Cringeworthy Lyrics

[Mr Roxy]

From the musical Judah Ben Hur

The Song - The Love Of A Horse

Lyrics:

A horse always knows who holds the reins
But a bride'll put a bridle on you

It gets worse

[sondheimboy2]

From "Jekyl & Hyde":

Murder, Murder in London
Murder, Murder can't be undone..

[Dollypop]

From ANNIE GET YOUR GUN:

"Her nails'll be polished and in her hair
She'll wear a gardenia and I'll be there."

Where will he be? In her hair?

[wonderwaiter]

If her nails are in her hair, where is she wearing the gardenia?

[Dollypop]

Very true indeed.

[philly03]

From Jekyll & HYDE:

"To kill outside St. Paul's
requires a lot of balls"

[gvendo2005]

^ Does it bother anyone else that all three of those have such a similar meter that one could set them to that bit of music from J&H?

[HeyMrMusic]

From Cold as Ice, the musical featuring an onstage ice rink and Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul:

Where it's cold, there is ice.
We don't swim; that's not nice.
Where it's cold, there is snow.
We don't surf, you should know.
Oh, we get lots of snow in Canada.
We're tough guys, you know, in Canada.
We don't do what we're told in Canada.
We're bolder than bold in Canada.

And my personal favorite lyric:

When one door closes,
A window will ajar.

~Steven

[matineeidol2013]

I always thought "Paris Makes me Horny" from "Victor/Victoria" had its share of cringeworthy lyrics:

Been ta Bussels could use some red corpuscles.
Tried Toronto, departed "molto pronto".
Paris makes me tingle;
Makes me glad and single.
London's okay, if it's for one day.
Oh, but Paris makes me sexy
In this solar plexy

for those of you who dont know the song, please take a look at the rest of the lyrics. theyre totally laughable. i didnt wanna post the entire song to make the post to long!

[sondheimboy2]

And who are the "Victor/Victoria" and "Jekyll & Hyde" lyrics by?

Leslie Bricusse

He is like the proverbial Little Girl with Little Curl. When he's good, he's very good and, when he's bad, he's GOD-AWFULL!

Another howler is "If you don't sit still / you'll have the face of Edith Sitwell" from "Aspects of Love" lyrics by Don Black

[ljay889]

My signature.

[jagfkb]

Sunset Boulevard, but in particular: With One Look & the title song... I'm sorry, someone buy that lyricist a thesaurus... really... and when will ALW & TR make up & write beautiful music again? I rest my case...

[rjm516]

Definitely not among the MOST cringe worthy, but the line that always makes me cringe is in Next to Normal, when Henry sings about the dance and says "and it's cheese." no no no!

[AwesomeDanny]

"Pharaoh's Dreams Explained" from Joseph:
"All these things you saw in your pajamas
Are a long-range forecast for your farmers"
There are many other times in that show where he rhymes "--or" with "--aw". I hate half-rhymes, but the one above just makes me so angry whenever I hear it.

*edited because I was relying on my memory of a song I haven't heard in months

[CATSNYrevival]

Some of you are misquoting these "cringeworthy" lyrics...

[Scarywarhol]

I agree on Sunset Boulevard, and With One Look in particular. Absolutely horrible. Such a great story...PERFECT material for a musical. And Webber wrote, I think, his most purely beautiful score for the show. And he insists on the lyrics being just dreadful. I'm convinved he wants his shows to have bad lyrics on purpose; the last two solid decades could not have been an accident. Maybe so the focus is on the music.

[Here I Am]

THANK YOU to whoever wrote "To kill outside St. Paul's requires a lot of balls!" Worst lyric ever.

And I think the score to 'Jekyll and Hyde' is beautiful, but many of the lyrics are cringeworthy.

"My fear is he's in over his head
He can lose control and that I dread."

Wow! Awful, just awful.

[philly03]

Pretty sure we could just copy / paste the lyrics to "Murder, Murder" and all be satisfied, but it's too fun picking them apart.

"Murder, Murder doin' folks in
Murder, Murder it's the worst sin!
Murder, Murder's got me screamin'
Bloody Murder in the night!"


Another from WONDERLAND that how could I forget!
Don't Wanna Fall in Love:

"The crashing board, the stalking ex
The fights before the make-up sex
No love can't be impossibly complex"

Finding Wonderland:
"So when I close my eyes, I just remember and
I can't help finding Wonderland"

"So when I close my eyes, I see forever and
I keep on finding Wonderland"

Suchhh good and thoughtful rhyming and and Wonderland, Jack Murphy!

[HeyMrMusic]

That's actually terrible, philly. I had no idea lyrics could get that bad. Rhyming "-er and" with "Wonderland"? Ugh.

~Steven

[philly03]

It amazes me how BAD Jack Murphy can be...I think hiss worst is worse than Briscusse.

[Elke]

From Wicked:

"Nessa, uh, Nessa
I got something to confess a
reason why (...)"

[mallardo]

Whoa, I like that lyric from Dancing Through Life - I like all the lyrics in Wicked with their clever internal rhymes and feel like the attacks were totally undeserved.

[adamgreer]

It's so much fun to make fun of Jekyll and Hyde lyrics, particularly Murder Murder! Here's another gem:

He hates the upper class!
He must be on his ass!
Who could this be?
Don't look at me!

[Mr Roxy]

Another gem from Love Of A Horse

"A stable wife is rare I'm sorry to admit
But a mare'll never dare talk back to you - Na-a-ay

[James885]

Here's some more from Murder, Murder:

"Look at this, another murder!/ Just like that other murder!"

"They've murdered dear old Bessie!/ I hear it extremely messy!"

I agree with whoever mentioned With One Look.

Love Never Dies also has some bad lyrics:

"And sometimes at nighttime I dream that you are there, but wake holding nothing but the empty air"

I'm sure that had to have been a more elegant way of conveying that particular line. The lyrics for "The Beauty Underneath" are pretty bad as well.

[Calvin]

Any lyric that rhymes "heart" and "never part." I'll just keep it general, so as not to pile on to the Wildhorn brigade, but there's one major offender of that in J&H.