Background Image

...

If You Told Me To Write A Love Song Tonight, I'd Have A Lot Of Trouble. But If You Tell Me To Write A Love Song About A Girl With A Red Dress Who Goes Into A Bar And Is On Her Fifth Martini And Is Falling Off Her Chair, That's A Lot Easier, And It Makes Me Free To Say Anything I Want.

-Stephen Sondheim

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

If You Told Me

Stephen Sondheim

...

If You Told Me To Write A Love Song Tonight, I'd Have A Lot Of Trouble. But If You Tell Me To Write A Love Song About A Girl With A Red Dress Who Goes Into A Bar And Is On Her Fifth Martini And Is Falling Off Her Chair, That's A Lot Easier, And It Makes Me Free To Say Anything I Want.

Views: 4

Topic

More From Stephen Sondheim

Everyone Tells Tiny Lies, What's Important Really Is The Size.

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. . . . Now I Understand! And It's Time To Leave The Woods.

Success Is Like Failure, It's How You Perceive It, It's What You Do With It, Not How You Achieve It.

It's Not So Hard To Be Married, I've Done It Three Or Four Times.

Slotted Spoons Don't Hold Much Soup.

I'm A Lazy Writer. My Idea Of Heaven Is Not Writing. On The Other Hand, I'm Obviously Compulsive About It.

Teaching Is A Sacred Profession. And Art Is A Form Of Teaching.

Friendship, Obligation And Greed Are Not Good Enough Reasons To Write Anything.

Not Good Enough

You're So Nice. You're Not Good, You're Not Bad, You're Just Nice. I'm Not Good, I'm Not Nice, I'm Just Right. I'm The Witch. You're The World.

I'm Before Him On My Knees, And He Kisses Me He Assumes I Lose My Reason And I Do. Men Are Stupid, Men Are Vain, Love's Disgusting, Love's Insane, A Humiliating Business-oh How True.

All The Best Performers Bring To Their Role Something More, Something Different Than What The Author Put On Paper. That's What Makes Theatre Live. That's Why It Persists.

White. A Blank Page Or Canvas. The Challenge. Bring Order To The Whole Through Design, Composition, Tension, Balance, Light, And Harmony.

There's A Hole In The World Like A Great Black Pit And The Vermin Of The World Inhabit It And Its Morals Aren't Worth What A Pig Could Spit And It Goes By The Name Of London. At The Top Of The Hole Sit The Privileged Few Making Mock Of The Vermin In The Lonely Zoo Turning Beauty To Filth And Greed... I Too Have Sailed The World And Seen Its Wonders, For The Cruelty Of Men Is As Wonderous As Peru But There's No Place Like London!

When I Was Growing Up, There Was No Such Thing As Off-broadway. You Either Got Your Show On Or You Didn't.

A Song Is Such A Short Form ... That 'the Slightest Flaw Seems Like A Mountain.' And So Every Song Needs To Be Revised 'til It's Close To Perfection... But Achieving Perfection Takes A Lot Of Energy.

So Here's To The Girls On The Go Everybody Tries. Look Into Their Eyes, And You'll See What They Know: Everybody Dies. A Toast To That Invincible Bunch, The Dinosaurs Surviving The Crunch. Let's Hear It For The Ladies Who Lunch Everybody Rise!

If I Got Involved With The Chat Rooms And Facebook And Everything - I Would Probably Never Leave. That's Why I Don't Do It. I Literally Don't Do It. At All.

You Move Just A Finger, Say The Slightest Word, Something's Bound To Linger-be Heard.

Musicals Are — Particularly Musicals — Plays Also, But Musicals Particularly Are… The Last Collaborator Is Your Audience, And So You’ve Got To Wait ’til The Last Collaborator Comes In Before You Can Complete The Collaboration.

Oh If Life Were Made Of Moments Even Now And Then A Bad One--! But If Life Were Only Moments, Then You'd Never Know You Had One.

Automobile In America,chromium Steel In America,wire-spoke Wheel In America,very Big Deal In America!immigrant Goes To America,many Hellos In America,nobody Knows In America,puerto Rico's In America!i Like The Shores Of America!comfort Is Yours In America!knobs On The Doors In America!wall-to-wall Floors In America!

