The Sondheim Lyrics Chain

[scenicdesign71]

You move just a finger,
Say the slightest word,
Something's bound to linger,
Be heard.

[MartinG]

J: Oh, dear! Was that a noise?

A: A plan!

J: I think I heard a noise!

A: A plan!

J: It couldn't be!
He's in court,
He's in court today,
Still that was a noise...
Wasn't that a noise?
You must have heard that?

[scenicdesign71]

Pardon me, is everybody here? Because if everybody's
Here, I want to thank you all for coming to the wedding.  I'd
Appreciate your going even more -- I mean, you must have lots of
Better things to do -- and not a word of it to Paul!  Remember
Paul?  You know, the man I'm gonna marry (but I'm not, because I
Wouldn't ruin anyone as wonderful as he is!)?  So I
Thank you all for the gifts and the flowers!
Thank you all, now it's back to the showers!
And don't tell Paul, but I'm not getting married
Today!

It occurred to me at some point that the absolute-fastest possible tempo is, at least in one way, a singer's best hope for making it through this song:  obviously enunciation becomes a challenge -- and woe betide the performer who stumbles mid-lyric, even for a fraction of a second (though SJS does claim that the flow of consonant and vowel sounds is arranged to roll off the tongue with relative ease) -- but the faster you spit these words out, the sooner you can finally breathe.

[MartinG]

In your quoted stanza the earliest chance to breathe is presumably after flowers, which seems to be about three times longer than the equivalent point in Modern Major General. Sadistic!   

Today 
The minutes seem like hours, 
The hours go so slowly...

[Leighton]

Voices glide by, let them pass
Let them float in their words
'Til they slowly drown

Don't they know, don't they, what they want?
Silly, silly people:
Patient and polite

[MartinG]

C: ...Spend a weekend in the country.
A: We'll accept it!
C: I'd a feeling you would.
Both: A weekend in the country -
A: Yes, it's only polite that we should.
C: Good.

C-M: Well?
C: I've an intriguing little social item -
C-M: Well?
C: Out of the Armfeldt family manse.

[scenicdesign71]

Just to be an annoying pedant:  I believe Carl-Magnus's second question, after "Well?", is "What?"
(So that his sequence, alternating with Charlotte's lines, goes: "Well?", followed by "What?", and finally "Well, what?")

Also, I think her intriguing little social item is out at the Armfeldt family manse (where it will occur), not out of it (whence she heard about it, which would only be indirectly true anyway, since she heard the news from Anne, not from anyone directly connected with the Armfeldts).

[/pedantry]

[scenicdesign71]

What's as intriguing--
(Or half so fatiguing--)
As what's out of reach?

Am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate,
Passionate, charming, as kind as I'm handsome,
And heir to a throne?

[MartinG]

Just to be an annoying pedant:  I believe Carl-Magnus's second question, after "Well?", is "What?"
(So that his sequence, alternating with Charlotte's lines, goes: "Well?", followed by "What?", and finally "Well, what?")

Also, I think her intriguing little social item is out at the Armfeldt family manse (where it will occur), not out of it (whence she heard about it, which would only be indirectly true anyway, since she heard the news from Anne, not from anyone directly connected with the Armfeldts).

[/pedantry]

Greatly obliged to my learned friend. If only I'd taken the trouble to walk the approx. 9 paces to my copy of Hat instead of winging it with increasingly iffy memory... Even more mortifying that it's one of my favourite songs!   


F: And some day elections will be unknown -
B: 'Cause each of our kids will ascend the throne -
C: And their kids have more kids with kids of their own -
F: It's sort of a family knack.

[scenicdesign71]

While he "creates,"
We scrape their plates
And dust their knick-knacks, hundreds to the shelf.
Work is what you do for others, liebchen;
Art is what you do for yourself.

I know songs in musicals are supposed to be structured like one-act plays.  But could anyone but the Master cram an entire parable about class and creativity into a single, gleamingly-perfect stanza?  While typing the above quote, it occurred to me that it tells you everything you need to know about the singer (a domestic servant, apparently German-speaking), the person to whom they're singing (family member, significant other -- someone close enough to be addressed as liebchen, at any rate; and possibly co-worker, if "we" is taken to include the person being addressed), their situation (working for an artist, or at least holding him- or herself in sharp contrast to one, as regards the concept of "work"), and their attitude toward that situation (resentful but cynically resigned), which further suggests quite a bit about the singer's worldview more generally (class-conscious, perhaps proto-Marxist?).  It does all this in just thirty words*, the latter fifteen honed to a sharp, epigrammatic clarity which, in turn, tells us even more (the singer has a way with words, and has devoted enough thought to their plight to distill it into a sort of sardonic credo).

And while wringing at least a hundred of my own words (I won't even do an actual word-count of the above paragraph: too many, is the point) out of SJS's thirty makes it all sound terribly labored, that's the miracle: au contraire, the lyric is a model of conversational simplicity, almost doggerel, transmitting all of that information to the listener effortlessly.  And the subtext would come through even to someone who'd never heard of SITPWG, if you played them that verse alone.

____________________
*Which might not be so impressive, if the singer/situation/attitude etc. in question were of a standard, shorthand configuration like "spurned lover," say, or "starry-eyed naïf longing for adventure".  Lacking such well-worn generic subject matter, these thirty words have a whole lot more ground to cover.

[MartinG]

You're all liars and theives,
Like his father,
Like his son will be, too -
Oh, why bother?
You'll just do what you do.

It's the last midnight,
So, goodbye all.
Coming at you fast, midnight -
Soon you'll see the sky fall.
Here, you want a bean?
Have another bean.
Beans were made for making you rich!
Plant them and they soar -
Here, you want some more?

[KathyB]

Would you like some more grass?

Mmmmm...

Ruff! Ruff!
Thanks, the week has been
Rough!
When you're stuck for life on a garbage scow
Only forty feet long from stern to prow
And a crackpot in the bow... wow... RUFF!

[scenicdesign71]

...I telephoned my analyst about it and he said to see him Monday,
But by Monday I'll be floating in the Hudson with the other garbage.
I'm not well, so I'm not getting married!
You've been swell, but I'm not getting married.
Clear the hall, 'cause I'm not getting married.
Thank you all, but I'm not getting married--
And don't tell Paul, but I'm not getting married
Today!

[KathyB]

Oh, Momma, get married today!

If Momma was married,
There wouldn't be any more
"Let me entertain you,
Let me make you smile,
I will do some kicks--"

[MartinG]

Tob: If you've got a kick, sir -

Mob: What about the money?