I Think Enough Time Has Passed, And It Can Now Finally Be Said.

I’ve been re-listening to the Follies in Concert recording from 1985, and I still can’t believe how much that audience loses its goddamn collective mind.  They just wet themselves.

It made me remember what Clive Barnes, in the New York Times, wrote about the show’s score, back in 1971:

Mr. Sondheim’s music comes in two flavors-nostalgic and cinematic. The nostalgic kind is for the pseudo-oldie numbers, and I must say that most of them sound like numbers that you have almost only just forgotten, but with good reason … The cinematic music is a mixture of this and that, chiefly that. I doubt whether anyone will be parodying it in thirty or forty years’ time.

So now that, nearly forty years later, everyone is parodying Sondheim’s style, and bearing in mind that Clive Barnes got it right with other shows, such as A Chorus Line; and with the added consideration that he is no longer alive, having died last November, I still think it can now be said:

You were wrong, Clive.  Very wrong.  And you were a bitch about it. 

Up yours, Clive.

A Few Identity Crises

What a quiet blog it’s been lately!  Time for some more pedantry and rhyme.

A definition, from the OED Concise online:

RHYME

• noun 1 correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, especially when used in poetry.

This means that all words rhyme with themselves, and I won’t stand for that.  So here’s mine:

RHYME

• noun 1 correspondence in word endings of all terminal sounds after a differing, stressed consonant sound.

This prevents words from rhyming with themselves, and it also prevents identities from masquerading as rhymes.  Some identities for your delectation:

Everybody say “Amen” (Amen!)
These are the dreams of ordinary men
Dragon, Dreams of Ordinary Men

“Amen” doesn’t rhyme with “men”. Properly speaking, it identifies with it.

I saw her today at the reception
In her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception …
Rolling Stones, You Can’t Always Get What You Want

If the stressed syllables were “re” and “de”, these two words would rhyme. But this is an attempt to rhyme “sepshun” with “sepshun”, and that ain’t a rhyme.

I will listen hard to your tuition
You will see it come to its fruition
The Police, Wrapped Around Your Finger

Same again, a rhyme of “wishin” with “wishin”. I’m surprised Sting didn’t plump for “nuclear fission”; that would have rhymed.

Anyway, once you start listening for this stuff, you’ll hear it everywhere, and I can’t abide it in my own work.  Identities are quite nice within lines, but they can’t do the heavy lifting at the end of a line. They sound, and are, lazy.

My scrupulous avoidance of near-rhymes and identities in places where perfect rhymes are needed is what makes me sound old-fashioned and, in pop and rock terms, prissy.  But I think I am more to be pitied than despised.

What’s Wrong With Too Many Musicals. Episode 4.

Ep4. – Writers who get in the way

If you want to send a message, try Western Union.

The above is usually attributed to Frank Capra, but I suspect it was a pretty common sentiment in 1930s Hollywood; in any case, Capra could get very messagey when it suited him.  Every writer succumbs once in a while, usually in the younger years, because the people, dammit, the people need to hear the truth.

It happens a lot in musicals.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s the lure of a populist art form, with lots of educated, middle-class people sitting still and listening, lulled, sleepy, ready for indoctrination.  That, and writers who, because the musical theatre is such a closed little world, truly believe we are the first to notice how we should all be a bit nicer to each other.

It’s not necessarily bad to get all messagey, but there are accepted ways of going about it.  Here they are.

Tell a kid

This is easy.  Sometimes the kid is part of the storyline, as in Falsettos; when characters need to unburden, and make some of the evening’s points clear, they tell the kid, Jason, in the spirit of educating him.  Jason, of course, wiser than his years, can usually be counted on to say something pert, and teach the grownups a little something about themselves.

Sometimes the kid is the hero’s younger self (see Nine, The Boy From Oz), so he’s useful for early scenes of optimism, and that all-important “What happened to you, man?  What happened to our dreams?” scene, later.

If the main character is already a kid (Annie), give them a dog.  Oliver! is an impressive exception to the rule.

