Stephen Sondheim Poor Thing
[Todd]
You’ve got a room over the shop, haven’t you?
If times are so hard, why don’t you rent it out?
[Mrs. Lovett]
People think it’s haunted.
[Todd:]
Haunted?
[Mrs. Lovett]
Yeah, and who's to say they're wrong? You see,
years ago, something happened up there.
Something not very nice.
(singing)
There was a barber and his wife,
And he was beautiful,
A proper artist with a knife,
But they transported him for life.
And he was beautiful…
(speaking)
Barker his name was — Benjamin Barker.
[Todd]
What was his crime?
[Mrs. Lovett]
Foolishness.
(singing)
He had this wife, you see,
Pretty little thing.
Silly little nit
Had her chance for the moon on a string —
Poor thing. Poor thing.
There was this Judge, you see,
Wanted her like mad.
Every day he’d send her a flower,
But did she come down from her tower?
Sat up there and sobbed by the hour,
Poor fool.
Ah, but there was worse yet to come —
Poor thing.
The Beadle calls on her, all polite,
Poor thing, poor thing.
The Judge, he tells her, is all contrite,
He blames himself for her dreadful plight,
She must come straight to his house tonight!
Poor thing, poor thing.
Of course, when she goes there,
Poor thing, poor thing,
They’re having this ball all in masks.
There’s no one she knows there,
Poor dear, poor thing.
She wanders tormented, and drinks,
Poor thing.
The Judge has repented, she thinks,
Poor thing.
“Oh, where is Judge Turpin?” she asks.
He was there, all right —
Only not so contrite!
She wasn’t no match for such craft, you see,
And everyone thought it so droll.
They figured she had to be daft, you see,
So all of ’em stood there and laughed, you see.
Poor soul!
Poor thing!
[Todd]
Noooooooo! Would no one have mercy on her?
[Mrs. Lovett]
So it is you — Benjamin Barker.
[Todd]
No, not Barker. that man is dead. It’s Todd now.
Sweeney Todd... and he will have his revenge.
