With the recent announcement of a forthcoming volume of Stephen Sondheim’s collected lyrics, I wanted to devote some significant time and attention to the mastery of his words.  I’m going to organize in a completely artificial way–it’s impossible to separate out the qualities that make great art work–but figuring out those broad characteristics has been part of the fun of getting ready for this series.

Much of the strength of his lyrics comes from their sparkling wordplay, wit, rhythm, and rhyme–all things I’ll get to eventually.  But none of these would matter nearly so much if what the lyrics convey (again, false division between form and content) weren’t thought provoking, emotionally challenging, and significantly meaningful.  So that’s where I’m going to start.

It’s easy to make the claim that most theater lyrics are baldly declarative:  ”I love you!,” “I want x!,” “I need an excuse to tap dance.”  Songs from musicals typically express a single heightened emotion and are used to suggest significant shifts (which is fine–there’s nothing inherently wrong with that), but they don’t necessarily suggest complexity of emotion.  

I would argue that Sondheim, though, is particularly adept at crafting lyrics that represent human emotion doing more than merely shifting from highs to lows or from love to despair. His lyrics have the quality of exposing, as he puts it, all the “rumblings beneath the surface.”

“Is it always or? Is it never and?” (The Baker’s Wife, Into the Woods)

I’ll start with a classic example of “and, not or,” from the classic ”and, not or” show about love and marriage: “Sorry-Grateful” from Company (1970). This lyric is the response to the main character’s question to a good friend: “Harry, you ever sorry you got married?”

You’re always sorry,
You’re always grateful,
You hold her, thinking:
“I’m not alone.”
You’re still alone.

Good things get better, bad get worse.
Wait, I think I meant that in reverse.

You’re sorry-grateful,
Regretful-happy.
Why look for answers
When none occur?
You’ll always be what you always were,
Which has nothing to do with, all to do with her.

While there are moments there that suggest confusion, it’s less that the character doesn’t know what he’s feeling and more that he’s feeling those two conflicting emotions at the same time.

Similarly, ”Marry Me a Little” from the same production sounds, by title alone, like a song a lesser writer might have penned with bitterness or confusion (or worse, for laughs) because it suggests a complication that seems impossible, akin to being a little bit pregnant. But Sondheim treats that notion of emotional ambivalence with heartbreaking earnestness as the song begins:

Marry me a little, 
Love me just enough. 
Cry, but not too often, 
Play, but not too rough.
Keep a tender distance 
so we’ll both be free. 
That’s the way it ought to be. 
I’m ready! 

Of course this character is not ready for much of anything in terms of the traditional conception of romantic commitment, but again, it’s not that the character doesn’t know what he wants.  Rather, he’s asking for something that’s a bit more complicated than what characters typically sing about.

To close, I’ll move on to an example that’s less striking in some ways because its language is simpler, but it’s also more profound because that simplicity helps achieve the song’s effect.  The song “Our Time” from Merrily We Roll Along (1981) closes the show, but the narrative is told in reverse.  The audience, therefore, has seen the shambles of a friendship and artistic collaboration shared by two men and a woman slowly return to its loving, optimistic roots, expressed here as:

Something is stirring,
Shifting ground …
It’s just begun.
Edges are blurring
All around,
And yesterday is done.

Feel the flow,
Hear what’s happening:
We’re what’s happening.
Don’t you know?
We’re the movers and we’re the shapers.
We’re the names in tomorrow’s papers.
Up to us now to show ‘em …

It’s our time, breathe it in:
Worlds to change and worlds to win.
Our turn coming through,
Me and you, pal,
Me and you!

True, this moment’s complexity comes from its position in the structure of the play as much as anything in the language of the lyrics themselves. But its success is derived from the fact that it is to be experienced as a youthful, heartfelt vision of the future and as a tragic reminder of the failure of that vision–not one or the other. Ignoring one of the readings robs the song of its potency.