Tell a dead person

These are usually parents or wives and they’re great fun, because your main character, alone onstage, is still addressing someone without breaking the fourth wall. Examples include the lovely ‘Mamma, Mamma’ from The Most Happy Fella, and Sweeney’s part in ‘Johanna (Quartet)’, from Sweeney Todd.  Also Jesus, addressing God (OK, not technically dead, but still up in the sky), in ‘Gethsemane’ from Jesus Christ Superstar.

You can also bring a ghost onstage, and have them tell the characters Great Truths, as dead Billy Bigelow does in Carousel, and glowing white dead Fantine does in Les Miserables.

Put a Hat On a Supporting Character

The characters are discussing the Message of the Play, and wishing they could tell the People Who Need to Hear, who Aren’t Listening.  So they slap a hat on one of their own and - hey presto! - he becomes Officer Krupke.  Number ensues.

Dream Sequence!

These are helpful, if dated.  You can show How Things Could Be (West Side Story), How Things Might Turn Out (Oklahoma!), How Things Used To Be (Follies, On a Clear Day), and – most messagey of all – How Things Truly Are Beneath The Surface (Follies again, and Lady in the Dark).  In fact, Follies used dream sequences so well, it probably put the last nail in their collective coffin.

Have the chorus do it

Probably the least effective technique, but Brecht is usually cited as a precedent, and the chorus come downstage, point fingers and list all the faults we will nevertheless take home intact.  Examples include “Bui Doi”, from Miss Saigon, the end of Sweeney Todd (the stage version), and far too much of Rent.

It’s when these tehniques are not employed that everything can go horribly wrong.  Tim Rice really got it right in Superstar:  Judas sings to Jesus when he wants to make his points. By the time of Evita, Che and Eva are bantering with each other about the way couples use each other (even though Che has no love interest); then, in the first version of Chess, The Russian and Florence sit and analyse their own scene to one another, while quoting Cole Porter.  Awful.

I love Into The Woods, but I don’t need the witch (hot version) telling me at evening’s end how I should be careful the things I say, children will listen. I know, I get it, I was listening myself for the last two hours, and it’s a bit late if I wasn’t.

When my 20 min draft of The Happy Medium appeared at OzMade musicals in 2007, the audience filled in little feed-back slips, most of which, I’m happy to say, were really encouraging.  But writers only remember the criticism: one person observed, accurately, that the show was preaching to the choir, and would probably never become a big, thumping, mainstream success.  Guess what another wrote?  Well, there’s a song in the show called ‘Put it Back’, in which our hero is upbraided by two Brits for making changes to his performance in a Brit show; then our heroine is patronised by two Americans for improving the blocking of a scene in an American show.  “Put it back, put it back, put it back,” they all sing, and this one feed-back slip read:

Where’s the message?

Maybe I should get a ghost to sing it.

100th Post Special! Let’s Look to the Future!

Wow, songwriting fans!  It’s been about five months, and what a journey it’s been!  So much arcane trivia from me!  So many requests from you for that song that goes “we walked in a garden, we planted a seed”!

But the fun isn’t over, because there is so much left to do!  So many songwriting questions remain!  So many …

 … Challenges For the Future

1.  When Michael Bolton sings, “Said I loved you, but I lied, cos this is more than love I feel inside.  Said I loved you, but I was wrong …“  which one is it?  He was mistaken about love, or he was deliberately misleading us on the matter?  A lie is not the same as a mistake, is it?  There’s the crucial element of intent, Your Honour.  Frankly, the lying version is a much more interesting idea.

2.  When people sing along lustily to the chorus of Vanessa Amorosi’s “Absolutely Everybody“, are they aware that its entire chorus could be edited down to:

Absolutely everybody,
Everybody, everybody.
Absolutely everybody in the whole wide world
Absolutely everybody
Every boy and every girl
Absolutely everybody.

