Green Finch and Linnet Bird is the sixth song of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Role[]
The scene shows a 16-year-old Johanna Barker, the daughter of Benjamin and Lucy Barker, being held as a young ward in Judge Turpin's home. While watching her pet birds, Johanna expresses her dreams to be free of her imprisonment in the Judge's house, as well as her inability to cope with the knowledge that she will probably never escape. While comparing her imprisonment to theirs, she notices the young Anthony Hope listening outside of her window.
Lyrics[]
JOHANNA:
Green finch and linnet bird
Nightingale, blackbird
How is it you sing?
How can you jubilate
Sitting in cages
Never taking wing?
Outside the sky waits
Beckoning, beckoning
Just beyond the bars
How can you remain
Staring at the rain
Maddened by the stars?
How is it you sing...
Anything?
How is it you sing?
My cage has many rooms
Damask and dark
Nothing there sings,
Not even my lark
Larks never will, you know
When they’re captive
Teach me to be more adaptive
Ah...
Green finch and linnet bird
Nightingale, blackbird
Teach me how to sing
If I cannot fly let me sing...