1985 Barbican Preview Lyrics

[Rachel]

Well, I ended up throwing a book at a wall screaming, "WHY THE HELL IS YOUR DICTION SO TERRIBLE, FRANCES RUFFELLE?!" so it's probably not a good idea for me to put more time into this.


EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that my attitude on this thread has been quite demeaning to those of you who've worked hard on this. My intention was to make fun of myself, not of any of you, but I can see how it was taken that way and I apologize for not thinking enough before posting. To reiterate, my intention was not one of being rude or hurtful, but I apologize if I came across that way and will do my utmost to avoid that in the future.

[Dr Craven]

I believe I have figured out the problem with Feuilly's bit from The Beggars. It seems as though the orchestra is playing a little introduction into his segment which was presumably later cut, but Feuilly jumps straight into the lines as they are currently performed (and as they are on the London cast album, of course.) The chords that are played by the orchestra starting around "won't last the week out" are actually the chords from "Lamarque is ill and fading fast", and they are out of sync for quite a while. Long explanation short, Feuilly jumped his cue, which may have led to the cut of that pointless introduction.

That makes sense, it did sound to me like the chords were out of sync and not just horribly off key.

[humanracer]

based on listening to the two previews I think the Éponine part is
"I know I've heard it, think you can scare me?"

but possibly not

[Dr Craven]

Bumping an old thread cos the unresolved pre-OLC recording lyrics to Javert's Soliloquy continue to intrigue me.

'Damned if I'll live in his __ of grace
Damned if I'll live in the debt of Valjean
I'll spit his pity right back in his face
That is the law, or is sanity gone? (Or perhaps Such is the law - too hard to tell, and can't rule one out with common sense because they both work and mean more or less the same thing.)
There is nothing on earth that we share;
It is either Valjean or Javert.'

I'm almost certain of the bolded line. Not only does it sound right, it also makes a whole lot of sense considering the context - it's the first acknowledgement of the fact that his idea of the natural order ('sanity') is being upheaved. If my proposed ones are the correct lyrics, I can see why they were changed - the rapidfire delivery makes it near impossible to enunciate 'is sanity gone?' as a rhetorical question, so it doesn't come across so smoothly.

As for the first line, I'm pretty sure it's 'Chamber of grace' - it more or less fits phonetically, my only doubt being that there's no hard 'Ch' sound audible. Still, I can't think of any other word that would fill that gap appropriately while also sounding like the recording does. If that is the lyric, again, I can see why they changed it - the idea of a 'chamber' really doesn't add any meaning at all, and thus comes across as out of place. Any thoughts on either of these are welcome - I'm pretty confident I'm right about the second line, but the 'grace' one is more elusive, as I said. Other perspectives are useful in order to avoid confirmation bias, too. All that aside, these are the lyrics I'll sing for my own enjoyment for the time being

[deHavilland]

Gave this another listen now that it's been a while and my brain is fresh. I definitely agree with you, it's "that is the law, or is sanity gone?" Sounds more like a "that" than a "such" to me. Good sleuthing!

Still not overly sold on the previous line. It could be chamber, but now I'm hearing "caper of grace," which is a little more in keeping with the themes we have at play in this moment. A caper being "an activity or escapade, typically one that is illicit or ridiculous." If it were a chamber of grace, that sounds like a pretty good deal and maybe Javert should try getting in on that. But if it's just a caper and it's illicit because Valjean is, as far as we're all concerned, incapable of anything remotely decent and good, then it's kind of a mockery of the whole thing. Except that "mockery" doesn't fit into the lyrics so they went with a suitable synonym.

[Dr Craven]

Wow - you're absolutely right. 'Caper' didn't occur to me as it's not a word I ever use.

I'm almost 100% sure we've struck upon the correct lyrics. Woo!


Damned if I'll live in his caper of grace
Damned if I'll live in the debt of Valjean
I'll spit his pity right back in his face
That is the law, or is sanity gone?
There is nothing on earth that we share
It is either Valjean or Javert

[deHavilland]

High fives all around!

[Auf die Barrikaden]

FINALLY!!! Original FINAL BATTLE lyrics, used in London at least till 1988!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCYGU99XsAEior_.jpg:large

Thanks to Rebecca Caine!

[Olivia_y]

FINALLY!!! Original FINAL BATTLE lyrics, used in London at least till 1988!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCYGU99XsAEior_.jpg:large

Thanks to Rebecca Caine!

She's been posting photos of old scripts all day, she can probably set up a museum lol.

[Acaila]

FINALLY!!! Original FINAL BATTLE lyrics, used in London at least till 1988!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCYGU99XsAEior_.jpg:large

Thanks to Rebecca Caine!

Thanks for asking for those too, I got your tweet but I was out this evening so didn't get a chance to reply til just now

[Auf die Barrikaden]

That's fine Acaila, I hope she will post more.

All other bits she posted, amazing stuff!!

ATEOTD: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCXvP2KXkAAqH7q.jpg

AHFOL: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCXwjunWsAE53XB.jpg

Epilogue: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCXvrBdW0AAuICL.jpg

[23623]

I saw the pictures on tumblr this morning. My first reaction after reading the AHFOL one was actually "huh, so Marius did once know what to say!"

I was really surprised that "Cosette your name is like a song. My song is you" had indeed been done in English! In German language productions it's "Cosette ein Name wie ein Lied. Ein Lied für dich" so I always thought it was them that started this. Funny that whenever I play Les Mis in my head I'd make it "Cosette such fine name like a song. A song for you" because I really love the German lyrics here, but oh God I've been totally unaware of how close it is to the actual script they once used!

[deHavilland]

FINALLY!!! Original FINAL BATTLE lyrics, used in London at least till 1988!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCYGU99XsAEior_.jpg:large

Thanks to Rebecca Caine!

Ughhh, you're the best! I had completely forgotten that we were hurting for those lyrics -- then after you'd gotten them, I came back onto this post to see what we had guessed that they were. "Unintelligible screaming." Alrighty then! Making some edits to the original post to incorporate Becky's reveals.

[ellaphaba]

"The most noticeable difference here is the absense of Little People in Gavroche’s calling out of Javert – it comes into play much later, near Drink With Me. Here, Gavroche still sings but it’s to a completely different tune that’s not used anywhere else. Between the two recordings there’s still a line that’s difficult to make out, it’s been square bracketed.
GAVROCHE
Good evenin’, dear inspector,lovely evenin’ my dear!
[A charlie for a copper, to pay some cop*]
I know who you’re supposed to be, Inspector Javert
Who never showed no mercy to no one at all
So don’t believe a word, not a bit more
This time you’re reckoned without Gavroche!

GRANTAIRE
Bravo, little Gavroche, you’re the top of the class!

*To the best of my ability to determine what he’s saying. The words are difficult to make out, but I think the gist of what we’re going for is that he’s being paid to spy on them. I'm pretty confident "charlie for a copper" is not right."

Joined the thread just to say the lyric is 'how charming for a copper to pay us a court'!