly needs completing).  Ironically, if Joe had had the patience to hear it out, the rest of Charley's lyric would likely have redeemed Frank's insistently-arty "wrong notes" and slightly spastic syncopation with -- surprise! -- a highly commercial, i.e., safely insipid, "June-moon" denouement.

I'm surely not the first to observe that if, per SJS, "Opening Doors" is the only autobiographical song in any of his shows, then "Who Wants To Live In New York?" seems like self-parody -- somehow both affectionate and honed to razor-sharpness -- specifically of his own charming early effort, "What More Do I Need?"

bliss

[Chris L]

@AmyG and I have talked more than once about how "Who Wants to Live in New York?" is clearly based on "What More Do I Need?" Sondheim has said that "Opening Doors" is the only autobiographical piece in his entire body of work and it's easy to see how that song fits into his songbook. Musically, the two songs sound quite different, but both fit the general theme of "New York Is for Lovers."

How would the lyric have finished? We should turn that into a contest: Complete the song fragment.

"Who wants to live in New York.
I always hated the dirt, the heat, the noise
But ever since I met you
I've..."

The RhymeZone online rhyming dictionary lists these rhymes for "noise":

1 syllable:
bhoys, blois, boies, boy's, boyes, boys, boys', boyz, cloys, crois, croise, croix's, croys, dj noize, hoise, joy's, joys, moise, moyes, noyes, ploys, poise, poize, roy's, roys, toise, toy's, toys, toys', troise, troyes, troys, whois

2 syllables:
alloys, aloise, aloys, annoys, apoise, b-boys, bolshoi's, brunoise, busboys, chinoise, convoys, cowboy's, cowboys, cowboys', deploys, destroys, elois, eloise, employes, employs, enjoys, galois, hanoi's, homeboys, mccoys, outnoise, playboy's, popejoy's, savoys, schoolboys, tolstoy's

It's hard to find anything there that makes sense, much less fits the song. I don't even know what "popejoys" is (and am too lazy to look it up), but "boys," "joys," "poise," "toys," "employs," "enjoys," "employs," "enjoys" and maybe even "cowboys," "destroys" and "Tolstoy's" all sound like that they'd be candidates for the final word of the missing line. However, there are only three syllables left to complete the thought and it's difficult to imagine how any of them could be made to fit without sounding hopelessly forced.

Not to turn this into a game within a game, but can anybody think of something? "I've learned life's joys"? Um, maybe not.

Chances that you miss.
Ignore.
Ignorance is bliss...

[MartinG]

@AmyG and I have talked more than once about how "Who Wants to Live in New York?" is clearly based on "What More Do I Need?" Sondheim has said that "Opening Doors" is the only autobiographical piece in his entire body of work and it's easy to see how that song fits into his songbook. Musically, the two songs sound quite different, but both fit the general theme of "New York Is for Lovers."

...and the nod to Manhattan can't be ignored in either song of course. Whether he was also having another mischievous dig at Hart we can only guess.

How would the lyric have finished? We should turn that into a contest: Complete the song fragment.

"Who wants to live in New York.
I always hated the dirt, the heat, the noise
But ever since I met you
I've..."

As you say @Chris L , it's impossible not to sound awkwardly contrived (though Charley admits with the 'cork' line that the song's unpolished), but there are a couple of handy get-outs:

a) the line (according to Hat) ends "I..." instead of "I've...", which opens more lyrical doors.

b) as it's the final stanza, we might assume that Frank actually finished the melody along the lines of Good Thing Going, into which it eventually morphed, so the rhyme for 'noise' doesn't necessarily have to complete the sentence.

However it's hard to settle on anything less eggy than 'boys' in the context of a romantic young swain, so for example:


Who wants to live in New York?
I always hated the dirt,
The heat, the noise.
But ever since I met you,
I told the boys:
"Forget the grime, the gritty -  
Forget the crime and vice!"
You make the city
Pretty
Paradise"

Far from satisfactory but a foothold.


Bliss

[scenicdesign71]

Twisted minds think alike: as I was posting above, I thought, "there should be a contest to finish that lyric" -- perhaps not even just that line, but continuing all the way through Joe's "...hummable melody," resetting his lyrics with new ones that become a part of "Who Wants To Live In New York?" instead of commenting on it.

