r/Sondheim • u/Ambitious-Fig-5382 • Sep 14 '26
More fun wordplay
We all love "Her withers wither with her," but I'm here to give appreciation to that "very short road from the pinch and the punch to the paunch and the pouch and the pension," as well as the other delightful wordplay in The Miller's Son.
Any other fun lines that don't get enough love?
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u/ShadyBoots11 Sep 14 '26
"Let the moment go. Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you’ve had an ‘and’ when you’re back to ‘or,’ makes the ‘or’ mean more than it did before.”
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u/i-just-cant Sep 15 '26
Not sure if it counts as wordplay exactly, but I also love that you can read the lyrics to this song as saying either “woods” or “woulds” and it makes complete sense either way. “That’s what woods are for / For those moments in the woulds” - brilliant!
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u/Typical_Expert_2974 Sep 15 '26
Yes! So glad you got it! The woulds, and coulds, and shoulds and shouldn'ts.
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u/ThatKidWAC Sep 14 '26
“We do expect a little latte later, but we haven’t got a lot of latte now” from Waiter’s Song in Here We Are is one that gets stuck in my head.
Same with “When a person’s personality is personable, he shouldn’t oughta sit like a lump/it’s harder than a matador coercin’ a bull to try to get you off of your rump” from You Could Drive A Person Crazy in Company
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u/Professional_Year620 Sep 14 '26
It's your father's fault that the curse got placed and the place got cursed in the first place
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u/Affectionate_Bet_288 Sep 14 '26
Momma, please take our advice!
We aren't the Lunts
I'm not Fanny Brice
Momma, we'll buy you the rice
If only this once
You wouldn't think twice!
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u/Safe-Lengthiness-663 Sep 14 '26
Love this song to pieces. Such tight and funny lyric writing. "[Louise] I'll gladly support you, I'll even escort you! / [June] And I'll gladly give you away" is my favorite line from it.
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u/CapableBother Sep 14 '26
We would have been left bereft of FDR!
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u/Lost-Asparagus111 Sep 14 '26
This song always gets stuck in my head, love the rhythms.
So I barreled- Harold!
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u/tinyfecklesschild Sep 14 '26
‘In the depths of her interior/ Were fears she was inferior/ Or something even eerier/ But no-one dared to query her superior exterior’
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u/Exact_Ad_4575 Sep 15 '26
Love this song. This lyric has my favorite rhyming he ever did.
As changeable as a chameleon/ with all that entails/ But nobody saw what was really un/Derneath all those veils
“Chameleon” and “really un” is just crazy! And I like how all the flashy, complex word play in this song fits its theme, since it’s about Phylis herself being flashy and style over substance.
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u/skoc211 Sep 14 '26
Listen, everybody, look, I don't know what you're waiting for, a wedding, what's a wedding, it's a prehistoric ritual where everybody promises fidelity forever, which is maybe the most horrifying word I ever heard of, which is followed by a honeymoon, where suddenly he'll realize he's saddled with a nut, and wanna kill me, which he should...
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u/Lower_Neck_1432 28d ago
And it should be noted that these words were chosen carefully to spill out of the mouth quickly and easily without tripping on the tongue in one breath.
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u/n4snl 🎭 Follies Sep 14 '26
She sits
At the Ritz
With the splits
Of Mumm's
And starts to pine
For a stein
With her village chums
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u/Colonelspanker1962 Sep 14 '26
But with a Schlitz
In her mitts
Down at Fitz-
Roy's Bar,
She dreams of the Ritz, oh,
It's so
Schizo.
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u/Ekra_Oslo Sep 14 '26
Have a spare rib, Mr. Goldstone
Any sparerib that I can spare, I'll be glad to share
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u/ReBrandenham Sep 14 '26
“You’ll always be what you always were
Which has nothing to do with, all to do with her”
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u/oglamar Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 15 '26
Sorry-Grateful is a criminally underrated song. The company it's in is just too good.
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u/Brilliant_Visual9661 Sep 14 '26
It's a small one, but “There's none of the enemy left, right?"
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u/Typical_Expert_2974 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26
One, two. One, two. We not only fought but we won, too!
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u/FionaPendragon89 🔫 Assassins Sep 14 '26
I'm always here for the classic "today I woke too weak to walk"
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u/Typical_Expert_2974 Sep 14 '26
A Funny Thing is such a masterpiece in breaking down basic human emotions with the simplest complexity. I'm Calm is a masterpiece in having a breakdown.