3.  In the Madness song Our House, “Mother’s tired, she needs a rest. The kids are playing up downstairs“, but later, “Our mum, she’s so house-proud.  Nothing ever slows her down.”  So which is it?  She sometimes needs a rest, or nothing ever slows her down?  Are these the parallel but mutually exclusive realities that inevitably accompany any contemplation of our own childhood?  Or just the sound of Camden ska boys getting rich and not giving a crap?

4.  Is anyone more daggy than Rupert Holmes?  Is anyone cooler than Kate Bush?  The why don’t more people notice that Escape and Babooshka have exactly the same plot?  Sure, there are superficial differences – Rupert narrates in the first person, and Kate’s heroine is deliberately testing her lover – but where’s the medley, cabaret artists?  Where’s the mashup, groovy DJs?

And these are just the tip of the challenge iceberg.  Onward!

A Short Note on Leonard Bernstein

I remembered, as I wrote earlier about And I Love Her, that Leonard Bernstein played (and sang, with more than a little condescension) the song in one of his Young People’s Concerts.  This occasion is often cited as an example of Bernstein’s popular touch, using a new Beatles recording to demonstrate sonata form.  I remember hearing about it while at The School of Music: “Bernstein used a Beatles song to demonstrate sonata form”.  Subtext:  ”Wasn’t Lenny hip?”

Except that And I Love Her isn’t an example of sonata form.  And Bernstein, who was pretty hip, didn’t play it as a demonstration of sonata form.  The popular version of events is a conflation of what happened.  He played it as an example of ternary form (specifically, with the repeated A in AABA), on the way to explaining how that ternary form informs 1st movement sonata form.

If a popular song were in sonata form, it would have some sort of “second subject”, in a key different from that of the first subject, and – this is vital – that second subject would be in the same key as the first later, when they are both repeated.

I know of no song that does this.  It’s a good idea, though.  Might write one.

Alright, alright, Beatles songs in minor and major keys …

Some music teacher somewhere clearly set an assignment on Beatles songs, in minor and major keys, and it’s yielded a lot of fruitless searching of the internet, some of it ending up here.

At first, I thought, “Go read a book, kids.”  Then I took pity on you.  I mean, you might be grownups.  With no access to books.  Who use the internet to do the hard work for you.  I’m sure such adults exist.

Anyway, here are some tidbits that might help.

Songs that are firmly in a major key, and others that are in a minor key, off the top of my head:

Yellow Submarine, Eight Days a Week and Hey Jude are all unambiguously in a major key.

I Want You (She’s So Heavy),  Hey Bulldog and Don’t Bother Me are all minor.

You want more?  Like some songs that start one way and finish another?

And I Love Her – Aah, what a song.  It’s from the album A Hard Day’s Night, and it’s in C sharp minor.  Its progression starts on the IV minor chord (F#m), and each A section ends on the relative major of C#m, namely E major.  This would be sophisticated enough, but on the final instrumental outro, there’s a Tierce de Picardie, ending on a C# major chord.  So, just to reiterate, it’s in C# minor, each A section modulates to the relative major, and the final chord is that of the parallel major.

Happiness Is a Warm Gun (from the White Album) also starts on the IV minor chord, firstly in E minor (so the progression goes Am to Em), and then later in Am (so the progression goes Dm to Am).  Then there’s a bluesy progression in A, using chords based on the flattened third and flattened seventh (namely C and G7), to lead into the final major section, in C major, a doo-wop progression of I-iv-IV-V, or C-Am-F-G7.  If I were bucking for the top mark in the class, I would write something a little pretentious like:

After a short prelude in E minor, this song constitutes, over its entire structure, a progression from A minor to its relative major of C, utilising the tonal ambiguity of a blues progression in A to effect the modulation.  This tonal transition mirrors that of the lyric, from an apparently earnest (if obscure) series of statements, to the cheerfully ironic sentiment of the chorus, reflected in the song’s title.  Bear in mind that this achievement is John Lennon’s, and that he is routinely treated as the less musically sophisticated of the Lennon/McCartney pair.

If you are in the mood to crack a book, I recommend the superb Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald.  Don’t forget: quotations do not count in your word tally, and you should cite all your sources.