Sometimes People Leave You Halfway Through The Wood Others May Decieve You You Decide What's Good You Decide Alone But No One Is Alone

I Don't Like The Word 'career'. When Somebody Says To Me, 'oh, You've Had Such A Wonderful Career', I Think, 'career - That's After You're Dead.' I Just Don't Think That Way.

My Main Goal Is To Tell A Story.

I Was Watching Him Crawl, Back Over The Wall-! Then Bang! Crash! And The Lightning Flash! And- Well, That's Another Story, Never Mind- Anyway.

When You Know Your Cast Well And Their Strengths And Weaknesses, You Can Start Writing For Them, Just The Way Shakespeare Wrote For His Actors.

I've Always Liked Puzzles, Since I Was A Kid. I Like Party Games, Silly Games. I Loved Chess. I Enjoy Jigsaw Puzzles, But I'm Not Particularly Visual.

The Dumbing Down Of The Country Reflects Itself On Broadway. The Shows Get Dumber, And The Public Gets Used To Them.

If You're Dealing With A Musical In Which You're Trying To Tell A Story, It's Got To Sound Like Speech. At The Same Time It's Got To Be A Song.

I Prefer Neurotic People. I Like To Hear Rumblings Beneath The Surface.

Beneath The Surface

Over A Period Of Time It's Been Driven Home To Me That I'm Not Going To Be The Most Popular Writer In The World, So I'm Always Happy When Anything In Any Way Is Accepted.

The Art Of Making Art, Is Putting It Together.

Everyone I Used To Play With Has Either Given Up Or Is Dead.

I Really Don't Want To Write A Score Until The Whole Show Is Cast And Staged.

Work Is What You Do For Others, Liebchen. Art Is What You Do For Yourself.

I Firmly Believe Lyrics Have To Breathe And Give The Audience's Ear A Chance To Understand What's Going On. Particularly In The Theater, Where You Have Costume, Story, Acting, Orchestra.

Gotta Watch Out For Directors.

It's Age. It's A Diminution Of Energy And The Worry That There Are No New Ideas. It's An Increasing Lack Of Confidence. I'm Not The Only One. I've Checked With Other People.

Tonight, Tonight, Won't Be Just Any Night. Tonight There Will Be No Morning Star.

When I Listen To My Work, I Think, What's So Inflammatory About It? It's Not Really That Dissonant. A Lot Of People Who Used To Hate My Stuff Have Come Round To It.

Almost All The Shows I've Been Connected With Have Been Extremely Well Cast. They're Playing The Show, Not Just Doing The Songs.

Any Moment, Big Or Small, Is A Moment, After All. Seize The Moment, Skies May Fall Any Moment.

The Difference Between A Cow And A Bean Is A Bean Can Begin An Adventure.

Sometimes I'll Ask The Book Writer To Write A Monologue, Not To Be Performed, Just As If They Were Notes For The Character.

Sometimes People Leave You Halfway Through The Wood. Others May Decieve You - You Decide What's Good. You Decide Alone, But No One Is Alone. People Make Mistakes. Fathers, Mothers, People Make Mistakes, Holding To Their Own, Thinking They're Alone. Honor Their Mistakes. Fight For Their Mistakes. Witches Can Be Right. Giants Can Be Good. You Decide What's Right. You Decide What's Good.

Lemuel Ayers Had Had A Huge Success Producing And Designing Kiss Me, Kate. He Wanted To Produce This As A Musical. I Got The Job. It Was A Professional Score.

The Tonys Ignored West Side Story. The Tonys Ignored Gypsy. It's A Kind Of Public Humiliation.

You Get Used To The Exact Amount Of Space Between Lines. You Write A Word And Then You Write An Alternate Word Over It. You Want Enough Room So You Can Read It, So The Lines Can't Be Too Close.

You Have Two Kinds Of Shows On Broadway - Revivals And The Same Kind Of Musicals Over And Over Again, All Spectacles. You Get Your Tickets For 'the Lion King' A Year In Advance, And Essentially A Family Comes As If To A Picnic, And They Pass On To Their Children The Idea That That's What The Theater Is - A Spectacular Musical You See Once A Year, A Stage Version Of A Movie. It Has Nothing To Do With Theater At All. It Has To Do With Seeing What Is Familiar. We Live In A Recycled Culture.

