Tribulation Lyrics — Schmigadoon!

Song Overview

When a small town stares down a moral panic, you expect a sermon. Schmigadoon! delivers a showstopper. In episode 5 of the Apple TV+ series, Kristin Chenoweth’s Mildred Layton barrels through a high-speed patter number that whips the townspeople into fear and - conveniently - nominates herself to fix it. The piece nods to classic Broadway rhetoric while staying razor-focused on modern anxieties about outsiders, influence, and power. On the soundtrack album Schmigadoon! (Apple TV+ Original Series Soundtrack), it clocks in at an efficient four minutes of breathless campaign theater.

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

• Patter showpiece performed by Kristin Chenoweth as Mildred Layton in episode 5 of Schmigadoon!
• Written by series creator Cinco Paul; produced for the soundtrack with a team including Scott M. Riesett, Doug Besterman, and Lawrence Manchester.
• A satirical cousin to “Ya Got Trouble” from The Music Man, where fast talk equals political leverage.
• Staged and filmed as a single-take tracking number, showcasing breath control, diction, and comic pacing.
• Appears on the 2021 soundtrack album and in promotional “singalong” video form.

Why it works: the song welds an old-school patter chassis to contemporary content. Mildred rails about neon signs, painted ladies, and corrupting outsiders; the patter’s rolling consonants and clipped vowels give her a prosecutor’s speed and a carnival barker’s volume. As satire, the lyric’s escalating imagery - from peanut shells in the street to “cows and sheep having amorous congress” - exposes how panic merchants build mountains from peanuts. As musical theater, it’s a gift to a star who can sell velocity without blurring sense.

Creation History

Cinco Paul conceived the number as the show’s big “moral alarm” pastiche, tapping the snap-rhythm and tongue-twisting vocabulary of Golden Age patter. Barry Sonnenfeld staged it as a single continuous shot, an audacious choice that asked Chenoweth to hit every lyric, turn, and sight gag without a parachute. She delivered - in four minutes of uninterrupted camera time - a feat that has since been dissected in backstage interviews and promo breakdowns. The result: a campaign rally wrapped in a vaudeville sprint, punctuated by townsfolk echoing her slogans like an instant chorus.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Two outsiders - Josh and Melissa - have upset the town’s tidy moral order. Mildred seizes on this “disruption” to agitate a crowd. She begins with a planted provocation (peanut shells in Town Square) and power-slides into a cascade of slippery-slope warnings: saloon floors, petting pantries, billiard dens, painted ladies, even farm animals behaving badly. Each rung on the ladder gives her another reason to call for new leadership. By the end, the townspeople have echoed her talking points and - right on cue - draft her to run for mayor. It’s a campaign song disguised as a rescue mission.

Song Meaning

This is a musical thesis on how panic becomes policy. Mildred’s rhetorical engine is patter - a genre where breath equals authority. She uses it to compress time and escalate consequence: peanut shells turn into societal rot; two newcomers become existential threats. The humor lands because the imagery is absurd, but the tactics are uncomfortably familiar: euphemism, jargon, borrowed piety, selective outrage, and the crowd’s eager call-and-response. The music’s brisk, almost march-like pulse turns fear into choreography. The target might be modern demagoguery, but the frame borrows from mid-century Broadway, when salesmen sang America into buying things it didn’t need.

Annotations

“We’ve got tribulation, my good sir - We’ve got tribulation in Schmigadoon”

That opening cadence tips its hat to Harold Hill’s “Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here...” The homage is more than flavor; it’s the blueprint for a town-whipping aria where rhythm persuades as much as content.

“Peanut shells in the street!”

Earlier mischief seeded the stage with peanuts; Mildred converts a staged mess into a platform. That’s political theater 101: create the visual, then narrate it into evidence.