And writing “wikipedia” is not citing your sources.

Pete

A Songwriter’s Flowchart

Happy Hour

I’ve been toying with the idea of joining together the various rhyme challenges on this blog into a humorous free verse poem, the sort of thing that might be read out over a tinkling piano late at night.  I had my chance last night, when I was a guest speaker at the annual dinner for Canberra Repertory.  Man, those Rep veterans can party.  And just as well, because the entrees didn’t arrive until after 9pm, and my talk, scheduled for after the main course, was in danger of being out of date by the time it was delivered. 

I edited the speech as I ate, and removed the poem from its ending; I’m putting it here.

My talk was about those magically creative moments that happen in theatre, that are the reason theatregoers go back to the theatre, and that are never the most expensive moments in a show.  Those moments are, I proposed, every bit as available to an amateur group as they are to any professional body.  Morever, professional shows in Australia, so often a dogged reproduction of something that worked five years earlier on Broadway, can be less surprising and less creative than many shows produced by amateurs.

I planned to wrap up with a recollection in verse of happy hours I attended after Rep shows, back in the late ’80s, usually at Tilley’s Devine Cafe Gallery, where I drank Strongbow cider (erroneously believing that it wasn’t vile), and tried too hard to impress my elders. 

I took some liberties with events, and made myself much wittier than I am.  My excuse is that I was trying to string together all these words that supposedly cannot be rhymed.  Because if they can be rhymed, what other impossibilities are waiting to be demolished?

Happy Hour

Thomas always promises
“There’s no band like Thomas’s!”
His band? He’s just the drummer.
They play that punky foreign jazz,
their singer’s hair as orange as
a mandarin in summer.

The girls sit listening, prim, knees together,
hands on laps.
The boys all smoke like chimneys
and look in vain for gaps.

Simon chats up Kelly, levels of lust ascending
to a dangerous high,
his dreams of justice ending
with her every sigh,
and he says to me, “Might have an early night.
You should too, son.”
I say “Simon, I think it can be done.
Yes, I think it can be done.”

Theven year-old Thally
whoth jutht lotht a tooth
ith futhing, futhing, futhing
over nothing, nothing, nothing.

Her mother, Sharon, says
“Tokyo’s oakey-doakey,
but only for a visit.
The Vatican City’s pretty,
but too itty-bitty.”
And here it comes … “Oh, Paree!”
(where she discovered absinthe, cheroots and potpourri)
“Are you bored?” she asks. “Have you even been abroad?”

and I say, “Three things I gained while overseas:
a mug, a Japanese fan, vermouth.
Three things I lost while overseas:
my luggage, appetite, and youth.”

She’s miffed, and murmurs,
“I try, but I never find it funny when you make fun.”
I say, “I think it can be done.
Try harder, ‘cos I think it can be done.”

Her new man Joe plays the banjo,
sings of farms and woe,
but he went to Dara,
moved to South Yarra,
and he’s a great writer, he says,
or he could be one.

Me, I don’t challenge
a J. D. Salinger,
not even a would-be one.

So, imbibing plonk,
sold as sauvignon blanc,
I find a gent
I know only as Director, Resident,
holding forth
on his play
about Ollie North.

He says, “A hostage Ollie North
would cost a jolly penny in ransom.
They let him go, July 4th
because he’s so damn handsome!
Do you see?”
And the chorus boys chorus, “Mais oui, mais oui!”
He sees me smirk, and announces
“I find it odd
that those who need one most
have no God.”

I
reply
“It was so like Jehovah,
that putting one over.
Trust him to oblige a
man like Elijah
to take up the prophecy trade.

That small voice, I’m thinking,
would set me to drinking.
I’d probably try gin,
a drink as obligin’
as any that man’s ever made.”

He says, “My dear,
I never knew a career
could be ended before it’s begun.”
I say, “Well, it can be done.
Oh, I know it can be done.”

