| Sondheim's sense of rhyme and reason | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 08:17 pm EDT 08/12/22 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 08:09 pm EDT 08/12/22 | |
| In reply to: Jesse Green’s comment on “The Miller’s Son.” - Delvino 07:38 pm EDT 08/12/22 | |
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| Stephen Sondheim has often said he found his lyrics to ''West Side Story'' ''embarrassing'': ''I had spent the previous year of my life rhyming ‘day’ and ‘way’ and ‘me’ and ‘be’ and with ‘I Feel Pretty’ I wanted to show that I could do inner rhymes, too. So I had this uneducated Puerto Rican girl singing ‘It’s alarming how charming I feel.’ You KNOW she would have not been unwelcome in Noel Coward’s living room.'' So how does that square with his lyrics for Petra, a country maid, in ''A Little Night Music''? Her brilliant, big solo, ''The Miller's Son,'' is packed with wordplay, full of witty rhymes and a litany of alliterations: ''It's a wink and a wiggle And a giggle on the grass And I'll trip the light fandango A pinch and a diddle In the middle of what passes by. ''It's a very short road From the pinch and the punch To the paunch and the pouch And the pension It's a very short road To the ten-thousandth lunch And the belch and the grouch And the sigh ...'' I looked up ''Finishing the Hat,'' Sondheim's collected lyrics (1954-81), to see if he offered any insights, but it's unannotated. Thoughts? |
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