My Mother Wanted Me Off Her Hands. She Was A Working Woman. She Designed Clothes, And She Was A Celebrity Collector. It's My Mother's Ambition To Be A Celebrity.

Music Is Structure Out Of Chaos

It's Pleasanter To Work In The Country, Where You Can Wander Out Among The Trees. But I Don't Get As Much Work Done. In The City You Don't Want To Leave The Room Because There's All That Chaos Going On.

Just Remember, Someone Is On Your Side (our Side) Someone Else Is Not While We're Seeing Our Side Maybe We Forgot: They Are Not Alone. No One Is Alone.

If You Told Me To Write A Love Song Tonight, I'd Have A Lot Of Trouble. But If You Tell Me To Write A Love Song About A Girl With A Red Dress Who Goes Into A Bar And Is On Her Fifth Martini And Is Falling Off Her Chair, That's A Lot Easier, And It Makes Me Free To Say Anything I Want.

In The Rodgers And Hammerstein Generation, Popular Hits Came Out Of Shows And Movies.

There's Something Inimical About The Camera And Song.

Puzzles Are Like Songs - A Good Puzzle Can Give You All The Pleasure Of Being Duped That A Mystery Story Can. It Has Surface Innocence, Surprise, The Revelation Of A Concealed Meaning, And The Catharsis Of Solution.

Musical Comedies Aren't Written, They Are Rewritten.

In Not-for-profit Theater, You Don't Worry So Much About How The Audience Is Going To React. You Want To Make Them Absorb The Piece.

Musicals Are So Expensive To Put On The Stage That You Have To Have The Backing Of A Corporate, You Have To Have Universal Studios Or Disney Or Somebody To Put In The Money.

Universal Studios

The Concerts You Enjoy Together/ Neighbors You Annoy Together/ Children You Destroy Together,/ That Keep Marriage In Tact.

I Read To See Myself In Other People's Lives.

The More You Cling To Things, The More You Love Them, The More The Pain You Suffer, When They're Taken From You.

Making Lyrics Feel Natural, Sit On Music In Such A Way That You Dont Feel The Effort Of The Author, So That They Shine And Bubble And Rise And Fall, Is Very, Very Hard To Do. Whereas You Can Sit At The Piano And Just Play And Feel Youre Making Art.

By The Time I Was 22, I Was A Professional. A Young And Flawed Professional, But Not An Amateur.

Every Day A Little Death.

Let Pirelli's / Miracle Elixir / Activate Your Roots, Sir... Keep It Off Your Boots, Sir- / Eats Right Through. Yes, Get Pirelli's! / Use A Bottle Of It! / Ladies Seem To Love It... Flies Do, Too!

You Can't Have Personal Investors Anymore Because It's Too Expensive, So You Have To Have Corporate Investment Or A Lot Of Rich People.

One Difference Between Poetry And Lyrics Is That Lyrics Sort Of Fade Into The Background. They Fade On The Page And Live On The Stage When Set To Music.

I Played The Organ When I Went To Military School, When I Was 10. They Had A Huge Organ, The Second-largest Pipe Organ In New York State. I Loved All The Buttons And The Gadgets. I've Always Been A Gadget Man.

Hit Songs Did Not Come Out Of Musicals. Pop-rock Was Creating The Hits. There Were Very Few Songs That Made The Charts Out Of Any Broadway Musical.

Math Was My Big Interest When I Was In Prep School. I Was Considering Taking Math In College, And Majoring In It.

Two Of The Hardest Words In The Language To Rhyme Are Life And Love. Of All Words!

One Of The Hardest Things About Writing Lyrics Is To Make The Lyrics Sit On The Music In Such A Way That You're Not Aware There Was A Writer There.

I Love Computers. I Love Writing On Them. I Love Gadgetry. The Thing Is: I Am A Slow Reader. So, If I Am Going To Get My Work Done, I Read, Like, A Newspaper And That's It. If I Got Into Websites And The Internet, I Wouldn't Get Any Work Done.

The Man I'll Never Be, Who Remembers Him?

Can't We Just Pursue Our Lives With Our Children And Our Wives Till That Happy Day Arrives How Do You Ignore All The Witches All The Curses All The Wolves, All The Lies The False Hopes, The Goodbyes . . .

