worst songs from musicals

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: WyoWoman
Date: 15 Aug 00 - 11:41 PM

Now where was that song when I was a kid growing up in Oklahoma and being forced to sing the State Song every time I turned around? (Of course, on family trips when we'd come back into Oklahoma's borders, the entire family would break out into a rousing version of the song (the original, not Catspaw's version). Imagine my parents' surprise if i had broken into a song about big bazooms and words that rhymed with truck ...

It might have been nicely astringent ...

ww/pansy rue twidgett

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 12:00 AM

Tell you what Pansy........Catspaw is really an old word of unknown origins meaning "cretinous hick."

Spaw

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: GUEST, Banjo Johnny
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 12:06 AM

I thought it was a dupe, stooge, or patsie.

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: WyoWoman
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 12:35 AM

Like I didn't already know that ...

And Twidgett is a family name from the old country meaning something like "big bazooms bouncing in rain-soaked tee shirts ..." It loses a little in the translation...

Welcome back, by the way, Mr. Spaw. Where were you?

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: DougR
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 01:01 AM

K. C.: Time to buy a new towel!

Doug

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 01:22 AM

Wyo...OUCH grin OUCH grin OUCH grin

Spaw has a real talent for taking something wholesome and noble like "Oklahoma!" and putting it right in the gutter,don't he? What's next? Maybe Catsh*t!...

Midnight
And I can't find my condoms
lying on the Verandum
with her legs in the air
Restraint
was always my weak attribute
But in nine months I'll be in DubuqueSo why should i care?

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 09:49 AM

I think I see a future collaboaration on the scale of R&H, L&L, or even ALW&ALW! Leej & Spaw ... "Musicals from the Gutter.".............couldn't be any worse than "Phantom."

Spaw

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 04:57 PM

Thanks for posting,Catspaw. I was afraid I'd slain the threAD with that last one...and by the way,whi in hell has the patience to keep posting to the "killing the thread" thread? I can't believe it's above 300 posts now

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: WyoWoman
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 07:26 PM

Some things are even more difficult to understand than crop circles. Posting bahavior, for one ....

ww

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: GUEST,C Dye
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 08:09 PM

Personal least favorite: "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story, although I _loved_ what the muppets did to it.

If you like parodies of musicals, see if you can find the CD's for "Forbidden Broadway":

"God it's high. This song's too high. Pity me, Change the key..."

Personally, I love musicals, having been lullabied to sleep with my mom's collection of 78's. "Bali Hai" was the one of the few piano pieces I ever memorized. Of course, she usually had the Broadway versions of songs, which weren't always as cleaned up as the movie versions.

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: GUEST,Pelrad
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 11:40 PM

WyoWoman -
I have the videotape of Sweeney Todd; I have nearly worn it out. My darling husband bought it for me our first Christmas together because I was moping around the library after someone stole their only copy. Sondheim is the Best! I am not sure what company Marc got it from, and he's not awake to ask at the moment. I'll let you know in a day or two, though, if nobody else has found it for you. (Incidentally, we were out in your neck of the woods recently; visited Laramie for a week!)

I haven't seen/heard enough musicals to declare the absolute worst, but I can't stand most of Andrew Lloyd Weber's work. For some reason, much of Phantom doesn't bother me, but someone gave me two cds once, one was a Weber sampler by Michael Crawford and the other was the soundtrack to Song and Dance. *shudder*

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: L R Mole
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:56 AM

I think Catsp has the right idea. Parody rules! Yankee Doodle Phantom! "I'm the Phantom of the Op'pra/ Swinging on the chandelier...."

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: Mbo
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 12:01 PM

Sweeney Todd was the most non-medolic "music" I've ever heard. And you are the same people who don't like rock. Hypocrites.

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 12:17 PM

First meebo, I said I had no idea why I liked it as I hate the tripe of ALW which is without melody and has very contrived lyrics. Maybe we just like the story of Sweeney.

