The Sondheim Lyrics Chain

[KathyB]

And all you have to do is
Squeeze your little finger,
Ease your little finger back,
You can change the world

Whatever else is true, you
Trust your little finger,
Just a single little finger can
Change the world

[scenicdesign71]

Yes, you told me, I know:
You'll be ready to go
When you pound the floor--
Will you trust me??
Will you trust me??
I'll be waiting below
For the whistle to blow...

[MartinG]

You got talent to blow
And you're making a name
And that song you wrote's a national treasure.

[KathyB]

The British feel these latest dealings verge on immorality
The element of precedent imperils our neutrality
We're rather vexed, your giving extraterritoriality
We must insist you offer this to every nationality!

Dutch Admiral:
We want the same
What the Russkies claim!
Why you let them came?
Dirty rotten shame!

[scenicdesign71]

I thought I knew what love was!
I thought it was no more than a name for yearning.
I thought it was what kindness became. / I'm learning...
I thought where there was love, there was shame...
...That with you, / But with you, there's just happiness.
Endless happiness...

[KathyB]

DUH. This just came to me after a couple days of milling it over.

Oh, moon, grow bright
And make this endless day endless night...

I'm counting on you to be there
Tonight...
When Diesel wins it fair and square
Tonight...

[scenicdesign71]

...Still, I'll stick it till
I'm on a bill all over Times Square!

Someday, maybe,
If I stick it long enough,
I may get to strut my stuff
Working for a nice man
Like a Ziegfeld or a Weissman
In a great big
Broadway show!

[KathyB]

We've got a surefire genuine
Walk-away blockbuster
Lines down to Broadway
Boffola sensational
Box office lalapalooza gargantuan—!


[spelling and punctuation quoted directly from Finishing the Hat]

[scenicdesign71]

I knew there had to be something from Merrily, but I couldn't remember it to save my life!  (And it's a tricky thing to Google, since the search results understandably all tend to associate "Sondheim," "lyric" and/or "Merrily" with Broadway regardless, and in every possible context other than the word "Broadway" actually appearing in a Sondheim lyric from Merrily).

So my safety-option was the only other instance I could think of, namely Dainty June and her Farmboys ("Broadway!  Broadway!  How great you are!").

Glad you found the Merrily one -- it was like a gnat buzzing around in the back of my mind!

[MartinG]

H: This girl from the office-

W: My niece from Ohio-
It'll just be the four of us-
You'll looooooooooooooooooove her!

L: Have I got a girl for you? Wait till you meet her!


(The one I have in mind hardly leaves many options to follow, sorry!) 

[scenicdesign71]

Ta-ta, goodbye, you'll find us at Tony's--
	Wait till you hear the band!
You told us Tony's, that we'd go to Tony's.	I told you Tony's?
Then Ben mentioned Tony's.  Well, someone said Tony's!	I never said Tony's!  When's Ben mentioned Tony's?
There's dancing at Tony's -- all right, then,	It's ritzy at Tony's -- all right, then,
We'll go...	We'll go...

As much fun as it always is to quote that daredevil verse of "Uptown/Downtown" (preferably in its entirety), leaving "ritz" would've seemed too easy.  But in lieu of that gift, here are some fun facts about the word:

"Ritzy" is derived, of course, from the eponymous luxury hotspots created by hotelier César Ritz (1850-1918).  But Ritz himself apparently didn't quite live to see his name become an adjective: according to Merriam-Webster, "ritzy" entered the language in 1920 -- right around the peak of the Follies years (Ziegfeld or Weissman), and roughly when Sondheim and Goldman's central Four would have been born.  Irving Berlin wrote "Puttin' On The Ritz" in 1927, and the film of the same name -- which did not feature Fred Astaire -- was released in 1930, the first of many films to use the song.  Nabisco introduced Ritz crackers in 1934, and Astaire's iconic performance of the Berlin song appeared in Blue Skies (1940), suggesting that the name's use as a generic synonym for luxurious elegance remained not only current (as it more or less remains today) but still reasonably hip by 1941 when Ben and Buddy characterize Tony's as "ritzy," calculating that the damage to their wallets will be compensated by their improved chances with "the girls": "all right, then...".

[KathyB]

Carl-Magnus:
Charlotte!

Charlotte:
All right, then.

Both:
We're off on our way,
What a beautiful day for...

ALL:
A weekend in the country,
How amusing,
How delightfully droll,
A weekend in the country
While we're losing our control.
A weekend in the country,
How enchanting
On the manicured lawns.
A weekend in the country,
With the panting and the yawns.
With the crickets and the pheasants
And the orchards and the hay,
With the servants and the peasants,
We'll be laying our plans
While we're playing croquet

[scenicdesign71]

          Ba-do-be-da-ba-do-be-do--

...Peasants!

          (Blechh!)

          A lady has responsibilities,
          Responsibilities

--To try to be popular
With the populace!

          She's unpopular with the populace.
          Unpopular with the populace,
          Unpopular with the populace...

Everyone here hates me at length.
Probably lynch me, if they had the strength.
But me and my town,
Me and me town...
We just want to be loved!

         We just want to be loved,
         We just want to be loved--

Just loved!

[KathyB]

Fosca:
I'm someone to be loved.

Giorgio:
I'm someone to be loved.

Fosca:
And that I learned from you.

Company:
I don't know how I let you
So far inside my mind,
But there you are, and there you will stay.
How could I ever wish it away?
I see now I was blind.

[scenicdesign71]

What's the good of being good
If everyone is blind,
And you're always left behind?

Never mind, Cinderella,
Kind Cinderella,
Nice good nice
Kind good nice--

I'll confess I looked this one up, out of sheer laziness.  But I'm glad I did, because I'd never really paid close attention to this passage before, and it just struck me for the very first time that not only does it prefigure later struggles pitting  the "good" against the merely "nice" (Little Red: they're crucially "different"; the Witch: they're finally irrelevant -- "right" trumps both), but it also carries a delightfully nasty premonition of the wicked Steps' later blinding by the same birds who, in this early moment, are about to help Cindy attain her first (initially unpromising) victory against their petty abuse.  (Or worse-than-petty abuse, judging by the viciously loud smack that cuts off the passage quoted above, on the OBCR at least).  "We were blind," the Stepmother and her daughters admit ruefully during "Ever After," calling back to this early plaint from Cinderella; but "then we went into the woods to get our wish, and now we're really blind."