Music is a way I show love to someone. I am not a musical person...I can't sing or play an instrument. But I am almost always listening to something. Except right now...which is odd.
When my last significant other (his name was Michael as well...I know, I know...) and I started courting each other it was long distance. One of the things we did was send each other playlists. Not like love song playlists, but of music that we loved and that we thought the other would love. I remember we were talking around Valentine's Day and every year Broadwayworld.com does a post where all these big Broadway people say what their favorite musical theatre love song is. We were on the phone with each other for over an hour talking about it.
We started a tradition where every time we were away from each other we would make each other a song-a-day playlist. They were intense...we changed the names on the songs, carefully picked which song for what day, removed album art. It was a complete surprise every morning. What an amazing way to wake up! And we spent most of our relationship apart. I was in London for four months and we had a song every day. Some days more than one...once I gave him nine different versions of Maybe This Time to compare and contrast. There would be new songs we had discovered...old favorites...the most random things you could image (Judy Garland singing Flying Purple People Eater...) I miss that. It was such a big part of us.
We would also have intense discussions about specific songs or performances. All x amount of versions of In Buddy's Eyes we had. We once made an all-star Gypsy cast recording where we both chose which version we thought was the best of each song. And we would ask questions like "What is the best love loss song in musical theatre?" What is the saddest song? I would listen to a song and discover something so new about it and would immediately tell him to listen to it. My favorite find was Tyne Daly's version of Small World from Gypsy. Listen to it with headphones on and at the end you can here this completely organic, sexy as all get out, laugh. I DIED.
Now this was all intended as set up for the meat of the post. I am going to post some songs and performances and such that have really grabbed me in a way or things that I get chills listening to it every single time. I don't know if this will mean anything to anyone, but I hope it does.
My first one was a no brainer...The Last Five Years yet again!
The Next Ten Minutes - The Last Five Years
The Next Ten Minutes is to me the most beautiful musical theatre love song. I know, it's not One Hand, One Heart or Some Enchanted Evening or whatever, but the conceit of this proposal is just incredible.
I really love the moment Cathy comes in, but what gets me every single time is at 3:40 til 3:55(ish) I want to be your wife. I want to bear your child. The combination of the lyric, the way she is singing it (the straight tone to vibrato on 'wife,') and the orchestration. It never fails to take my breath away. Music has such beauty.
When You're Home - In the Heights
This entire score is the epitome of joy...even in the sorrow. But the jubilation in this number. For me the moment at 4:15. "
That may be how you perceive it, but Nina please believe that when you find your way again you're gonna change the world and then we're all gonna brag and say we knew her when."
I can't even tell you why...it just touches me. Am I alone?
I don't know why this video wouldn't let me directly link it...so click the link. For me it is just the entirety of this song. It rings true every time I listen to it. I will be ninety years old and will still be so touched. This musical is very under appreciated. Give it a listen.
Your Daddy's Son - Ragtime
There is nothing to be said here...I buried my heart in the ground.
They Were You - The Fantasticks
One time walking down the streets of the Upper East Side this song came on my ipod and tears sprung to my eyes. Another one of the great love songs. Because it seems like a fairy tale, but fairy tales often hold lots of truth. They traveled all over the world and experienced horrible things, and in the end they have nothing, but each other.
I Wish I Could Forget You - Passion
Now I have known Passion in my life... I couldn't find a way into it. I heard Donna do it. I heard Patti do it. I liked moments of it. But it wasn't until I found this performance of Judy Kuhn singing I Wish I Could Forget You that I got it. She is my favorite Fosca. Her performance is so uncomplicated, so straightforward. The word I like to use is "bald." (I think that's pretty great.) I urge anyone to get the 2013 Off-Broadway Cast Recording, because it is so complete. All this time I thought that Loving You was the thing about this show...but it isn't. I Wish I Could Forget You is...the conceit of her singing the words she wished he felt as SHE has HIM dictate a letter to her. When she gets to "I see now I was blind." at 2:50 I think we all just get it.
Dulcinea (reprise)...Finale - The Man of La Mancha
At the Ballet - A Chorus Line
I have always loved this song...but I dare you to not be moved by this performance. This performance was on The Phil Donahue Show...the original Sheila, Bebe, and Maggie. Either to celebrate the closing of the show or the record breaking performance. To see the reactions of the other original cast members watching it. And Kay Cole taking it up and up and up at the end. Such a tiny woman. In the book On the Line they talk specifically about when she became attached to the show and Marvin Hamlisch taught her the song and no one expected her to know it and how it knocked everyone flat on their ass when she sang it.
Matchmaker - The Fiddler on the Roof
At :45, "for papa make him a scholar" That's all.
If Only (Quartet) - The Little Mermaid
Ignore the silly video...it was the version of the Broadway recording I could find. My best friend, Carl, loves this song and would always go on about the line Sebastian sings "I'd give my life up to make it happen." I didn't get it for a long time. But I was on the subway the other day and his entire sequence gets me. Listen to it all...but if you must jump go to 2:30.
The Flick Knife Song (Moritat) - The Threepenny Opera
This is from a revival done at The Donmar Warehouse in London. There have been so many versions of this song...but this one truly creeps me out. And her vibrato is terrific.
A few that I desperately wanted to post, but couldn't find the appropriate versions to link.
Possibly my favorite Golden Era song. There was a night in London. I was walking back to the dorm from the Tube by myself. My ipod was on shuffle. And as I walked into the park Will He Like Me? came on. And I saw so clearly in my head what the moment would look like in the film of She Loves Me and who Amalia Balash was and how she was feeling. It was, honestly, one of the most beautiful moments of my life. "God is in the details."
Waiting for the Girls Upstairs - Follies
It has to be the OBC. It all hinges on the moment when Sally Durant Plummer (played with aplomb by Dorothy Collins) sings "chattering and clattering down all of those flights." In that moment your entire body melts. LISTEN TO IT.
Saturday at the Met - Ordinary Days
I am normally not a HUGE fan of these kinds of sequences. But Adam Gwon has these stunning moments of poignancy that take my breath away. You have to listen to the entire thing for it to hit you, but at 4:15 she sings
"Why did we come here. I'll never know. It's like the colors in this painting might get lost if he came in to say hello."
There are seriously so many more I could do. But I'm not going anywhere so I am sure this will happen another time.
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