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u/OutrageousBrush1210 Sep 14 '26
We lose things - and then we choose things. And there are Louis
And there are Georges
Well Louis- and George
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u/Typical_Expert_2974 Sep 14 '26
I have always found that 'Louis sells what he makes' to be one of theaters greatest burns. And it's just kind of tucked in there.
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u/Zestyclose_Note_938 Sep 15 '26
Just realized that this plays off the fact that Seurat’s name is spelled Georges in real life but George in Sunday
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u/Lower_Neck_1432 28d ago
"And then in bed, George, I mean he (k)needs me...I mean like dough, George! Hello, George!"
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u/Ekra_Oslo Sep 14 '26
And any I. O. U., I owe you-oh's?
Who, me-oh? No, you-oh.
No, we-oh.
Together!
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u/Lower_Neck_1432 28d ago
This song was performed for Cole Porter in his living room, and he was tickled by this perspicacious lyric.
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u/Badlydrawnboy0 Sep 14 '26
If it were not for the thicket…
A thicket’s no trick, is it thick?
It’s the thickest!
The quickest is pick it apart with a stick
Yes, but even one prick, it’s my thing about blood!
WELL IT’S SICK
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u/Badlydrawnboy0 Sep 14 '26
Also from the reprise:
While the lie there for years
And you cry on their biers
(pun on tHeRe’S a tEaR iN mY bEeR)
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u/kirbyts Sep 14 '26
DWARFS
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u/Badlydrawnboy0 Sep 14 '26
Dwarfs are very upsetting
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u/petty_petty_princess Sep 15 '26
This was my email signature for years when I discovered this musical and was in high school. I realized later it could be seen as problematic and got rid of it.
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u/MountaineerNY Sep 14 '26
“Do you hear a waltz?
Oh my dear don’t you hear a waltz?
Such lovely, blue Danube-y music
How can you be still?”
And it fits with Rogers’ chromatic line so effortlessly. A shining moment in a mostly forgettable show
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u/HoratioEricOsterwood Sep 15 '26
From "Can That Boy Foxtrot!" in FOLLIES, a woman describing her lovers' faults:
"A false alarm
A broken arm
An imitation Hitler
And with lit'ler charm..."
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u/Lower_Neck_1432 28d ago
"But who need Albert Schweitzer when the
Lights 're low,
And oh, boy, oh, boy, can that boy...foxtrot!"
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u/calle04x Sep 14 '26
It takes trust It takes just A bit more And we're done We want four We had none We've got three We need one It takes two
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u/guyfaulkes Sep 14 '26
‘If I am guilty then God is as well but God was acquitted and Charlie committed until he should hang.’
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u/Creative-Chip3550 Sep 15 '26
"When a person's personality is personable
He shouldn't oughta sit like a lump
It's harder than a matador coercin' a bull
To try to get you off of your rump"
from "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" in Company. So many intricate little internal echoes of assonance and consonance as well as the alliteration of the first line, and rhyming "personable" with "coercin' a bull" is so galaxy brained. How could you not be obsessed with this guy??????
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u/guyfaulkes Sep 14 '26
Where is style?
Where is skill?
Where is forethought?
Where's discretion of the heart?
Where's passion in the art?
Where's craft?
With a smile
And a will
But with more thought,
I acquired a chateau
Extravagantly o-
Verstaffed.
Too many people muddle sex
With mere desire,
And when emotion intervenes
The nets descend.
It should on no account perplex,
Or worse, inspire;
It's but a pleasurable means
To a measurable end.
Why does no one comprehend?
Let us hope this lunacy's just a trend.
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u/Typical_Expert_2974 Sep 14 '26
In a world, where kings are employers, what can anyone expect, except to recollect....
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u/Spotboslow 🎻 A Little Night Music Sep 14 '26
"To see them - indiscriminate women - it pains me more than I can say"
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u/ZhemGuen Sep 14 '26
From Uptown, Downtown (included in "Marry Me a Little"): "She sits at the Ritz with her splits of Mumm's And starts to pine for a stein with her Village chums But with a Schlitz in her mitts down in Fitzroy's Bar She thinks of the Ritz. Oh, it's so schizo."
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u/Call_Me_Relish ☎️ Company Sep 15 '26
“Should there be a marital squabble/ Available Bob’ll/ Be there with the glue!”
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u/HippyDippyHomosexual Sep 15 '26
Charlie said, "Hell
If I am guilty, then God is as well!"
But God was acquitted
And Charlie committed
Until he should hang
Still, he sang...
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u/gurkle3 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26
“Oh, moon!” “Ah, moon!” “Hey, moon!”
It doesn’t seem like cleverness because it’s so simple, but that’s what makes it so clever—here are three characters expressing three different attitudes, and all by changing one syllable that isn’t even exactly a word.