“Lying there like passed-out drunks in the gutter - Turning Town Square into the floor of a saloon”

Ordinary litter gets dragooned into apocalyptic imagery. Alcohol shorthand - “saloon,” “drunks,” “loose women” - drapes the town in sin with just a few nouns. That’s how patter works: stack sense-impressions until scale feels inevitable.

“A petting pantry in the middle of the street!”

An antique phrase for a dark movie house becomes a daylight scandal. The archaic diction is doing character work, painting Mildred as someone whose cultural clock stopped while the world moved on.

“Interlopers interloping with hearts - Colder than the hinges of hell!”

She twists a common idiom into ice; the punchline nods to literary hells that freeze instead of burn. It’s a flourish that sounds biblical while carefully avoiding scripture’s specifics.

“Now the mayor’s out, proclaiming his perversions”

Her weaponized morality telescopes a personal revelation into civic decay. The retort isn’t argument; it’s labeling.

“Who’ve never cracked a Bible in their life”

Visual gag meets demagoguery: Mildred holds the Bible upside down as she invokes its authority. The show knows the photo ops it’s referencing; it trusts viewers to connect the dots.

“Tommyrot and flapdoodle - Claptrap and fiddle-faddle and jiggery-pokery”

These antique words aren’t just comic spice; they drag the ear backward in time, sealing the pastiche. And they’re fun to spit at speed - a singer’s playground for plosives.

“Ragtime, blaring on the Victrola”

She borrows the exact ghosts that fueled earlier moral panics: ragtime as a stand-in for creeping vice, the Victrola as delivery device. It’s pure Music Man DNA.

“I’m talking about neon signs, smoke-filled rooms - Billiard parlors and painted ladies”

Her fever dream predicts the season 2 milieu that swaps prairie quaint for jazz-age sin. The writers fold foreshadowing into rhetoric - a wink across seasons.

“And not to mention miscegenation (That sounds bad!)”

Here the satire bites. The term is archaic, the sentiment evergreen, and the casting makes the subtext surface. She uses an intimidating word to spook a crowd that is visibly diverse. The contradiction is the point.

“Doctor Skinner and Miss Gimble”

Titles become daggers. She denies Melissa’s doctorate in her very form of address, reminding us that handed-down hierarchies often survive in honorifics.

“Let’s hope that she will save us soon”

By the end, the hymn flips target: the chorus shifts from praying for divine rescue to hoping Mildred will do it. That pivot, sung in unison, is how a crowd turns into a campaign.

Genre fusion and musical architecture

The track splices patter tradition with a rally cadence. Underneath the verbal fireworks sits a brisk, two-step propulsion: short phrases, rests that behave like gasps, and orchestration that keeps the groove simple so consonants cut through. A small-town chorus becomes echo chamber, a classic Broadway move, but the orchestral color remains light so we never lose the words. With satire, clarity is king.

Emotional arc and performance

Chenoweth rides three speeds: indignant, giddy, and crusading. The indignation sells the stakes, the giddiness makes the crowd complicit, and the crusader posture seals the pivot to candidate. Watch how the phrasing lengthens when she recounts the mayor’s scandal, then snaps back to staccato list-making as she catalogs vices. It’s a built-in breath plan dressed up as character psychology.

Historical touchpoints

The Music Man is the obvious anchor. But the lyric also raids a century of moral-panic shorthand: ragtime, billiards, painted ladies, the Victrola, and that vintage euphemism “petting pantry.” By returning to these specific artifacts, the song frames Mildred not just as old-fashioned but as someone who still campaigns like it’s 1912.

