The Sondheim Lyrics Chain

[scenicdesign71]

He'd never... therefore they haven't...
Which makes the question absolutely...! --Could she?
She daren't... therefore I mustn't... what utter rot!

Fidelity is more than mere display,
It's what a man expects from life:
Fidelity, like mine to Desirée
And Charlotte, my devoted wife.

Once again, it's so easy to be dazzled by the elegant economy of expression here that one could miss the unusual, casually seamless rhyme of display with Desirée.

[KathyB]

This is the first thing I thought of. I don't know if there is another one, deeper into the catalog, maybe referring to the city?

Anyway:

C-M: Charlotte?
C: I'm thinking it out.
C-M: Charlotte!
C: There's no need to shout.
C-M: Charlotte!
C: All right, then.

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

[scenicdesign71]

It's possible there's another Charlotte somewhere in the catalog, but my first thought was the same as yours.

Beautiful day has me stumped, though...   

[KathyB]

I did look to make sure there was another beautiful day before I posted it, and I was very happy when I found one. It's toward the end of a song, so there aren't too many lyrics after it to leave a target word.

[KathyB]

A hint: think early Sondheim.

[scenicdesign71]

And it's one wonderful day,
One marvelous day,
One beautiful day,
One glorious day,
One wonderful day all year long!

Thanks for the hint, Kathy!  I'm not so familiar with Saturday Night: it may be SJS's second-least familiar score to me (after Do I Hear A Waltz, of which I know practically nothing; Road Show might bring up third place, though I did listen to Bounce a lot at one point, so I'm at least somewhat familiar with the lyrics that survived from that incarnation).  But after following your clue to the Hat book, where this lyric rates a self-critical footnote, I'm inclined to agree with SJS: the pile-up of "adjectival padding" would've sounded trite even coming from a lyricist of his mentor's generation.  (He approvingly cites Ocky sticking with a single adjective in "Oh, what a beautiful mornin'/ Oh, what a beautiful day, I got a beautiful feelin'..." rather than riffling pointlessly through the deck of overused syllabically-equivalent synonyms).  Still, I'd counter that, because Saturday Night is set among ordinary young people of precisely that generation, a certain quaint banality is sort of appropriate.

[KathyB]

1960...
It's 1960...
And, gosh, what a swall year it's been...

(I guess not.)

I'm looking. And thinking.

[scenicdesign71]

There are three other "all year"s that I can think of.  Though they have little else in common (sung by very different characters in very different situations and shows), I suppose all three might be described as songs of persuasion -- whether in the form of studious self-deception, sexual courtship, or outright hucksterism.

[KathyB]

Duh...


Pretty lady, you're the cleanest thing I seen all year.

I sailed the world for you.

Pretty lady, you're enough to make me glad I'm here.

[Leighton]

Live in your barbarous jungle
Screaming for ways to get clear.
When all the screaming has died away
Come and visit my hideaway
I will be glad t provide a way
If you can find me
I'm here

[KathyB]

As far as I know, we need to go forward in lyrics, not backward, but it's easy enough to end up with the same target word by going forward:

When you wake up with one genius less
If you can find me I'm here

And I'm free
Free as a bird in a tree
Free as the slippers I wear
Free with a year's warranty
Free as air
All of these products and me
All that I ask is a chair that tilts
Books to read
Light refreshment before I proceed
And a blazer or maybe a tweed
The barest essentials a poet would need

Live in your barbarous jungle
Screaming for ways to get clear
When all the screaming has died away



And here's the next lyric:

Are you screaming?
Ringdove and robinet,
Is it for wages
Singing to be sold?
Have you decided it's safer in cages
Singing when you're told?
My cage has many rooms,
Damask and dark,
Nothing there sings
Not even my lark

[scenicdesign71]

Once -- yes!  Once, for a lark!
Twice, though... loses the spark.
One must never deny it;
But after you try it,
You vary the diet.

[scenicdesign71]

In case anyone's wondering (perhaps not for the first time) where I'm getting all this punctuation from... One of my favorite things about this game is the excuse to creatively punctuate the lyrics, irrespective of how they appear in the scores, the libretti, or the Hat books -- but guided, I like to think, by His own principles to emphasize their conversational flow and cadence in the way a playwright or a novelist might.  Granted, principle-wise, He trounces me in the less-is-more department.

vary

[KathyB]

Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days,
But alone is alone, not alive.

[scenicdesign71]

Mrs. Lovett, You're a bloody wonder -- eminently practical And yet appropriate, as always. As you've said repeatedly, there's little point in dwelling        On the past! No, come here, my love... Not a thing to fear, my love: What's dead Is dead. The history of the world, my pet, Is "learn forgiveness and try to forget." And life is for the alive, my love, So let's keep living it! Just keep living it, Really living it...

Do you mean it?  Everything I did, I swear I thought Was only for the best -- Believe me! Can we Still be Married? Oh, Mr. Todd, ooh, Mr. Todd, leave it to me... By the sea, Mr. Todd, we'll be comfy-cozy By the sea, Mr. Todd, where there's no one nosy-- Just keep living it, Really living it...

Granted, three lines of Todd's would have sufficed for the gameplay, but I couldn't resist.  This is just such a devastatingly well-wrought scene: starting even earlier, from Todd keening over his dead Lucy, while Mrs. Lovett grasps at spluttering echoes of "Poor Thing" to defend her duplicity; then lurching into the reprise of the "Little Priest" waltz (plus Mrs. L.'s pitiful rush of "By The Sea", with too many words crammed desperately into an inappositely square rhythm, badly hobbling the music's triumphant lilt -- until Todd, steamrolling ahead without missing a beat, bodily forces her back into the dance tempo)... it's just diabolically effective dramatic writing.  Todd's lethally straight-faced parody of the actually-moral position here is what makes it so terrifying; by the time his homily arrives at "What's dead is dead" (as they literally waltz around his wife's corpse), one can only laugh in horror at Nellie's simultaneous plea "Can we still be married?".  We may at first be as thrown-for-a-loop by Todd's spooky volatility as she is; but when she ends up, seconds later, engulfed in flames inside an oversize iron coffin, it's a double-whammy for the audience: absolute shock and -- after this excruciating buildup -- absolute inevitability.  This is one of those passages that should be invoked, near the top of the list imho, by anyone seeking to analyze Sondheim as an unparalleled dramatist, as distinct from his brilliance as composer and lyricist ("Barcelona," whatever its virtues, actually strikes me as a relatively wan example on which to build this case, though Green isn't the first to have done so anyway).  The story beats, the general pace, the vertiginous irony and perhaps even some of the specific devices (schizoid tonal shifts? creepy callbacks to happier times?) might possibly have been provided, in some form; I can't remember Bond's original script well enough to say, and of course I don't know exactly what Wheeler, in the process of adapting it, may have given SJS to build upon.  But God is in the details, and Sondheim's execution of these particular details just takes your breath away.