I Was Never Much Of A Reader. I'm A Slow Reader, Which Is Unusual, Because I'm So Into Language And I Love Words So Much. But It's Hard For Me To Read.

I Like Murder Mysteries, The Agatha Christie Kinds Of Things Where You Know That It's All Going To Be Neatly Wound Up At The End.

Murder Mysteries

I Love The Theater As Much As Music, And The Whole Idea Of Getting Across To An Audience And Making Them Laugh, Making Them Cry - Just Making Them Feel - Is Paramount To Me.

Perpetual Anticipation Is Good For The Soul But It's Bad For The Heart.

My Parents Got Divorced And Military School Gave Me A Structure. A Lot Of Kids My Age Were Children Of Divorced Parents. They Didn't Know What To Do With The Kids.

I Like Songs That Are Part Of A Dramatic Texture, And Therefore I Like The Scenes To Be Active. I Wanna Follow The Story And That Means You Lean On The Actors.

Art Is Craft, Not Inspiration.

My Cage Has Many Rooms.

I'm Sure Many Writers Have These Strange, Tiny Little Habits.

Am I Not Sensitive, Clever, Well-mannered, Considerate, Passionate, Charming, As Kind As I'm Handsome And Heir To A Throne?

It Should Be Interesting To See Two Entirely Different Ways To Treat A Story, Geared For Two Entirely Different Kinds Of Audience.

If The End Is Right, It Justifies The Beans!

I Don't Write Songs Apart From Theatrical Pieces. I'm Not Interested In Writing Songs Qua Songs.

There's A Hole In The World Like A Great Black Pit And The Vermin Of The World Inhabit It ... And It Goes By The Name Of London.

Take A Play That You Like But You Think Is Flawed, And See If You Can Improve It And Turn It Into A Musical. [...] Then Make Up Your Own Story.

Nice Is Different Than Good.

I Do Not Dwell On Dreams I Know How Soon A Dream Becomes An Expectation How Can I Have Expectations? Look At Me, No, Captain, Look At Me, Look At Me!

By The Time I Get Through Writing A Score, I Know The Book Better Than The Book Writer Does, Because I've Examined Every Word, And Questioned The Book Writer On Every Word.

Into The Woods You Go Again You Have To Every Now And Then Into The Woods, No Telling When Be Ready For The Journey Into The Woods, Each Time You Go There's More To Learn Of What You Know.

Musicals Are, By Nature, Theatrical, Meaning Poetic, Meaning Having To Move The Audience's Imagination And Create A Suspension Of Disbelief, By Which I Mean There's No Fourth Wall.

Nowadays, There Are Sometimes More Producers Than There Are People In The Cast, Because It Takes That Much Money To Put A Show On.

If I Cannot Fly, Let Me Sing.

I Do Not Hope For What I Cannot Have! I Do Not Cling To Things I Cannot Keep!

Content Dictates Form And Style.

I Took Piano Lessons When I Was 6. I Didn't Want To Go On With It. I Don't Remember Being Moved By A Piece Of Music.

Art, In Itself, Is An Attempt To Bring Order Out Of Chaos.

The More Restrictions You Have, The Easier Anything Is To Write.

The Nice Thing About Doing A Crossword Puzzle Is, You Know There Is A Solution.

Bit By Bit, Putting It Together... Piece By Piece, Only Way To Make A Work Of Art. Every Moment Makes A Contribution, Every Little Detail Plays A Part. Having Just The Vision's No Solution, Everything Depends On Execution, Putting It Together, That's What Counts.

A Close-up On Screen Can Say All A Song Can.

The Situation's Fraught, Fraughter Than I Thought, With Horrible, Impossible Possibilities!

Writing Is A Form Of Mischief.

Only Capitalists Get Photographers.

So Many Good Songs Get Written Fast, Because You Know Exactly What Has To Work.

Everything Depends Upon Execution; Having Just A Vision Is No Solution.

Lyrics Have To Be Underwritten. That's Why Poets Generally Make Poor Lyric Writers Because The Language Is Too Rich. You Get Drowned In It.

To Wish And Wait From Day To Day Will Never Keep The Wolves Away.