Key Facts

• Artist: The Cast of Schmigadoon!, Kristin Chenoweth
• Featured: Kristin Chenoweth as Mildred Layton
• Composer: Cinco Paul
• Producer: Scott M. Riesett; Doug Besterman; Lawrence Manchester; Cinco Paul
• Release Date: August 6, 2021 (episode premiere); album issued later in 2021
• Genre: Musical theater, patter song, pop-showtune pastiche
• Instruments: Rhythm section, brass, reeds, pit-orchestra colors supporting lead vocal and chorus
• Label: Universal Television, under exclusive license to Sony Music Entertainment
• Mood: Incendiary, satirical, quick-witted
• Length: 3:59 - 4:00
• Track #: Appears as track 26 on many digital album sequences
• Language: English
• Album: Schmigadoon! (Apple TV+ Original Series Soundtrack)
• Music style: Golden Age patter homage with contemporary comic rhetoric
• Poetic meter: Rapid-fire mixed meters with trochaic bursts common to patter writing

Canonical Entities & Relations

• Kristin Chenoweth - sings and portrays Mildred Layton.
• Cinco Paul - writes music and words for the song; executive creative force behind the series.
• Barry Sonnenfeld - directs the episode and stages the number as a single take.
• Scott M. Riesett - produces the recording for the soundtrack.
• Doug Besterman - produces and contributes to music direction/arrangements.
• Lawrence Manchester - mixing engineer and producer on the recording.
• Christopher Gattelli - choreographs principal musical sequences across the series.
• Universal Television LLC - production company; rights holder.
• Sony Music Entertainment - label partner for the soundtrack release.
• Schmigadoon! - television series where the song appears.
• The Music Man - Golden Age musical whose “Ya Got Trouble” provides the core template.

Questions and Answers

When did “Tribulation” first reach audiences?

On August 6, 2021, with the premiere of episode 5. The full soundtrack followed later that year.

Who wrote the song?

Cinco Paul wrote both music and words.

Who sings it on the soundtrack?

Kristin Chenoweth leads, credited alongside The Cast of Schmigadoon!.

Is it really filmed in a single take?

Yes - the production shot the four-minute set piece as one continuous tracking shot, a choice that heightens urgency and shows off airtight breath work.

What classic number is it riffing on?

“Ya Got Trouble” from The Music Man, complete with crowd echo and a sales-pitch rhythm.

What makes the lyric feel vintage?

The diction leans on archaic words - “tommyrot,” “flapdoodle,” “claptrap,” “fiddle-faddle,” “jiggery-pokery” - the kind of chewy syllables patter songs love.

How does the crowd function musically?

They echo Mildred’s slogans on cue, turning a solo into a chorus and a chorus into a political rally.

Does the show connect the piece to modern politics?

By staging a Bible held upside down and invoking “outsiders” and “influence,” the number winks at recent photo ops and culture-war rhetoric while keeping the tone comic.

What’s the track length on the album?

Just about four minutes, listed at 3:59 on several digital platforms.

Why is it a highlight for singers?

Because it’s a live-wire test of breath, diction, and narrative clarity - and it’s fun to ride the consonants without sacrificing meaning.

Awards and Chart Positions

No official weekly chart peaks or certifications are associated with this track. But in the awards orbit of the series, two notes matter for context:

As stated in a 2022 Pitchfork report, the Emmy win for “Corn Puddin’” underscored the show’s songwriting chops. And according to Vanity Fair’s coverage of the musical references, the series was built to pastiche without pure parody, a balance this track exemplifies.

Additional Info

Two production facts deepen appreciation for the song. First, the number was filmed as a single shot - a logistical puzzle solved with precise blocking and a cast who could hit their marks at speed. Second, the finished recording credits reflect a collaboration between TV and Broadway-adjacent veterans, from producers Scott M. Riesett and Doug Besterman to mixer-producer Lawrence Manchester. If you’re listening closely, you’ll hear a careful audio mix that keeps consonants in front of the band.

Interviews with Chenoweth reveal how she prepared: endless lyric drilling, physicalizing the breath plan, and leaning into the comedy without letting the words smear. That’s the invisible craft in any great patter performance. Or, to borrow a line from a trusted source, as NME magazine might put it, speed is nothing without clarity.

Sources: Apple TV video featurette; Spotify and Apple Music album listings; Shazam credits; Vanity Fair feature; Pitchfork awards roundup; trade interviews and episode credits.