Songfacts®:

• The Little Shop Of Horrors is a black-and-white film shot in 1960 by the American director Roger Corman. Its star is a talking plant with a mesmerizing voice and a taste for human flesh, so obviously it's not to be taken too seriously.
  
  Like Ed Wood, Corman had a reputation for making films that were so bad they were classic, and it was inevitable that sooner or later someone would turn it into a musical. The book and lyrics of the remake are by Howard Ashman, with music by Alan Menken. Little Shop Of Horrors opened at the Orpheum Theatre, New York, on July 27, 1982. The film version was released in 1986.
  
  "Little Shop Of Horrors" opens the show; it's performed by three Black girls - Chiffon, Ronnette and Crystal - obviously a takeoff of The Supremes. According to the book, Chiffon was played initially by Marlene Danielle who was shortly replaced by Leilani Jones; Crystal by Jennifer Leigh Warren; and Ronnette by Sheila Kay Davis. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England
• Menken told Entertainment Weekly that this is about the dark side of greed, adding that it was the first song he and Ashman wrote for the film. He explained: "The title song may not have been the most ambitious number in the score, but it really captures the tone and establishes the DNA of Little Shop with a girl group singing about sturm and drang and horror and death. It sets up the idea that we're going to do a merry little musical romp about how greed will end the world."