Sometimes Colleagues In Performance Are Absolutely Astonishing.

I Don't Listen To Recordings Of My Songs. I Don't Avoid It, I Just Don't Go Out Of My Way To Do It.

Oscar Hammerstein Was A Surrogate Father. I Liked My Father A Lot, He Was A Swell Fellow, But I Didn’t See Him Very Often Because My Mother Was Bitter About Him And Did Everything She Could To Prevent Me From Seeing Him.

Everyone Would Like To Be On Broadway, Cause If A Show Works, You Make A Great Deal Of Money And It Allows You To Write Other Shows.

I Get Some Flak For And Some Resistance From Colleagues For Because I'm Interested In Storytelling. I Mean What I Like About Songwriting Is Songs Used To Tell A Story.

Having Just The Vision's No Solution, Everything Depends On Execution

I Like Neurotic People. I Like Troubled People. Not That I Don't Like Squared-away People, But I Prefer Neurotic People. I Like To Hear Rumblings Beneath The Surface.

Beneath The Surface

They Wanted Me To Be A Concert Pianist, Because I Had A Very Good Right Hand, But My Left Hand's Terrible And I Hated Performing.

If People Have Split Views About Your Work, I Think It's Flattering. I'd Rather Have Them Feel Something About It Than Dismiss It.

Swing Your Razor Wide! Sweeney, Hold It To The Skies!

For Me It's More Fun To Find An Unexpected Moment For A Character To Sing When You Don't Expect Them To.

Music Straightjackets A Poem And Prevents It From Breathing On Its Own, Whereas It Liberates A Lyric. Poetry Doesn't Need Music; Lyrics Do.

Ah, But If You Have No Expectations, You Can Never Have A Disappointment.

Anything You Do, Let It Come From You. Then It Will Be New.

You May Know What You Need, But To Get What You Want, Better See That You Keep What You Have.

The Last Collaborator Is Your Audience ... When The Audience Comes In, It Changes The Temperature Of What You've Written. Things That Seem To Work Well -- Work In A Sense Of Carry The Story Forward And Be Integral To The Piece -- Suddenly Become A Little Less Relevant Or A Little Less Functional Or A Little Overlong Or A Little Overweight Or A Little Whatever. And So You Start Reshaping From An Audience.

Deciding What Is To Be Sung And What Is Not To Be Sung Is Really What Writing A Musical Is About.

He Came From A Rock Band And Even Though He Was Not A Lead Singer, I Knew He Was Musical Just From That. I Also Knew That He Was Intelligent Enough From Talking To Him, That He Would Not Play This Part Unless He Could Handle It Vocally. I Knew He Was Not About To Get Up There And Have To Have His Voice Dubbed Or Come Off Croaking. So Johnny Depp Casted Johnny Depp. I Trusted Him Entirely. I Knew That He Was No Fool And He Would Only Do It If He Felt He Could Handle It. I Told Him To Listen To The Score Carefully And If You Can Handle It, Fine By Me, And I Was Right.

Pointillism Takes Emotional Images, Character, Etc., And Makes Them All Come Together And Make A Whole That Tells A Story.

When The Audience Comes In, It Changes The Temperature Of What You've Written.

Every Writer I've Ever Spoken To Feels Fraudulent In Some Way Or Other.

Generally, The Best Recording Is The Original Cast, Because That's The Way The Piece Grew: Integrally, With Them.

White. A Blank Page Or Canvas. So Many Possibilities.

Johnny Depp's Performance Is Quite Remarkable. Sweeney's Desire For Revenge And The Simmering Anger And Hurt That He Feels Carry The Story Forward, And Johnny Finds The Most Remarkable Variety Within That Narrow Set Of Emotions. The Intensity Is At A Boil All The Time And He Never Drops It. It's Real Anger.

Todd: The History Of The World, My Love -- Lovett: Save A Lot Of Graves, Do A Lot Of Relatives Favors! Todd: Is Those Below Serving Those Up Above! Lovett: Ev'rybody Shaves, So There Should Be Plenty Of Flavors! Todd: How Gratifying For Once To Know Both: That Those Above Will Serve Those Down Below!

Anything That Is White Is Sweet. Anything That Is Brown Is Meat. Anything That Is Grey, Don't Eat.

