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On my own - lyric change or flub?

Posted by: Drew288 01:38 am EDT 03/15/14

So I've spent the last five days in NYC and, since Ramin Karimloo was out for the performance of les Mis that I had purchased in advance, I ended up going both Wednesday and Friday nights. (Don't judge! This show is the reason I live theatre, for better or for worse).

I thought that Nikki James had flubbed a lyric in "on my own" on Wednesday, but she did the exact same thing Friday. Double lyric flub? Or have they actually changed a line of this song after nearly 30 years?!

The change is in the bridge: she sings "I love him, but when the night is over; he is gone, the river's just a river. IN THE DARKNESS, the world around me changes...."

Thr original lyric, of course, is "WITHOUT HIM, the world around me changes..."

Like I said, she did this both nights. Could it be a mental block, and simply an error she repeated? (This on a night when karimloo transposed two lines in the prologue and Swenson flubbed a line too). Or have they changed this lyric for good?


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I really doubt the lyric has been intentionally changed....

Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:14 am EDT 03/15/14
In reply to: On my own - lyric change or flub? - Drew288 01:38 am EDT 03/15/14

...because if it has been, the new version makes no sense whatsoever. The song is all about how, at night, Eponine dreams that Marius is her lover ("I walk with him till morning"), but then, "when the night is over, he is gone, the river's just a river." She then sings about the reality of the daytime: "Without him, the world around me changes."

So, in singing "in the darkness" instead of "without him," Nikki James must have flubbed the lyric -- in two separate performances, by your report. Of course, "in the darkness" appears earlier in the song, sung to the equivalent musical phrase. So I suppose she just wasn't thinking, and sang it twice.

When the revival of FIDDLER was playing I heard Sally Murphy as Tzeitel sing the same set of lyrics twice in "Matchmaker," in the "Hodel, oh Hodel..." section. And I heard her do this on two separate occasions, once in the show itself, and the other time in one of those outdoor promotional events (I'm pretty sure it was "Stars in the Alley"). Anyone can flub a lyric, but since I heard her do this twice, it gave me the impression that she wasn't really thinking about what she was communicating, and was more or less singing by rote.


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re: On my own - lyric change or flub?

Posted by: Drew288 01:39 am EDT 03/15/14
In reply to: On my own - lyric change or flub? - Drew288 01:38 am EDT 03/15/14

The reason I *love* theatre. :-)


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re: On my own - lyric change or flub?

Posted by: bwaydiva1 08:56 am EDT 03/15/14
In reply to: re: On my own - lyric change or flub? - Drew288 01:39 am EDT 03/15/14

They changed it I think. I was there the other night and it was the same.

Loved Ms. James' rendition of the song, by the way.


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re: On my own - lyric change or flub?

Posted by: mikem 11:11 am EDT 03/15/14
In reply to: re: On my own - lyric change or flub? - bwaydiva1 08:56 am EDT 03/15/14

This is an example of a lyric change that I just don't get. Why change the lyric now, after all these years? Is the new lyric better at illuminating some aspect of the song? There's nothing wrong with the original lyric IMO. And the new lyric doesn't make that much sense. She just said the night is over, so why is she singing about being in the darkness?


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re: On my own - lyric change or flub?

Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:21 am EDT 03/15/14
In reply to: re: On my own - lyric change or flub? - mikem 11:11 am EDT 03/15/14

See my post above. I can't believe the lyric was intentionally changed, for the reason both you and I stated. And if it was, in my opinion, that decision was made by someone who should not be in a position to make such decisions.

I guess the tendency is to give a performer the benefit of the doubt and not consider that she might have just made the same lyric flub in two separate performances, but as I noted in another case, it does happen.


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re: On my own - lyric change or flub?

Posted by: Chromolume 11:54 am EDT 03/15/14
In reply to: re: On my own - lyric change or flub? - Michael_Portantiere 11:21 am EDT 03/15/14

The stage manager should be on her about this. Hopefully it's been fixed by now.


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