Sweeney Todd

On the Temple Bar boundary,

Where the monarch stops in his progress

To perform the ritual of the pearl-handled sword,

The sacrificial altar becomes a barber’s chair.


Depraved diseased despicable murderous drink-sodden London,

My poxy old prison tart!

How many times,as a boy,

I would visit the Tower

To watch the lions feeding in the zoo

And stare at the torture instruments,

The rack and thumbscrews, the iron gauntlets

And the Scavenger’s Daughter.

The city tried to kill me

But my cunning and resource were too strong.


Fleet Street, with its gibbets and freak shows,

And the savage giants of St Dunstan’s clock,

Striking the hours with their clubs;

The crook and the writer

Foster their wits here;

The killer and the bookseller

Practise their trades.

At Mrs Salmon’s Waxworks

You can look in wonder

At the execution of Charles the First,

The rites of Moloch

And the Turkish Seraglio.


A razor of the finest steel

Fits so snugly in my hand;

It calls to me like God.

Cut, cut, cut…

In the kitchen

Love is busy making pies….