Sweeney Todd Musical Soundtrack Lyrics
Poor Thing
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...
Barker, his name was ... Benjamin Barker.
TODD:
Transported? What was his crime?
MRS. LOVETT:
Foolishness.
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 were these two, you see,
Wanted her like mad,
One of 'em a judge,
T'other one his beadle.
Every day they'd nudge
And they'd wheedle.
But she wouldn't budge
From her needle.
Too bad. Pure thing.
So they merely shipped the poor bugger off south, they did,
Leaving her with nothing but grief and a year-old kid.
Did she use her head even then? Oh no, God forbid!
Poor fool.
Ah, but there was worse yet to come ...
Poor thing.
MRS. LOVETT
Johanna, that was the baby's name . . . Pretty little Johanna. . .
TODD:
Go on.
MRS. LOVETT:
My, you do like a good story, don't you?
Well, 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 havin' 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:
Would no one have mercy on her?
MRS. LOVETT:
So it is you ... Benjamin Barker.
TODD:
Not Barker! Not Barker! Todd now! Sweeney Todd! Where is she?
MRS. LOVETT:
So changed! Good God, what did they do to you down there in bloody Australia or
wherever?
TODD:
Where is my wife? Where's Lucy?
MRS. LOVETT:
She poisoned herself. Arsenic from the apothecary on the corner. I tried to stop
her but she wouldn't listen to me.
TODD:
And my daughter?
MRS. LOVETT:
Johanna? He's got her.
TODD:
He? Judge Turpin?
MRS. LOVETT:
Even he had a conscience tucked away, I suppose. Adopted her like his own. You
could say it was good luck for her .. . almost.
TODD:
Fifteen years sweating in a living hell on a trumped up charge. Fifteen years
dreaming that, perhaps, I might come home to a loving wife and child.
Let them quake in their boots ... Judge Turpin and the beadle ... for their hour
has come.
MRS. LOVETT:
You're going to ... get 'em? You? A bleeding little nobody of a runaway convict?
Don't make me laugh. You'll never get His 'igh and Mightiness! Nor the BEADLE
neither. Not in a million years.
You got any money?
Listen to me! You got any money?
TODD:
No money.
MRS. LOVETT:
Then how you going to live even?
TODD:
I'll live. If I have to sweat in the sewers or in the plague hospital, I'll live
... and I'll have them.
MRS. LOVETT:
Oh, you poor thing! You poor thing!
Wait!
See! It don't have to be the sewers or the plague hospital. When they come for
the little girl, I hid 'em. I thought, who knows? Maybe the poor silly
blighter'll be back again someday and need 'em. Cracked in the head, wasn't I?
Times as bad as they are, I could have got five, maybe ten quid for 'em, any
day. See? You can be a barber again.