Murder, Murder in London Murder, Murder can't be undone..
"A coherent existance after so many years of muddle" - Desiree' Armfelt, A Little Night Music
"Life keeps happening everyday, Say Yes" - 70, Girls, 70
"Life is what you do while you're waiting to die" - Zorba
From Cold as Ice, the musical featuring an onstage ice rink and Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul:
Where it's cold, there is ice. We don't swim; that's not nice. Where it's cold, there is snow. We don't surf, you should know. Oh, we get lots of snow in Canada. We're tough guys, you know, in Canada. We don't do what we're told in Canada. We're bolder than bold in Canada.
I always thought "Paris Makes me Horny" from "Victor/Victoria" had its share of cringeworthy lyrics:
Been ta Bussels could use some red corpuscles. Tried Toronto, departed "molto pronto". Paris makes me tingle; Makes me glad and single. London's okay, if it's for one day. Oh, but Paris makes me sexy In this solar plexy
for those of you who dont know the song, please take a look at the rest of the lyrics. theyre totally laughable. i didnt wanna post the entire song to make the post to long!
And who are the "Victor/Victoria" and "Jekyll & Hyde" lyrics by?
Leslie Bricusse
He is like the proverbial Little Girl with Little Curl. When he's good, he's very good and, when he's bad, he's GOD-AWFULL!
Another howler is "If you don't sit still / you'll have the face of Edith Sitwell" from "Aspects of Love" lyrics by Don Black
"A coherent existance after so many years of muddle" - Desiree' Armfelt, A Little Night Music
"Life keeps happening everyday, Say Yes" - 70, Girls, 70
"Life is what you do while you're waiting to die" - Zorba
Sunset Boulevard, but in particular: With One Look & the title song... I'm sorry, someone buy that lyricist a thesaurus... really... and when will ALW & TR make up & write beautiful music again? I rest my case...
Definitely not among the MOST cringe worthy, but the line that always makes me cringe is in Next to Normal, when Henry sings about the dance and says "and it's cheese." no no no!
"Pharaoh's Dreams Explained" from Joseph: "All these things you saw in your pajamas Are a long-range forecast for your farmers" There are many other times in that show where he rhymes "--or" with "--aw". I hate half-rhymes, but the one above just makes me so angry whenever I hear it.
*edited because I was relying on my memory of a song I haven't heard in months Updated On: 5/27/10 at 10:27 PM
I agree on Sunset Boulevard, and With One Look in particular. Absolutely horrible. Such a great story...PERFECT material for a musical. And Webber wrote, I think, his most purely beautiful score for the show. And he insists on the lyrics being just dreadful. I'm convinved he wants his shows to have bad lyrics on purpose; the last two solid decades could not have been an accident. Maybe so the focus is on the music.
Whoa, I like that lyric from Dancing Through Life - I like all the lyrics in Wicked with their clever internal rhymes and feel like the attacks were totally undeserved.
"Look at this, another murder!/ Just like that other murder!"
"They've murdered dear old Bessie!/ I hear it extremely messy!"
I agree with whoever mentioned With One Look.
Love Never Dies also has some bad lyrics:
"And sometimes at nighttime I dream that you are there, but wake holding nothing but the empty air"
I'm sure that had to have been a more elegant way of conveying that particular line. The lyrics for "The Beauty Underneath" are pretty bad as well.
"You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!" - Betty Parris to Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller's The Crucible