So later, in the kitchen,
Melissa heats a
pizza
in an oven meant
for the victims of Hannibal Lecter,
according to the government inspector.
I steal a slice, and she asks,
“Will a new album ever top
that one by Dylan,
you know, before Blonde on Blonde?”
I say, “What, Highway 61?”

“Yes,” she replies, then smoke gets in our eyes,
and I think, I guess, why not?
If we all took a shot,
I’m not sure how,
but I think it can be done.

She kisses my neck,
says “Any objections?”
I assure her there are none.

Besides, I think it can be done.
Yes, I think it can be done.

Well, I Wasn’t Far Off

I suggested, in the post immediately below, that a reality TV show be used to cast Prince William in the Spice Girls musical, but Simon Fuller is a far more evil genius than I.  Obviously the show should cast all the girls.  Brilliant!

Title suggestions?  Wannabes?

A Zig. A Zig, Ha.

It is hard to write a jukebox musical.  The reasons are many and complicated, but chief amongst them is the writer’s knowledge that he/she is creating shit.  This knowledge is hard to duck each morning on the way to the computer, and harder still that night, as your lover asks “How was your day?” and the siren song of forgetting is heard from the vodka bottle in the cupboard.

The British do the jukeboxers best, having always felt inferior about the stage musical, despite such lovely efforts as Oliver!  Mamma Mia! was, so the speak, the mother load lode, and it’s been easier every year to re-attempt its stunning achievement of making well-crafted pop songs mildly enjoyable.

So, with news that a Spice Girls musical is on its way, I feel more pity than anything else.  I know the scenario is going to be the hardest part for some desperate playwright somewhere down the line, so I’m offering this one.  We can hash out the royalty details later.

Act One

The girls bound on, full of life, to the sound of Wannabe.  They are here to audition for Simon Fuller (played by Will Young).  They grab bits of costume and props lying around the studio (leopard print, bustiers etc.), to create their signature looks by song’s end.  A girl group is born!

But trouble looms.  Mel C can’t keep a boyfriend, and Posh is worried that she has no talent.  The others buck her up with a stirring rendition of Say You’ll Be There, and this transforms into their legendary concert at Wembley Stadium, attended by Prince William, who flirts with Ginger.  No such event occurred in real life, but that doesn’t matter.  The actor playing HRH William will be found through a reality TV show. 

In a comic subplot, Mel B watches Eddie Murphy movies.  She experiments with cross-dressing.  Posh still worries that she has no talent, but Baby reassures her that it’s all about positivity, and the two “sing” Spice Up Your Life.

William and Ginger’s relationship grows serious, and they serenade one another to the tune of 2 Become 1.  Posh, hanging around football change rooms, joins in and, in a stunning coup de theatre, Mel C is introduced to the joys of Sapphic love by Mel B and Baby Spice.  “Erm, lahk I’ve never needed love before!” she cries.

Act Two

Robbie Williams (playing himself!) disses the girls at one of his concerts.  Stop right now, thank you very much, they tell him, as they storm his stage, and he is converted to the cause of Girl Power.  He flirts with Ginger.  HRH William sees this, and the two stage a dance-off for Ginger’s love.  Simon Fuller joins in. 

Ginger tells the boys she can never choose.  Her 40th birthday is approaching, she explains, and she’s thinking of leaving the group.  Everyone is sad, and sings Viva Forever, with a beautiful basso profundo solo from Posh.

It’s a low-point for the girls, and it tests their bond.  While the others farewell Ginger (Goodbye), Baby wonders aloud if the whole girl power thing isn’t a bit of a crock, given that all the real money is being made by men.  Simon quells her concerns with a stirring speech.  They are, and always will be Spice Girls, he explains.  Friendship Never Ends, he explains.  They can always do reunion tours, he explains.

The girls hug, and are about to part when, in the distance, a crowd can be heard, very quietly singing “Wannabe”.  From the wings, dozens of girls enter, empowered by the Spice Girls message of positivity.  Then Prince Charles enters!  Nelson Mandela enters!  It is a Spice World of grateful fans, confident and joyful, forever spicing up their lives.

Curtain.