Every Movie's A Circus (Reprise) Lyrics – Sunset Boulevard

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

The first pass of “Every Movie’s a Circus” sketches Hollywood’s food chain; the reprise sharpens it. We’re back at the drugstore with quick-fire patter, walk-on complaints, and Joe slipping into view. The music keeps its rat-a-tat ostinato and brass jabs, but now the lyric drops more dart points. It’s a crowd scene that behaves like a Greek chorus - needling, amused, slightly cruel.

Highlights

• Chorus-as-industry: overlapping voices paint a whole backlot in under three minutes.
• Character beats on the fly: Joe’s dryness, Artie’s grind, Betty’s directness - all revealed without stopping the traffic.
• Noir aftertaste: swing in the rhythm section, brass with bite, and a melody that moves like headlights across chrome.

Creation History

The number was added for the Los Angeles revision of Sunset Boulevard and retained on the American premiere recording. The reprise functions as a pivot: it reunites Joe and Betty at Schwab’s, seeds their collaboration, and primes the show for “Girl Meets Boy.” On disc, you hear Judy Kuhn and Alan Campbell carry the thread while the ensemble fires off those tart asides; onstage, the staging plays it like a rolling camera move through a crowded counter-service set.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Close to closing time at Schwab’s. Industry types trade tiny victories and medium-sized humiliations. Joe swings by for a meeting - or so he says - and bumps into Artie, then Betty. The ensemble keeps chanting movies, as if the whole town speaks one word. Between quips and interruptions, Betty floats a script idea; Joe stays prickly. The contact is made anyway. That thread will pull them together a few scenes later.

Song Meaning

The reprise doubles as a social x-ray. This is what Hollywood does: compresses lives into loglines and punchlines. The message lives in the texture - a world running on favors, timing, and the luck of a greenlight. The mood? Brisk, caffeinated, a little vicious. Context matters: placed right before Joe caves to comfort, the piece underlines how attractive Betty’s honest work looks in a town of soft lies.

Annotations

[MYRON] I’m up too early / Shooting at seven / I gotta go

Original lyric, clipped and weary. In the 2023 revival the same beat turns harder - a request for something stronger. That tweak reframes the workplace banter as coping, not just kvetching.

Don’t you hate it / When a yes-man says no?

A clean jab at gatekeeping. The revival flips this thought to spell out the power dynamic - public yeses, private nos - which suits the production’s starker tone.

[ACTRESS] I must say R.K.O. are O.K

A period wink trimmed in the new staging, likely to avoid footnoted nostalgia and keep the scene in the nasty present.

[MYRON] Isn’t that great? / [JOANNA] No, they shot the thing dead

Great joke. The newer album steers into despair instead of the punchline. Different flavor, same sting: an industry where meetings kill as often as they bless.

[ARTIE] More like a slave

Re-angled as a half-rhyme about behaving - the sentiment is still “assistant equals beast of burden,” softened by rhythm and flow.

Animals

A nod to the showbiz truism often attributed to W.C. Fields about never working with animals or children - not because they’re difficult, but because they steal the scene. It’s exactly the sort of rueful folklore that belongs in a studio snack bar.

Style and engine

Genre fusion sits between show-tune bustle and film-cue urgency. The groove leans on an ostinato, percussion tick, and brass stings; harmony stays agile so dialogue can cut through. You can practically see the montage.

Emotional arc

Starts chipper, turns acid, lands in flinty flirtation. The town laughs, then shrugs, then gets back to work.

Language and symbols

“Movies” as a one-word chorus is the bit - a mantra that reduces careers to a vibe. Idioms about screen tests, yes-men, and buttons pressed for beds fold cynicism into rhyme. The reprise format itself acts as a symbol: the same circus, only tighter.

Key Facts

• Artist: Andrew Lloyd Webber; featured voices include Judy Kuhn (Betty) and Alan Campbell (Joe)
• Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Lyricists: Don Black, Christopher Hampton
• Album: Sunset Boulevard (1994 Los Angeles Cast)
• Label: Polydor/PolyGram
• Release Date (album): September 13, 1994
• Track # on album: 10
• Approx. length: ~2:33
• Conductor/Music Director: Paul Bogaev
• Orchestrations: Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Cullen
• Language: English
• Genre: Musical theatre, ensemble patter number
• Instruments: pit orchestra - strings, brass, woodwinds, keyboards, percussion
• Music style: fast chorus reprise over driving ostinato with brass punctuation
• Mood: caffeinated, sardonic, quick on the draw

Questions and Answers

Where does the reprise sit in the show’s arc?

Act I at Schwab’s Drugstore - right before “Girl Meets Boy,” reigniting Joe and Betty’s creative spark.

What’s different from the first “Every Movie’s a Circus”?

This one is leaner, with more interruptions and sharper asides. It’s less introduction, more snapshot.

Who’s prominent on the cast album?

Judy Kuhn and Alan Campbell, with ensemble shots from Vincent Tumeo and company on the Los Angeles/American premiere recording.

Did later productions alter lyrics?

Yes - the 2023 West End and 2024 Broadway revival apply targeted rewrites, pruning some period gags and darkening a few exchanges.

Was it ever pushed as a single?

No - it lives as part of the cast album and subsequent revival album track lists.

Awards and Chart Positions

• Tony Awards 1995: The original Broadway production won Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book, among others.
• Olivier Awards 2024: Jamie Lloyd’s West End revival won seven, including Best Musical Revival and Best Actress.
• Tony Awards 2025: Broadway revival won Best Revival of a Musical; Nicole Scherzinger won Best Leading Actress in a Musical.
• Record charts: Sunset Blvd: The Album (2024 live London cast) reached no. 1 on the UK Official Compilations Chart.

Additional Info

• Language adaptations: The 2019 Brazilian production at Teatro Santander in São Paulo presented Portuguese lyrics by Mariana Elisabetsky and Victor Mühlethaler; the number appears there as “Todo Filme é um Circo”.
• Placement on recordings: On the American premiere set, the reprise is track 10 of Act I; streaming editions list it around the two-and-a-half minute mark.
• Staging note: Schwab’s scene thrives on cutaways - waiters, actors, assistants - staging that mirrors the show’s cinema-on-stage design.