I Started Listening To Classical Music When I Was In My Early Teens. Prior To That, I Listened To Pop Records Or Band Records.

I Chose And My World Was Shaken. So What? The Choice May Have Been Mistaken; The Choosing Was Not. You Have To Move On.

Stay A Child While You Can Be A Child.

I Was Raised To Be Charming, Not Sincere.

After The Rodgers And Hammerstein Revolution, Songs Became Part Of The Story, As Opposed To Just Entertainments In Between Comedy Scenes.

I've Always Preferred Actors Who Sing To Singers Who Act In All The Shows I've Done.

I Fell Into Lyric Writing Because Of Music. I Backed Into It.

You Have To Be Submitted For The Pulitzer, And Unbeknownst To Us, A Choral Director Whom I Know Had Submitted Us.

I'm Interested In The Theater Because I'm Interested In Communication With Audiences. Otherwise I Would Be In Concert Music.

The Truth Is That I Don't Like Rehearsals. I Get Embarrassed Hearing My Own Work. I Assume That The Cast Is Embarrassed To Sing The Stuff.

When You Trance Out Properly, When You're Completely In That World, There Is No Other World, So There's No Conflict.

The Only Reason To Write Is From Love.

I Didn't Really Want To Write Just Lyrics, But I Wanted To Meet Leonard Bernstein. Music Was Always The First Reason I Was Writing Songs.

My Personal Life And My Artistic Life Do Not Interfere With Each Other.

Into The Woods--you Have To Grope, But That's The Way You Learn To Cope. Into The Woods To Find There's Hope Of Getting Through The Journey.

I Liked My Father A Lot, But I Didn't See Him Very Often Because My Mother Was Bitter About Him. He Remarried, And I Used To Have To Sneak Off To See Him.

The Movie Adaptations Of Stage Musicals That I've Seen, Without Exception, In My Opinion Don't Work. A Lot Of People Would Disagree With Me.

Dreams Are A Sweet Mistake All Dreamers Must Awake On, Then, With The Dance No Backward Glance Or My Heart Will Break Never Look Back.

It's Not So Much Do What You Like As It Is That You Like What You Do.

Careful The Spell You Cast, Not Just On Children. Sometimes The Spell May Last Past What You Can See And Turn Against You... Careful The Tale You Tell. That Is The Spell.

The Worst Thing You Can Do Is Censor Yourself As The Pencil Hits The Paper. You Must Not Edit Until You Get It All On Paper. If You Can Put Everything Down, Stream-of-consciousness, You'll Do Yourself A Service.

For Anyone Approaching Any One Of The Cast Albums, If They Don't Like What They Hear, It's Not The Performer's Fault.

Now, This One Might Be A Little Stringy, But Then Again, It's Fiddle Player." That Isn't Fiddle Player, It's Piccolo Player." How Can You Tell?" It's Piping Hot!" Then Blow On It First!

With Videotaping, On The Second Generation You're Already Losing Some Of The Freshness.

Best To Take The Moment Present As A Present For The Moment. . .

That's The Trouble With Awards For A Body Of Work. They Always Come At Both A Good Time And A Wrong Time. Good Because They Tell You What You've Been Doing Was Worth The Doing And Wrong Because They Ought To Come When You're Young And Excited And Hungry For Assurance That What You're Doing Is Worth The Doing.

What Justifies A Character Singing One Idea For 3 Minutes On The Screen? I Get Impatient And Want The Story To Carry On. I Don't Get Impatient In The Theatre.

Opportunity Is Not A Lengthy Visitor.

They All Deserve To Die. Even You, Mrs. Lovett Even I. Because The Lives Of The Wicked Should Be Made Brief For The Rest Of Us Death Would Be Relief.

Math And Music Are Intimately Related. Not Necessarily On A Conscious Level, But Sure.

On Stage, Generally Speaking, The Story Is Stopped Or Held Back By Songs, Because That's The Convention. Audiences Enjoy The Song And The Singer, That's The Point.

No One Has Ever Known Me As Clearly As You. No One Has Ever Shown Me That Love Allows Everything. Not Pretty Or Safe Or Easy But Something I Never Knew. Love Within Reason, That Isn't Love And I Learned That From You.

Trending Author

Rosalynn Carter

Category