But I love your version, @MartinG !  And continuing along the lines of "Good Thing Going" makes even better sense -- bravo!

And then of course, as a fully-fleshed-out song, one could always break "Who Wants...?" apart again and mash it up with "What More Do I Need?" for cabaret purposes (though they're actually so similar in thrust that one might want to stir in a third song for contrast -- "Another Hundred People" or "Epiphany"[!] or something).

Musically, the two songs sound quite different, but both fit the general theme of "New York Is for Lovers."

Well, and the tonally specific sub-theme of "...They're The Only Ones Who Can Stand This Place":  both songs arrive at "New York Is For Lovers" only by way of enumerating, for most of their respective lengths, all the nuisances, cacophonies and chaos of city living for those who lack love's rose-colored glasses.  Their "happy endings" don't exactly arrive as a radical twist -- they're hinted at in "WMDIN"'s first line ("Once I hated this city," implying a change of heart at some point since) and "WWTLINY"'s verse structure ("Who wants...? / Suddenly, I do!").  But unlike even "Manhattan," which explicitly announces the (literal) honeymoon up-front, and keeps that sentiment running steadily in tandem with description of the city's humbler "joys," both of Sondheim's songs are structured around delaying or minimizing the acknowledgement of just what has inspired this newfound love for the city, meantime teasing the listener with contrasts between the ugliness of the landscape and the singer's downright puzzling enthusiasm for it -- variations on "I adore this shithole" requiring explanation which, when it arrives, is succinct and plain-spoken compared to the florid cooing with which Hart laces "Manhattan" throughout.

It might also be worth noting that, where Hart's lyric is sung from a confidently plural viewpoint -- "We'll have Manhattan" -- SJS's contributions to the genre are both decidedly personal: "love" has wrought this transformation, generally speaking, yes; but more specifically, "you" have inspired it in "me," and the singer isn't yet making any long-term plans -- or even necessarily assuming that his/her lover shares this delightful new perspective.  (By contrast, "Manhattan," aside from its uptown/downtown humor, seems at times almost like an urbane forerunner of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "When The Children Are Asleep").  It's harder to picture either of the Sondheim songs ever being performed as a duet, with the happy couple alternating verses, whereas their Rodgers and Hart prototype lends itself naturally to this treatment.  One gets the sense that, for the singers of "WMDIN" and "WWTLINY," having found love is cause for astonishment verging on incredulity, whereas for those of "Manhattan" and "WTCAA" it's simply the cozily inevitable natural order of things.

Also, I wouldn't say the two Sondheim songs sound so different from one another; obviously their melodies aren't the same, but they both have vaguely restless chord structures and share a similar tempo.  On both of these counts, "Who Wants...?" may be a wee bit jazzier and more angular than "What More...?"; but it was their "same-general-world" musical styles -- just as much as the fact that their lyrics tell essentially the same story by strikingly-similar means -- that made me wonder, above, whether combining the two songs into a concert or cabaret medley mightn't be almost too spot-on.

Chances that you miss,
Ignore.
Ignorance is bliss...

[scenicdesign71]

One more souvenir of bliss--
Knowing, though, that this
One must be the last!

[MartinG]

Oh well, I've scoured both books determined to find a less obvious example but I'm beaten  :


It's the last midnight,
It's the boom-
Splat!
Nothing but a vast midnight.
Everybody smashed flat!

Nothing we can do.
Not exactly true:
We can always give her the boy...

No?
No, of course what really matters

Is the blame...

[scenicdesign71]

I mean, I don't understand completely...
(I'm not surprised.)
But he combines all these different trends.
(I'm not surprised.)
You can't divide art today into categories, neatly--
(Oh?)
What matters is the means, not the ends.
(I'm not surprised.)

That is the state of the art, my dear,
That is the state of the art.

