Honorable mentions: “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” “You’re the Top” Anything Goes, like a movie of roughly the same age (eighty years and counting), is not the same now as it was when it first debuted. Musicals are different animals now than they used to be, having evolved from the skimpy plots and girls into occasionally psychological… Read More Songs from Musicals, #46: “Anything Goes,” from Anything Goes
Honorable mentions: “An Original Musical,” “Two Nobodies in New York” [title of show]‘s appeal is that it is endlessly self-aware. “It’s a show about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical!” is the joyous, Escherian tagline. But there’s a worry. At one point, Hunter confides to Susan that he’s concerned that… Read More Songs from Musicals: #47, “Nine People’s Favorite Thing,” from [title of show]
Honorable mentions: “Prayer of the Comfort Counselor” and “My Unfortunate Erection” (There are two musicals I’m going to have to double-dip from, because silly me, I did not expect to embark on this project when I wrote posts about single songs from some favorite musicals. One of those musicals was The 25th Annual Putnam County… Read More Songs from Musicals: #48, “Pandemonium,” from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Honorable mentions: “One More Angel in Heaven,” “Joseph’s Coat” There’s a part in Gangs of New York where Happy Jack sees Johnny cradling a music box he intends to give to Jenny, smacks it out of Johnny’s hand with his billy club, listens to it briefly, and then says, “Not my favorite tune.” This is more… Read More Songs from Musicals: #49, “Any Dream Will Do,” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Honorable mentions: “Memory,” “Mr. Mistoffelees” This is a weird musical. It’s not the weirdest musical – to me, Germany’s favorite, Starlight Express, will always be the winner of that competition – but Cats is perhaps objectively odd. It is a democratic musical, where there are certain starring roles (Grizabella, the Rum Tum Tugger, Jemima, Munkustrap) and then a… Read More Songs from Musicals: #50, “The Moments of Happiness,” from Cats
Rules: Yes, I stole this idea from my older brother. He can complain to someone else about it, because people pay him to write stuff in real life and I have a blog that no one cares about. I’ve chosen fifty musicals that mean at least a little something to me, and then picked some… Read More Songs from Musicals: Intro and Links
(Link to the song is here) Stephen Sondheim will turn 86 in a month and change and while I’m rooting for him to be like a relatively similar 20th Century genius, Oscar Niemeyer, and live past 100, I don’t know that it’s in the cards. His musicals, especially the five from his fabulously productive and… Read More “Losing My Mind,” from Follies
In another podcast that occurred much more recently than Episode 11! Our intro music doesn’t work as we talk about the musical we’ve “written!” (We didn’t write a musical.) We embrace irony at the podcast. Today, we channel our deep and abiding affection for Hamilton by talking about who is at the top of our depth… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 12: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Makes Your Life-story in a Musical
(Link to the song here) In just about every musical that wants to be one, there is a song that comes on late in the show and is made to make you hurt a little. Not everyone has to agree on the song in question – in Miss Saigon, is that song Kim’s last lullaby… Read More “The I Love You Song,” from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005)
Seeing Things Secondhand 