Numbers Lyrics – Stephen Sondheim

Thirteen, fourty-four, twenty-seven
Twenty, thirty-four, seventy-five
Grandmother says numbers are matters of moment
To people whose moments don’t matter enough

Grandmother says numbers are food for the foolish
Who take all the minutiae of life on a cuff
Grandmother says lots of inscrutable stuff…
Thirteen, fourty-four, twenty-seven

Fourty, twenty-three, seventy…
I do believe I can smell the jasmine, oh!
And next comes the frog (she listens)
There should be a – Ah! (she hears it)

Now the stars…
(And sure enough, the stars twinkle
And from behind her come what we call our Liebeslieders people, the vocal quintet
She sings the numbers and on each number a person appears from behind the trees on the stage and you gradually realize that each number is the age of one of the characters on the stage

She sings the numbers, the quartet or quintet sings the the word “numbers” and the people on the stage as they are introduced in trios sing the word “time”)
Twenty
Fourty-four
Eighteen

Numbers
Time
Fourty
Thirty-four

Twenty-seven
What are they?
Time
What shall I wear?

What about the mail?
Where is my parasol?
How did I fail?
Time

Fourty-eight
Time
Twenty-three
Why were you there?

Did you see me weep?
Who shall I sleep with?
How shall I sleep?
Time

Thirtheen
Time
Seventy-five
Questions

Time
Numbers
Time
Lessons, appointments

Hellos and farewells
Photographs, calendars
Nights in hotels
Twenty

Twenty-four
Numbers
Questions
Time

Hard games
Coffee cups
Thirty-thousand
What are they?

Time
(More questions
All the questions are tumbling over each other.)
Time

Time
(And it starts to swirl around the stage
They gradually leave one by one and end up with all of their numbers and the last comment that Fredrika makes is that all numbers add up to one)
Find more lyrics at westlyrics.com

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Stephen Sondheim Lyrics – Numbers

Stephen Sondheim

Numbers