(Such was my dazzlement at SITPWG's embarrassment of riches, when I first encountered it in my teens, that it took me several hearings to register the fact that the art-world chatter of "Putting It Together" is a restatement of the Celestes' prurient "Gossip" a century before -- this despite the identical pose of worldly knowingness ["I'm not surprised"] adopted, equally unconvincingly, by both Celeste #2 and Harriet's boy-toy Billy.  Plus ça change...  Seemingly one of SJS's more offhanded nuggets of brilliance, that echo between the two acts/centuries still brings a sort of breath-catch followed by an astonished chuckle: like the doubling of George's deconstruction of Spot ["If the head were smaller..."] and Dot's cool self-appraisal ["If my legs were longer..."] -- with their parallel ways of seeing, of course she instinctively appreciates his work as no one else does -- it's so unexpected and yet so unmistakably right.)

[KathyB]

Please hello, no seaports on the West.
United States too near to Czar,
Is tempting fates, is go too far
(Don't touch the coat!)

[scenicdesign71]

...Keeping house, but clutching a copy of Life,
Just to keep in touch.
The ones who follow the rules
And meet themselves at the schools,
Too busy to know that they're fools --
Aren't they a gem?

A confession: while "clutching a copy of Life, just to keep in touch" has to be one of Sondheim's more coruscating "zingers" (even in a song packed with them), for years I somehow missed the Life line's obvious double edge.  "A copy of Life [magazine]" seemed clear enough in its laser-sharp contempt for a certain slice of the American middle class c.1970.  Oddly, it was the simpler, more abstract meaning that managed to escape me until someone pointed it out: "clutching a copy of life," a haunting, almost Stepford-ish image of suburbanites clinging to their simulacra of living -- their lifestyle, to use a period buzzword that would surely make Joanne snort in derision -- even as they slowly suffocate.

Not coincidentally, the person who finally pointed this out to me was herself both an occasional poet and a former suburban homemaker of roughly this period (a decade younger than Stritch, or exactly Bobby's age, 35, in 1970), who seemed to regard this song with a mixture of writerly awe and real dread at the savage precision with which Joanne/SJS pretty well eviscerates her entire midcentury cohort.

[MartinG]

"clutching a copy of life" -- a haunting, almost Stepford-ish image of suburbanites clinging to their simulacra of living even as they slowly suffocate.

It's certainly up there with some of the most jaw-dropping moments of crystalline lyrical perfection in his canon. We're always warned to resist the temptation to hunt for autobiographical clues, but it does make you wonder to what extent his observation of Foxy's social ambitions at close range may have influenced the shocking depth of acrimony in the song.



Some men have tender souls
And worthy goals
They keep fulfilling.
Some men ignore the rules,
Are rogues and fools,
And thrilling.
Honey,
If he had the slightest sense of shame,
It would be a shame.

[scenicdesign71]

Sorry, off-topic and probably already discussed somewhere else long since, but speaking of "The Ladies Who Lunch": does anyone know whether SJS ever rewrote the "copy of Life" line for "updated" productions of Company (notably the one currently running in the West End)?  Tragically, for the line's double-effectiveness, Life magazine,

published weekly until 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 to 2000

...has for quite some time now been indisputably a period artifact: wholly irrelevant, if not literally meaningless, to modern 'burb-dwellers (or pretty much anyone else) in their daily lives.  (The magazine's "golden age," hence its real currency re: housewives "clutching a copy, just to keep in touch," would've ended pretty conclusively just two years after Company was written).  I suppose you could argue that Joanne's cultural frame of reference dates from her younger years, but by now even that doesn't necessarily make Life magazine a very plausible touchstone: at 69, LuPone may be the last major Joanne for whom the lyric could make even a shadow of sense in a contemporary setting.

But I'm doubtful whether even Steve Himself could ever come up with a rewrite in the same breathtaking league as the original line.  (As brilliant as the references to Op Art and the wearing of hats, etc., are in their original context, they seem relatively easily-rewritable in comparison).  And of course, the "copy of life" sense -- lowercase, life itself, not the magazine -- will never become dated.  Still, it seems a fearful shame to lose the doubleness of the line's original meaning.  A small argument, perhaps, for keeping Company in its original 1970 setting.  (And yet, I have to admit, notwithstanding that or any of the myriad other arguments for keeping the show a period piece, the current gender-switched London update intrigues me more than almost any other Sondheim-related news in years).

[MartinG]

There's a discussion bubbling on the FB FTC in which I've tagged you Dave. Some interesting comments.