But I am overjoyed to find some piece of music that you dislike!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 01:39 PM

Sinsull, I got yer back... I don't like musicals either... (but then again, yer on yer own for the opera thing.. Not my cup of tea) Musicals all tend to strike me as shallow, bubblegum entertainment... I put 'em up there with Disney movies... with the exception of Sweeny... A great dark tale... Wonderful minor key music... And well, the first time I saw it, had Angela Lans. as Ms. What'sHerName! Too funny!

Pelrad! I'd kiss yer feet for a copy of the vid of Sweeny! P.M. me and maybe we can work something out...

{~`

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: Shanti
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 02:37 PM

Stephen Sondheim's music is not known for melody...to parody Into the Woods, the point is to go Into the words...(not original, from Forbidden Broadway Vol. 2). His music is difficult to sing for that reason. It's a little like singing Gilbert and Sullivan. Lots and lots of words.

If you want parody, I highly recommend Forbidden Broadway, all volumes.

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: Peter T.
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 05:58 PM

I was brought up on all those old Broadway musicals, have appeared in productions of some of them, and am biased in favour of virtually all of them. Some have partial flaws -- "Annie Get Your Gun" has lots of junk (but whatever Ethel Merman sings is O.K. by me) -- and "Sound of Music" is in a camp league of its own, but for sheer craft they beat almost everything else in the theatre. Songs I dislike from these shows, balanced by some really exquisite songs from the same shows:

"Down on McConachie Square" from Brigadoon, surrounded by beautiful things.

"Bushel and a Peck" from Guys and Dolls, the least good song.

"The Ocarina Song" from Call Me Madam. But it does have Ethel!! (And the soundtrack is OUT OF PRINT, AND HAS BEEN FOR 10 YEARS!!!)

"Farmers and the Cowmen" from Oklahoma. Never could stand that song, or the Agnes de Mille choreography in that scene. (PS "Pore Jud Is Daid" is only superficially a comic song, given the plot).

Worst moment in film musicals: The excruciating last scene in "The Band Wagon".

Second worst moment in musicals of any description: The "can someone slap you and make it seem like a kiss?" scene at the end of Carousel. Has all those lovely songs though, even the best maybe: "If I Loved You". The recent revivals toughened the whole thing up: the recordings (the London and New York productions) are very interesting -- Audra MacDonald on the New York.

Anything Sondheim does is interesting. Even the boring ones!!!
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: L R Mole
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 01:20 PM

Someone in the New Yorker, I think, had a list of "prequels", one of which was "Sand and Prime Your Wagon". Snort.

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: GUEST,lamarca
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 05:09 PM

Having worked in community theater for years, there is nothing quite so bad as an amateur production of musical that's bad or trite to begin with.

I love West Side Story - all except for "I Feel Pretty" (Sondheim getting a bit maudlin, there). Bernstein's orchestral finale as they're carrying Tony's body offstage still sends chills down my spine.

I grew up reading T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" and was really excited when I heard there was a musical made from the poems. It was the first, and last, A.L. Weber musical I ever attended - the music and adaptations of the poems were dreck, the characterizations of the cats were awful (the Rum-Tum-Tugger as an Elvis/Jagger impersonator???) - but the sets were great. That seems to be the pattern for Weber musicals; spend lots of money on fancy sets and special effects, and hope the audience doesn't notice the music and songs are crap.

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 08:22 AM

For all the bad songs and idiotic plots of musicals, I must admit I love 'em. Where else could I have possibly gotten the notion that perfectly reasonable people burst into song at the most unlikely moments in front of thousands of people who also just happen to know the tune?

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 05:51 AM

As musicals go Paint Your Wagon was ok. It was meant to be kind of funny with a bit of a moral tale to it the songs and the songs were passable menmorable tunes except when Clint Eastwood made this feeble attempt to sing a song called 'I talk to the Trees.' I imagined the men in white coats jumping out to take him away for a rest in a secure building somewhere!

Subject: RE: worst songs from musicals
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 05:59 AM

What's going on here?

worst songs from musicals
Worst performance I've ever seen.
Worst accent or what?
what's the worst song you ever heard?

Four nasty old threads, all revived in the last couple of days.
Has the grumpy fairy been set on Mudcat?