Sondheim | this woman's work

My love affair with Sondheim

Jul 202010

(this is a self-indulgent post)

I’ve been playing Company (2007 revival) on iTunes non-stop since I watched it streaming on Netflix. (You can also catch it on YouTube.) I wasn’t much a fan of that soundtrack (preferring the original, especially after watching the documentary of the recording session ALSO available both on Netflix and YouTube) but after seeing it performed, I got to liking it a lot. I’m also now crushing on Raúl Esparza after being underwhelmed by him in Tick Tick Boom (aka “Rent Lite”). He is my new imaginary boyfriend.

But I didn’t actually find Sondheim via showtunes. I actually discovered that I loved him (not realizing how many standards he’d written) when I was deep in a decade-long obsession with female jazz vocalists. It was Dianne Reeves singing Sondheim — this song — that got me hooked.

I don’t always like his songs at first but once I’ve heard them enough, I love them. I compare that to, say, Andrew Lloyd Weber who I often like at first (with the exception of Phantom of the Opera, which I loathe) and then listening to it starts driving me insane and I feel like I’ve heard every little bit of it and can never hear that particular song again. There are exceptions but they are singular. (Although I’ll admit to a nostalgic fondness for Cats but that’s because I got the London Cast Recording for Christmas when I was 12. And the way I hear it, it’s still a good musical if you’re 12 but it’s not so great if you’re 40.) (You can disagree with me and we can start a flamewar here except I have a policy about never commenting on youtube.)

I feel the same way about Stephen Schwartz. Defying Gravity is an amazingly great song but the rest of the score? Meh. But Sondheim? I can listen to everything he wrote and I am always fascinated especially when I hear a new rendition. I feel the same way about Rodgers & Hammerstein and Gershwin and Cole Porter. Those are great songs — great, great songs. And anyone who says Sondheim isn’t hummable obviously hasn’t listened to much Sondheim.

Here’s a terrific version of a terrific song: Tim Curry giving an extremely emotional performance (only audio, no video sadly) of Losing My Mind

The most important thing I learned in Soc class

Feminism/Politics, Judaism 10 Responses »

Dec 142008

W.I. Thomas: “If people believe something to be true, it is true in its consequences.”

In other words, we act on our beliefs as if they were facts, right?

I think about this all the time because it helps me understand why other people hold as firmly to their beliefs as I hold to mine. It also reminds me how fallible my own “facts” might be.

I wish other people would appreciate this maxim as well — it’d save me a whole lot of useless arguments.

Now I’m an idealist (or so my frustrated but loving mother tells me), which means I’m more prone to this than other people. Like republicans — theoretically I understand how they could think the way they do but when it comes right down to it, I don’t get it. I feel the same way about lots of other stuff like, for example, showtunes. I say that I understand how you could not like musical theater but secretly I’m thinking that you just haven’t heard the right score. And what’s worse, if you tell me you don’t like musical theater because it’s so stagy and silly, I will nod like I’m totally understanding your point of view but secretly I will be plotting to send you a mix CD to convince you that you’re wrong. (I’d be planning to put Finishing the Hat and pretty much all of South Pacific — the original Mary Martin version — on it. Oh and some Jason Robert Brown. And Gershwin, of course. And have you ever heard William Finn’s Sailing? Because if you haven’t, I’d be thinking, you’re just talking out of ignorance.)

And see, that’s a problem. Because for all I know (and I should ask before I assault you with mp3 CDs) you grew up listening to showtunes because your parents are huge fans and as a matter of fact you haven’t talked to them for years because your anti-showtune stance is such a betrayal that whenever you get together all you do is fight and your mom says, “Anyone who doesn’t love Bernadette Peters’s rendition of Being Alive is no child of mine!” Maybe my hammering to enlighten you is more hammer, less light, you know?

I’m not going to let go of my idea that showtunes are way awesome and I don’t have to but I do need to operate with the understanding that people can listen to the exact same songs I do and come out of it with a different opinion. Because their true beliefs are just as true as mine are — even if they aren’t. And maybe I ought to be a little more respectful when someone says, “Yeah, I don’t like musicals. That’s just me.”

Now when it comes to stuff that’s just plain wrong — like I can believe 2 + 2 = 5 and I can act like it’s true all I want but I’m still gonna be wrong about it — there’s some point to having an argument with me but our discussion will be more effective if you come to it understanding how staunchly I’m standing in my convictions.

It gets so much stickier when people start arguing about showtunes with the same absolutes they’d bring to an argument about math, you know? When we don’t understand that some things — like politics and religion — feel grounded in fact when actually they’re grounded in faith. So we can start quoting studies and scripture but if the other person doesn’t buy into the premise of that study or the veracity of that scripture, it ends up being — you guessed it — more hammer less light.

Anyway. I was thinking on that today. No reason. Well, no reason I’m gonna blog!

From Northern Exposure: A Song

Music, mp3 14 Responses »

Aug 142008

One night a million years ago I’m watching Northern Exposure and there’s a scene with something about Shelly’s pageant and there’s a song in the background, something odd and the people singing have accents maybe and there’s a drifting twirling while they show the pageant women spinning in their gowns.

I wanted that song.

I didn’t know how to find it — this was before google — and all I could remember is that it says “pretty” in it. Pretty girls? Pretty something? I remembered the swirling skirts, slow motion and the word pretty — a delicate cacophony of skirts and singing but I had no idea how to find it.

I’ve looked for that song since that show aired in 1991.

I recently realized I could get the series on DVD from the library and comb through them to find the song but c’mon — that’s a lot of television to scan through and I’m a busy person. So I started hunting episode lists trying to find the one I needed figuring I could just get that year and do a lot of fast forwarding ’til I came to a pageant scene. And my friends, I have found it.

It took me awhile because I remembered the scene as if Shelly was watching but I figured out it was actually Maurice watching the pageant in the episode The Big Kiss. And once I figured that out, I found the song. And it’s by Sondheim and I already own it and I love it and I play it all the time and now I can play it in a new context.

Here you go: Pretty Lady mp3 from Pacific Overtures

(Hey, was Northern Exposure the first television show to really utilize their soundtrack? Does Grey’s Anatomy owe them a debt or what?)

This is for David

mp3 No Responses »

Mar 022008

Because I want to make sure he’s good and hooked on showtunes.

This is from the revival of Sondheim’s very first musical, Saturday Night. It’s the title song and my favorite part happens at 3:04. I like this a lot because it’s such a simple, classic showtunes song and the guys have these great, smooth voices and they’re simply singing beautifully instead of indulging in vocal acrobatics. And I have crushes on all of ‘em. (I have no idea what they look like but they sure sound pretty!)

Here you go: Saturday Night