Sondheim As I Understand Him, From A Woman Who Has Seen About One Cumulative Hour Of Sondheim’s Work And Almost Certainly Misunderstood It -The Toast

Jeremy, The Handsome Gay Man Who Didn’t Want To Get Lunch With Anyone

Oooh It’s Me, Shan’t Jeremy

Everybody Doesn’t Like Being Married Or Having Lunch But We’ll Do It Anyways

Wanting Things Is Terrible

Stop Working At Your Art And Infidelity With Me, Jeremy

Why Doesn’t Anyone Love Me Just Because I’m Always Complaining

Everybody’s Jeremy And That’s Bad

This Infidelity Is Old And Tiresome And Every Day I Have A Salad

I Wonder If The Ends Will Justify The Means

Ooh, Let’s Never Don’t Go To The Circus, Shan’t

Have You Been Careful What You Wished For Lately

Because Maybe Wishes Aren’t Good

Have You Ever Thought About That Hmm Maybe

You Are Not Truly Living, You Life-Observer

The Most Wonderful Thing Is No

Stop Wishing Because Of The Aforementioned How Bad Wanting Things Is

I Only Love The Dangerous Sex Man Even Though It Hurts Me

But Who Shall I Buy Bracelets For Now

Let’s Break Up And Go Inside

Stab Everybody

Oh No, I Got What I Wanted And It’s Just Terrible, Who Could Have Foreseen This Would Happen

Marriage Is Just Murder Every Day Until You’re Dead From It

I Cheated On You Because Of Ennui And You Can’t Blame Me For Free-Floating Feelings Of Purposelessness

Women Love Attention But I Only Love Art

Oh The Surface Looks Good But Guess What’s Underneath It: The Worst Things, But I Bet You Didn’t Notice Because You’re A Real Surface-Looker, You Are

I’m Rich And Mean And Getting Some Iced Tea With A Table Full Of Real Bitches

We Should Be Happy But Aren’t, Isn’t That Interesting

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

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+8 Vote up Vote down

typewriterandgramophone 124p · 465 weeks ago

And if you want a version you can kind of hum, there's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbBh69Pa4PY

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1 reply · active 465 weeks ago

+153 Vote up Vote down

ppyajunebug 137p · 465 weeks ago

IDK Mallory, I think you and The Witch would get along pretty well

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7 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+134 Vote up Vote down

summerestherson 113p · 465 weeks ago

"I’m Rich And Mean And Getting Some Iced Tea With A Table Full Of Real Bitches" - life goal, tbh

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4 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+80 Vote up Vote down

britomartian 138p · 465 weeks ago

Am I not sensitive,
Clever,
Well-mannered,
Considerate,
Passionate,
Charming,
As kind as I'm handsome
And heir to a throne?

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7 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+36 Vote up Vote down

dreadfulwind 156p · 465 weeks ago

My only experience with Sondheim comes from exactly one quarter of a college opera company's performance of A Little Night Music half a decade ago, which consisted of about forty minutes of eighteen-year-olds floating wanly about a stage moaning sadly about Failed-Ish Marriage And The Happy Days Of The Past. Anything so direct as these numbers would have been a welcome change.

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20 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+83 Vote up Vote down

Sanjay 154p · 465 weeks ago

This is so accurate it is uncanny.

If you gave Mallory another fifteen minutes of data she could reproduce through inference the entire libretto to Company.

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5 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+93 Vote up Vote down

stirringsofconsciousness 117p · 465 weeks ago

YOU ARE WRONG AND NOT RIGHT AND NICOLE IS RIGHT AND SONDHEIM IS BEAUTIFUL AND ART AND SOMETIMES THERE IS AN AMAZING UNEXPECTED RHYME AND IT WILL STUN YOU INTO TRANSCENDENCE.

*ahem*

I've been in Anyone Can Whistle and I still love him.

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11 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+101 Vote up Vote down

ppyajunebug 137p · 465 weeks ago

I’m Rich And Mean And Getting Some Iced Tea With A Table Full Of Real Bitches

(i am going to spend the rest of the day digging for sondheim gifs aren't i)

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4 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+97 Vote up Vote down

houblonchouffe 123p · 465 weeks ago

Going To Cram So Many Words Into This Right Now, You'll Never Believe It

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1 reply · active 465 weeks ago

+10 Vote up Vote down

asthecrowflies_ 133p · 465 weeks ago

Friggin' Jeremy,

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+45 Vote up Vote down

giltay · 465 weeks ago

Maybe I'm just a nerd, but I always liked "Hello, Japan, We Are Five Western Empires Here to Screw You Over".

