A beautiful Pocket Poets hardcover selection of the most memorable and beloved lyrics of Stephen Sondheim.
Legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim made his Broadway debut with West Side Story in 1957 at the age of twenty-seven. His remarkable and wide-ranging career has spanned more than six decades since then, and he has accumulated accolades that include eight Tony Awards, an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Center Honors, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sondheim redefined musical theater with his groundbreaking work, combining words and music in ways that are by turns challenging, moving, witty, profound, and never less than exhilarating.
This volume includes a selection of lyrics from across his career, drawn from shows including West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and more. The result is a delightful pocket-sized treasury of the very best of Sondheim.
Introduction
SATURDAY NIGHT (1954)
Love’s a Bond
WEST SIDE STORY (1957)
Gee, Officer Krupke
Cool
Somewhere
GYPSY (1959)
Momma’s Talkin’ Soft
Rose’s Turn
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1962)
Comedy Tonight
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE (1964)
Anyone Can Whistle
A Hero Is Coming
Everybody Says Don’t
DO I HEAR A WALTZ? (1965)
Do I Hear a Waltz?
Someone Like You
Take the Moment
EVENING PRIMROSE (1966)
I Remember
COMPANY (1970)
The Little Things You Do Together
The Ladies Who Lunch
Being Alive
Multitudes of Amys
Marry Me a Little
FOLLIES (1971)
The Road You Didn’t Take
Who’s That Woman?
I’m Still Here
Could I Leave You?
Losing My Mind
The Story of Lucy and Jessie
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (1973)
Now
Soon
Later
The Miller’s Son
Send in the Clowns
Every Day a Little Death
Remember?
Liaisons
THE FROGS (1974)
Paean: Hades
All Aboard!
PACIFIC OVERTURES (1976)
Poems
A Bowler Hat
SWEENEY TODD (1979)
A Little Priest
Not While I’m Around
MARRY ME A LITTLE (1980)
Uptown/Downtown
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (1981)
Like It Was
Not a Day Goes By (Reprise)
Not a Day Goes By
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE (1984)
Sunday in the Park with George
Everybody Loves Louis
Beautiful
Sunday
Finishing the Hat
Putting It Together
Children and Art
Move On
INTO THE WOODS (1986)
I Know Things Now
Giants in the Sky
No One Is Alone
Agony
Moments in the Woods
On the Steps of the Palace
Children Will Listen
ASSASSINS (1990)
The Ballad of Booth
The Ballad of Czolgosz
The Ballad of Guiteau
DICK TRACY (1990)
What Can You Lose?
More
PASSION (1994)
I Wish I Could Forget You
BOUNCE (2003)
The Game (Reprise)
The Game (Version 2)
STEPHEN SONDHEIM wrote award-winning music and lyrics for theater, film, and television. He is the author of Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) and Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011). He is also the coauthor of the film The Last of Sheila and the play Getting Away with Murder. Sondheim was on the council of the Dramatists Guild of America, having served as its president from 1973 to 1981. He lived in New York City. He died in 2021.
RUSSELL PERREAULT was the executive director of publicity and social media for Penguin Random House's Vintage Anchor imprint and for the Everyman’s Library series of hardcover classics at Alfred A. Knopf. He died in 2019.
PETER GETHERS is a novelist, publisher, and screenwriter, and author of the bestseller The Cat Who Went to Paris. Under the pseudonym Russell Andrews, he has written the bestselling thrillers Gideon and Icarus. He lives in New York City, Sag Harbor, and Sicily.