Hope for the best expect the worst
Could somebody tell me the lyrics of the theme song?
shareHope for the best (expect the worst)
Hope for the best, expect the worst
Some drink champagne, some die of thirst
No way of knowing which way it's going
Hope for the best, expect the worst
Hope for the best, expect the worst
The world's a stage, we're unrehearsed
Some reach the top, friend, while others flop, friend
Hope for the best, expect the worst
I knew a man who saved a fortune that was splendid
Then he died the day he planned to go and spend it
Shouting, Live while you're alive
No one will survive
Life is sorrow, here today and gone tomorrow
Live while you're alive
No one will survive
There's no guarantee
Hope for the best, expect the worst
You could be Tolstoy, or Fanny Hurst
So take your chances, there are no answers
Hope for the best, expect the worst
I knew a man who saved a fortune that was splendid
Then he died the day he planned to go and spend it
Shouting, Live while you're alive
No one will survive
Life is funny, drink your wine and spend your money
Live while you're alive
No one will survive
There's no guarantee
Hope for the best, expect the worst
The rich are blessed, the poor are cursed
That is a fact, friend. The deck is stacked, friend
Hope for the best, expect the worst
Even with a good beginning
It's not certain that you're winning
Even with the best of chances
Fate can kick you in the pantses
Look out for the
Watch out for the
Worst
Hey
Tahnk you very much. You were the only one to answer in six months. Thank you ILASK.
shareWell, I'd have tried to reply if I'd read the comments before tonight (I don't look through them very often). :-) I do have the videotape and watch the movie probably a couple times a year.
In case anyone's interested, the tune is an old Hungarian folk tune, but I couldn't tell you its name. Liszt used it as the basis of one of his Hungarian Rhapsodies, and I believe Brahms used it as one of his Hungarian Dances, as well. It certainly qualifies as an ear worm (a song that you can't get out of your head)!
My grandmother used to sing it, with different lyrics (as "Repül a szán, búsul a lány...), that is why i was interested. It's not hungarian, it doesn't sound hungarian, it sounds rather slavistic. Of course, here, in hungary we had a version of if, but it still is an eastern-european song, Mel Brooks, probably has hears it when they were filming it in Yugolsavia
share[deleted]
Thanks alot! Years after seeing it twice (in the theatre 1970 later on TV) I could remember some lyrics decades later. I just saw it again on DVD with trailers on a few Brooks films.
shareI used to think the lyrics actually said "You could be Tolstoy or Patty Hearst" merely because I had never heard of Fannie Hurst before. So I went and looked for her work, found a link to one of her novels, Every Soul Hath Its Song, and started to read it. I'm not impressed how that particular novel begins:
"In this age of prose, when men's hearts turn point-blank from blank
verse to the business of chaining two worlds by cable and of daring to
fly with birds; when scholars, ever busy with the dead, are suffering
crick in the neck from looking backward to the good old days when
Romance wore a tin helmet on his head or lace in his sleeves--in such
an age Simon Binswanger first beheld the high-flung torch of Goddess
Liberty from the fore of the steerage deck of a wooden ship, his small
body huddled in the sag of calico skirt between his mother's knees, and
the sky-line and clothes-lines of the lower East Side dawning upon his
uncomprehending eyes."
I don't think that Brooks thought much of Fannie Hurst (correct spelling of her name). Otherwise, she would not have been mentioned as a "best/worst" contrast with Tolstoy. The truth is, Tolstoy she ain't.
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You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. --Ray Bradbury
That's funny about your misunderstanding the lyrics. Reminds me of a website I check into from time to time - maybe you've seen it - called Mis-heard Lyrics, where people submit their "For years I thought the lyrics to such-and-such a song were so-and-so" stories. Some of them are hysterical.
Probably didn't cross your mind at the time, but the film was made four years before Patty Hearst had gained her notoriety.
Poe! You are...avenged!
Well done, ILASK!
Great lyrics, love the "pantses".