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2 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+24 Vote up Vote down

littlehuntingcreek 135p · 465 weeks ago

"Wanting Things Is Terrible"

true'r words have ne'er been spoken

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+41 Vote up Vote down

threatqualitypress 136p · 465 weeks ago

also EAT THE RICH

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2 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+100 Vote up Vote down

houblonchouffe 123p · 465 weeks ago

The Impossibility Of That Chord, And Also That One

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2 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+4 Vote up Vote down

Mrs_Peel 117p · 465 weeks ago

It's all truuuuuuuuuuue

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+90 Vote up Vote down

annecara 125p · 465 weeks ago

I Wonder If The Ends Will Justify The Means

the ends justify the BEANS dammit, get it right

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1 reply · active 465 weeks ago

+86 Vote up Vote down

coloredlights 102p · 465 weeks ago

I dunno, Mallory, I'm a bona-fide musical theatre nerd and I'm pretty sure that last line does sum up Sondheim.

"We Should Be Happy but Aren't, Isn't That Interesting"...enough for multiple three-hour musicals, apparently.

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1 reply · active 465 weeks ago

+71 Vote up Vote down

VioletandIrises 120p · 465 weeks ago

Young Women Do Have Feelings and Older Women Can Still be Vivacious, Despite What Men Think

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1 reply · active 465 weeks ago

+35 Vote up Vote down

Mrs_Peel 117p · 465 weeks ago

UNPOPULAR OPINION: Musicals should have either Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly tap-dancing in them and should otherwise not exist.

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6 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+33 Vote up Vote down

msbias 123p · 465 weeks ago

Came away from SweeneybTodd declaiming everything on a rising seventh.

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+46 Vote up Vote down

naglayaxuliganka 108p · 465 weeks ago

"What's with All These Chords - What's with All These Weird Chords" (Joss + Sondheim = something terrible and beautiful and probably everyone will die in the end, but I would still love to see that).

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1 reply · active 465 weeks ago

+86 Vote up Vote down

grumblyqueer 139p · 465 weeks ago

I Just Really Hate Sopranos, Also Wouldn't It Be Fun If An Entire Generation Of Theatre Kids Tortured Themselves Trying To Get All These Tongue-Twisters Right?

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1 reply · active 465 weeks ago

+28 Vote up Vote down

Hattingmad · 465 weeks ago

Do You Know What Is Interesting? Death and Dismemberment and Things Ending Badly Because That Is Life Also Here Is A Witty Song That Is Equally Dark

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+34 Vote up Vote down

Gen · 465 weeks ago

My favorite has always been The Secret Service Would Like To Know Why You've Listened To This 12 Times In The Past 2 Weeks, Please, but I'm a bit of a weirdo.

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+20 Vote up Vote down

_bartleby 115p · 465 weeks ago

There's also this, one of my favorite songs in Merrily We Roll Along: "The Kennedys Are a Metaphor"

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+29 Vote up Vote down

thezlot 120p · 465 weeks ago

Marriage Is Just Murder Every Day Until You’re Dead From It is my favorite song from A Little Night Music

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+17 Vote up Vote down

StoatCat 138p · 465 weeks ago

My favorite song is I'm A Middle-Aged Woman and Wish To Know If I Can Really Have It All, Especially That Hot Guy's Attention and Affection

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+24 Vote up Vote down

alula_auburn 106p · 465 weeks ago

The Forbidden Broadway parodies of Sondheim are fantastic. Into the Words!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHyj1ibaJKg

"Into the words, the metaphors, the synonyms, the perfect scans . . . Into the words, the detail and the tricky little phrases. . .and never repeat a word or bridge, this isn't Jerry Herman!

My thoughts are clear (if understood), I have no peer 'cause I'm so good, the score is the star, the stars are just wood, I sort of hate to ask it but what's a rhyme for basket?"

And also because I can no longer see Raul Esparza without silently humming "Being Intense" because he always is.

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2 replies · active 465 weeks ago

+5 Vote up Vote down

Carina · 465 weeks ago

I wanted so much not to like this.

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+12 Vote up Vote down

captainbartlet 89p · 465 weeks ago

I don't want to admit that you're right, so I'm fuming in a corner while blasting Sunday in the Park With George while also crying and thinking about whether my religion permits me to construct a shrine beneath my autographed picture of Bernadette Peters. I'm leaning yes.

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