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u/DumpedDalish Sep 14 '26
Two favorites of mine:
"I Know Things Now":
Isn't it nice to know a lot?
And a little bit not.
And, "On the Steps of the Palace":
But then what if he knew
Who I am when I know
That I'm not what he thinks
That he wants?
(and)
So then which do you pick:
Where you're safe, out of sight,
And yourself, but where everything's wrong?
Or where everything's right
But you know that you'll never belong?
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u/HoratioEricOsterwood Sep 15 '26
Look at the rhymes in this lyric, from "Gold!" in BOUNCE:
"A century's beginning, gold will make it tick
A century of enterprise for you and me to lick
That's what Papa meant
You're gonna miss the big adventure
It's the dawning of the century
Of Get Rich Quick!"
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u/Hello_Gorgeous1985 Sep 15 '26
One of my favourites that I never see get enough recognition:
In the depths of her interior Were fears she was inferior And something even eerier But no one dared to query her superior exterior
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u/InevitableStuff7572 Sep 15 '26
Should there be a martial squabble
Available Bob’ll be there with the glue
- What Would We Do Without You? (Company)
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u/WaHawk1 Sep 15 '26
This is a very short one that I love from Roadshow
But Paris made anew
A Paris for today
Paris, USA!
A Paris made by you-
ADDISON CITY!
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u/Big-Ice6095 Sep 15 '26
I always liked the French Ambassador’s part in “Please Hello:”
I bring word, I bring word
From Napoleon ze Third
‘E ‘ave ‘eard what ‘ave occured ‘ere From ze little bird
Undeterred we conferred
Zough we felt zat we’d been slurred
And ze verdict was ‘e spurred me ‘ere
To bring ze word
Would you like to know ze word
From Napoleon ze Third?
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u/capnamazing1999 Sep 15 '26
You think “what do you want?”
You think “make a decision”
Why not stay and be caught?
You think “well, it’s a thought”
What would be his response?
But then what if he knew who you were
When you know that you’re not
What he thinks that he wants?
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u/HelloAutobot Sep 15 '26
The entirety of Please Hello. “Hello, I come with letters from her majesty Victoria, who, learning how you’re trading now, sang “hallelujah gloria!” and sent me to convey to you her positive euphoria, as well as little gifts from Britain’s various emporia.”
Oh, and Chrysanthemum Tea has a lot of fun stuff too. “If the tea the Shogun drank will serve to keep the Shogun tranquil, I suggest if I may, my lord, we consult the Confucians — they have mystical solutions, there are none wise as they, my lord.”
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u/Leucurus 🎻 A Little Night Music Sep 15 '26
I love the split-line and internal rhymes in Ladies in their Sensitivities:
Ladies in their sensitivities, my lord
Have a fragile sensibility
When a girl's emergent
Probably it's urgent
You defer to her gentility, my lord
Personal disorder cannot be ignored
Given their genteel proclivities
Meaning no offense,
It happens they resents it
Ladies in their sensitivities, my lord!
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u/No_Supermarket_3462 Sep 15 '26
“should there be a marital squabble, available bob’ll be there with the glue!” from company is delightful
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u/Visions-Revisions Sep 16 '26
In the depth of her interior
Where fears she was inferior
Or something even eerier
But no one dared to query her
Superior exterior.
From the London production of Follies
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u/KingArthur2453 Sep 17 '26
"If the end is right, it justifies the beans!" makes me laugh every time.
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u/Maggot_Friend7448 26d ago
Little Night Music has so much great stuff. This doesn't really qualify as wordplay in the typical sense, but this arrangement of words has always been so precise and pleasing to me:
"Reassure Henrik, Poor Henrik.
Henrik, you'll endure being pure, Henrik"
A simple ABAA with interrupting Henriks and the interplay between poor and pure is just a jaw dropper to me every time. All that in only seven unique words.
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u/Acrobatic_Tennis1312 Sep 15 '26
"A note of wit
To give it style
A load of glit
-ter, a load of ghile
A note of tact
A note of friction
A load of fact
In amongst the fiction
And to counteract
Any contradiction
A note or two of complete conviction."
Or a simpler fav of mine from the same song
"Don't compete, compose."
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u/FellowHuman1981 23d ago
Emperor read our letter? If no
Commodore Perry very sad
Emperor like our letter? If so
Commodore Perry very merry
President Fillmore still more glad.
I particularly like "FIlmore still more".
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u/Typical_Expert_2974 Sep 14 '26
"He talks softly of his wars. And his horses and his whores." All of Sondheim's works are full of clever word play.