So, through my vast knowledge of show tune lyrics, I started to recognize some songs that have similar lyrics or even the same lyric in the use of a reference.

Here's my top favorite musical similarities!

Honorable Mentions:

"West Side Story": "Tonight and West Side Story": "Tonight"

The Lyric or Title or Theme: "Tonight."

If you're thinking these are the same song, but in fact, they are not. I only put this in here because in my music appreciation class we had the song "Tonight" and I was thinking it was Maria's "Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight, I saw you and the world went away..." Though in actuality it was The Quintet, "The Jets are gonna have their day tonight, The Jets are gonna have their way tonight..." Though I know the point of the word 'tonight' in this music, I thought it was worth honorable mention.

"Cinderella": "Ten Minutes Ago" and "The Last Five Years": "The Next Ten Minutes"

The Lyric or Title or Theme: "Ten Minutes."

So these two are really similar, thus why they only got honorable mention. Though they don't fully relate both songs about love and ten minutes. In "The Last Five Years" the song starts with Jamie reminiscing asking Kathy to marry him and ends with her reminiscing the event. In "Cinderella" they are also reminiscing their meeting. I know it's a stretch but I thought I rope it in here!

4. "Tangled": "Mother Knows Best" and "Hairspray": "(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs"

The Lyric or Title or Theme: "Mother Knows Best."

The songs don't have a lot in common. In "Tangled," the mother is singing of the dangers of the world and in "Hairspray," the mother is singing about her life and teach her daughter how to win. The reason I relate them is when Amber's mother ("Hairspray") sings "Mother Knows Best" I always think of Mother Gothal ("Tangled"), the villian. And let's be real, I think we could all see Kristin Chenoweth playing Mother Gothal in a live action verison of "Tangled" and we can't wait for her to play Amber's mother in the Live version of "Hairspray."

3. "Hairspray": "It Takes Two" and "Into The Woods": "It Takes Two"

The Lyric or Title or Theme: "It Takes Two."

So, I'm not going to lie, I haven't really listened to "Hairspray's," "It Takes Two" a whole lot, but I do believe that it is Link's character that primarily sings, if not fully sings it. But anyways, in "Into the Woods" the song represents it would take both the Baker and his wife to be a perfect couple and how it takes two to get everything done and I think that just goes back to the old saying, two heads are better than one, which is a pretty good saying to live by.

2. "Hamilton": "Say No To This" and "The Last Five Years": "Nobody Needs to Know"

The Lyric or Title or Theme: "Nobody Needs to Know."

The connection between the songs is simple, they are both singing about affairs. Where does the reference come in? It seems that "Hamilton" is referencing "The Last Five Years." The very last lyric of "Say No To This" is, "Nobody needs to know," followed by violins which is key in James Robert Brown's "The Last Five Years." The reference is simple and wonderful and all theatre kids should be extremely happy about it.

1. "Newsies": "Santa Fe" and "RENT": "Santa Fe"

The Lyric or Title or Theme: "Santa Fe."

This is probably my song from both shows. I actually did a lot of digging on this one because I thought it was so cool that both shows referenced Santa Fe. Both musicals are set in New York City and we know that "Santa Fe" is about a day-and-a-half's drive, so why did both love Santa Fe? Well, apparently in 1899 the last stop on the railroad was Santa Fe. Jack's ("Newsies") dream is to get out of NYC, out of the dirt and pressure of being a kid worker. He wants to ride the train out to the west and live a new life. He wants to go to a 'promise land'- kinda like NYC for all theatre kids. 90 years later in "RENT," "Santa Fe" still represents a 'promise land', but in this verison of "Santa Fe," it's because Santa Fe was open to the LGBT community. In the time of "RENT" which is 1989-1990 people were afraid of gay people thinking they are the reason for AIDS which was growing at and exponential rate. So it makes perfect sense why they'd be dreaming of a safe promise land. Some also think that "RENT" is actually referencing "Newsies"" with this song. On any account this is my absolutely favorite musical similarity.