From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: _West Side Story_ lyrics-- how many versions?
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 14:42:19 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.031332.5204@udel.edu> lim@pecan.cns.udel.edu (Julie Lim) writes:

>	I'm listening to my _WSS_ cast album again, and have finally managed
>to remember to post about this: I know that in the movie, the line "Dear Officer
>Krupke, what are we to do?/ Gee, Officer Krupke, Krup you!" was changed to "...
>think/... you stink!" 

Uh, no.  You sounded so certain about this that I had to go recheck my
video at home, and it confirmed what I remember from seeing the movie
when it came out:  the "Krup you!" ending was retained in the movie just
as on the stage.

>but what other lines were changed to protect the tender
>sensibilities of movie audiences? 

Relatively few.  The catch-phrase between Riff and Tony "Sperm to worm!"
was changed to "Birth to earth!"  The lyric to "America" was rewritten
by Sondheim, but not for euphemistic reasons: the number was reconceived
as a challenge between the Shark men and women, and the various
quatrains were sharpened up (I consider the film lyric a great
improvement, by the way).  Since "I Feel Pretty" was moved to an earlier
point in the plot (in the play it's the first thing in Act II which
would have made it immediately follow the rumble in the movie), the
lyric was changed to say "today" instead of "tonight."  Otherwise, the
only changes were in "Officer Krupke":

"My daddy is a bastard, my ma's an SOB,
My grandpa's always plastered, my granma pushes tea" become
"My daddy beats my mommy, my mommy clobbers me,
My grandpa is a commie, my granma pushes tea."

And
"Dear kindly social worker, they say go earn a buck,
Like be a soda jerker, which means like be a schmuck!" became
"Dear kindly social worker, they say go get a job,
Like be a soda jerker, which means like be a slob!"

>	And for that matter, does the cast album represent an intermediate level
>of euphemism, or does it contain the lyrics as originally written? 

In one respect the Broadway cast album represents an intermediate level.
The "...earn a buck / ...be a schmuck" lines were too much for Columbia
Records then ("schmuck" is a Yiddish vulgarity which would literally
translate as "prick," I guess) so they changed it to "earn some dough /
be a schmo."  (Though I have vague memories of "get some work / be a
jerk" from somewhere too...anyway there are three different versions of
this lyric in active circulation.)

>There are a
>number of obvious euphemisms like "when the spit hits the fan" and "mother-
>lovin' street," but perhaps that was as daring as musicals got in the 50's--
>anyone know? 'Cause I don't.

All the phrases you mention are what Arthur Laurents and Stephen
Sondheim wrote.  It was intended as a stylization of street talk, not
the real thing, and they didn't want their work to date when the slang
changed.  Also, you're right, this was as daring as musicals got then.
In fact "Krup you" occasioned some shock in its clear reference to The
Real Phrase -- the existence of such an obscenity just wasn't
acknowledged on the stage then, musical or not.  5 years later Edward
Albee shocked serious dramagoers by using the verb "screw" a few times
in "Virginia Woolf."

I've heard of some stage productions of WSS in which the director
changes the made-up phrases to the real R-rated thing, under the guise
of "what the authors would have wanted."  Big mistake; the undisguised
ugliness wrecks the half-real world created in the play.  The authors
were capable of going back years later when stage conventions had
loosened up and changing things if they had wanted to, and they never
did.

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre