Defend the Indefensible: "Lyrics by Tim Rice"

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I mean, they're not really good, are they?

I am someone who truly loves Jesus Christ Superstar, but:

Pilate: "Then you're a King!"
Christ: "It's you that say I am.
I look for truth, and find that I get damned!"

"Always thought that I'd be an apostle,
Knew that I would make it if I tried,
Then when we'd retire, we could write the Gospels,
so they'll all talk about us when we died..."

"Teaching me to die like that, was that a mistake or,
did you know your messy death would be a record-breaker?"

Rice did the lyrics to Rick Wakeman's 1984, another album I've been listening to (don't ask). On amazon.com, I think some of the reviews say something along the lines of "Well, at least Wakeman got a good lyricist this time, like Tim Rice." Sample:

"We've stripped war down to essential
We don't waste no time or flesh,
Beautiful is our destruction
Clean and fresh!

You don't have to follow leaders
You don't have to choose a side
No opinions volunteered by the millions,
Who died"

At least there's entertainment value in that it's Chaka Khan singing it (ha ha), but still...Orwell, be proud.

Joe (Joe), Sunday, 9 July 2006 20:26 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't he write:
"No one plots like Gaston
Takes cheap shots like Gaston
No one persecutes harmless crackpots like Gaston"?

Cos that's genius!

(Maybe that was somebody else, though. I get those Disney guys mixed up.)

dr. phil (josh langhoff), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:07 (nineteen years ago)

Nope, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (thanks imdb). That song IS totally classic though.

Jessie the Monster (scarymonsterrr), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

i love the lyrics to JCS. "nazereth yer famous son should have stayed a great unknown like his father carving wood HE'D HAVE MADE GOOD tables chairs and oaken chests would have suited jesus best would have caused nobody harm NO ONE ALARM"


um, that's from memory. i might have gotten it wrong. but i love it! dude wrote evita, right? i heart evita. the musical anyway. never saw the movie. i saw it on broadway with patti lupone and mandy patinkin. WOTTA NITE!

scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

Best Rice lyrics:
"So, you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ.
Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool."

"He was also known as Israel but most of the time,
His sons and his wives used to call him - DAD!"

Mordechai Shinefield (Mordy), Monday, 10 July 2006 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

Evita -
"It's all very well to a certain extent/for the lady at the side of the President to take an interest in affairs. But once he allows a bit on the side/to move to the center where she's not qualified we should all be on our guard..." also "she says it's his body but she's after his files..."

Also lyrics from "Waltz for Eva and Che," "High Flying, Adored..." okay the whole thing.

Yeah, Evita addict, here.

Sara R-C (Sara R-C), Monday, 10 July 2006 20:29 (nineteen years ago)

"tell me on a sunday" to thread - rice is far from indefensible

Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Monday, 10 July 2006 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

haha whoops except those are by Don Black, never mind

Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Monday, 10 July 2006 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

ha ha :)

Joe (Joe), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 07:32 (nineteen years ago)

Genius:

"Tea, girls, warm and sweet
Some are set up
In the Somerset Maugham Suite"

(from One Night In Bangkok)

davidsim (davidsim), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

No, sorry, Tim Rice is brilliant with a turn of phrase.

"Potiphar had very few cares
He was one of Egypt millionaires
Having made a fortune buying shares in Pyramids"

Margarine Machine (kate), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 11:14 (nineteen years ago)

"Don't Cry For Me Argentina" has fantastic lyrics.

But I never knew Tell Me On A Sunday was Don Black! That would have been my main defense too :(

Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 11:23 (nineteen years ago)

He could count to 39, making him nearly 10 times better than the Ramones.

bendy (bendy), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

"All you will see is a girl you once knew, Although she's dressed up to the nines, At sixes and sevens with you"

i mean sorry but that's.. genius isn't it?

piscesx, Thursday, 5 May 2011 04:13 (fourteen years ago)

I guess trying to shoehorn "on all fours" into that would have been crass even for Tim.

Tim F, Thursday, 5 May 2011 04:53 (fourteen years ago)

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/andrew-lloyd-webber-gal-02.jpg

piscesx, Thursday, 5 May 2011 04:56 (fourteen years ago)

As somebody mentioned in the "Chess" thread, "I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine" is pretty great.

Hongroe (Geir Hongro), Thursday, 5 May 2011 10:03 (fourteen years ago)

"What if I just stayed here and ruined your ambition"

BIG YNGWIE aka the malmsteendriver (Neanderthal), Thursday, 5 May 2011 11:14 (fourteen years ago)

"All you will see is a girl you once knew, Although she's dressed up to the nines, At sixes and sevens with you"

i mean sorry but that's.. genius isn't it?

It sounds like a Squeeze lyric!

Captain Hyrax (Phil D.), Thursday, 5 May 2011 17:38 (fourteen years ago)

exactly!

piscesx, Thursday, 5 May 2011 18:12 (fourteen years ago)


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