it's great to really gorge oneself on Sondheim and feel that on one's best day we're not really in possession of even the slightest modicum of songwriting talent be it melodically or lyrically
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
I remember feeling this the first time I saw Slipknot in concert. I spent like a week in despair of like “I’ll never be able to do that” lol (I know that’s a wild one to do this with, but I was 13. While I still love Slipknot, Im pretty sure I could write Disasterpiece now)
I fell in love with "Not while I'm around" many years before I saw it in the musical and the context of the scene 😬. Regardless, it was still a night time staple for the kids.
Knew context and still sang it as a lullaby for the kiddos. Huz gave me an original cast recording of Company on vinyl for my birthday then... was kinda horrified when he listened and read liner notes.
I'm listening to In the Woods right now (I listen to "Forum" once a day, because it's Roman's current obsession). "I Know Things Now" is such a condensed incredible gesture and then "Giants in the Sky"? come on.
Also we haven't even BEGUN to talk about Moments In The Woods, which is very much a "I don't even know how you would BEGIN to craft an inner monologue song that perfect" Sondheim number for me.
The part of Into The Woods that always kills me is when he summarizes the entirety of the first act in less than two minutes in a song ("Your Fault") that is also an amazing study in groups of people working desperately to shift blame onto literally anyone else
it's so amazing in the way it combines the style of Broadway lyric craft -- direct, approachable, readily graspable -- with the density of modern poetry, making every phrase pay three times
This is such a perfect way of putting it. And despite how many words are used (Sondheim being famous for the extreme wordiness), when you read it as poetry you can see the economy - so few words to tell deep truths.
Children Will Listen is my favourite. Mandy Patinkin's version is a masterwork:
Princes wait there in the world, it's true
Princes, yes, but wolves and humans too
Who out there could love you more than I?
What out there that I cannot supply?
Stay with me, the world is dark and wild.
Stay a child while you can be a child.
No One is Alone is so important to me, the way it starts out using that phrase to comfort, and by the end uses it to describe the inherent responsibilities we have to one another in an imperfect world without moral certainty… I’m glad I grew up with that idea.
orig. broadway cast -- last month I was listening to B. Peters at Carnegie and "No One Is Alone" really wrecked me so I said, revisit that one when you think of it
I have been wallowing in the recent off-Broadway cast album of Assassins lately. That and the revival cast of Sunday in the Park With George which has been my favorite Sondheim for ages. As a writer I identified with "Finishing the Hat" particularly strongly when I was young and more obsessive
I actually used your music as a point of comparison explaining to my sister why I love Sondheim so much: good music transmuted into something otherworldly by the sheer density of brilliance within the lyrics. This was right after I made her listen to the entire Sondheim disco remix album in the car.
Comments
Children Will Listen is my favourite. Mandy Patinkin's version is a masterwork:
"It's your father's fault
That the curse got placed
And the place got cursed
In the first place"
Come on!!
Princes, yes, but wolves and humans too
Who out there could love you more than I?
What out there that I cannot supply?
Stay with me, the world is dark and wild.
Stay a child while you can be a child.
Which recording?