I saw “West Side Story” when I was 16 years old, and I have two vivid memories of the show. One, I didn’t believe for a minute that the dancers were anything like the teenage hoods I knew from the street corner, and secondly, I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of the song “Maria.” It was a perfect love song. Sondheim was less enamored with the lyric he wrote for Bernstein. He describes it as having a kind of “overall wetness” — “a wetness, I regret to say, which persists throughout all the romantic lyrics in the show.” Sondheim’s rule, taught to him by his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, is that the book and composer are better served by lyrics that are “plainer and flatter.” It is the music that is meant to lift words to the level of poetry.Simon explained to Playboy back in 1984, as it turns out: "It was about [then-girlfriend Peggy Harper, later his first wife], whom I was living with at the time: Sail on, silver girl ... / Your time has come to shine was half a joke, because she was upset one day when she had found two or three gray hairs on her head."
Sondheim’s regret about “Maria” reminded me of my own reluctance to add a third verse to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I thought of the song as a simple two-verse hymn, but our producer argued that the song wanted to be bigger and more dramatic. I reluctantly agreed and wrote the “Sail on silvergirl” verse there in the recording studio. I never felt it truly belonged. Audiences disagreed with both Sondheim and me. “Maria” is beloved, and “Sail on silvergirl” is the well-known and highly anticipated third verse of “Bridge.” Sometimes it’s good to be “wet.”
[Another interesting (and true) quote from that fascinating interview: "I don't think that Simon and Garfunkel as a live act compares to Simon and Garfunkel as a studio act. In terms of performing, I've never really been comfortable being a professional entertainer. For me, it's a secondary form of creativity. I'm not a creative performer. I'm a reproducer onstage of what I've already created. I guess everyone who goes on the stage is exhibitionistic, but there are limits to what I'll do to make a crowd respond."]
I enjoyed the review and all, and I love me some Paul Simon, but Simon is no Sondheim.
ReplyDeleteSimon and Sondheim work in very different worlds, but I'd put Simon and Sondheim both on a list of great lyricists (Dylan, Hammerstein, Porter are other easy adds, and had he lived, Jonathan Larson might be making a bid by now).
ReplyDeleteAlso, speaking of Sondheim, the first show at the officially renamed Stephen Sondheim Theatre starts previews shortly--"The Pee Wee Herman Show." I'm not sure if Sondheim would be amused or not.
Sondheim isn't dead, so you could ask him.
ReplyDeleteMan, think about how great Sondheim's twitter account would be.
ReplyDeleteHe'd probably make it a game where each tweet was exactly 140 characters, but was encoded in a cypher that unpacks into a much longer message.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, Sondheim's apparently a bit hard on Hammerstein as a lyricist in his new book ("Finishing The Hat").
ReplyDeleteIf you treat commercial folk music and musicals as genres of equal dignity, you could certainly make a case that Simon = Sondheim.
ReplyDeleteI've just dipped in to the Sondheim book, and it's dizzying.
ReplyDeleteYes, there are full lyrics from, and cut from, every show through Merrily We Roll Along (Warning: Cast of Me will be busy this weekend!), but the book's also a treatise on the craft of writing lyrics for the stage, which, in Sondheims' view, is a very distinct discipline--one very different from opening the gates of creative expression and allowing words to flow (wetly?). There is lots and lots about form following dramatic function and about the various kinds of rhyme that a lyricist can use to set up specific expectiations and achieve particular ends. Fascinating stuff for a theatre geek, or a language one.
Can't wait to read this, and loved reading the review. I find it interesting that Simon talks about "hummability"without referencing "Merrily," which contains a song (sung in the original cast by Jason Alexander) by the character of the producer asking for a hummable melody. After being played a song from the main characters' new show, the producer sings:
ReplyDeleteThat's great, that's swell
The other stuff as well
It isn't every day I hear a score this strong
But fellas if I may, there's only one thing wrong -
There's not a tune you can hum
There's not a tune you go "bum bum bum ba dum"
You need a tune you go "bum bum bum ba dum"
Give me a melody!
You gotta throw them a crumb
What's wrong with letting them tap their toes a bit
I'll let you know when Stavinsky has a hit
give me a melody!
Oh sure, I know,
"It's not that kind of show"
But can't you have a score that's kind of in between
Play a little more I'll show you what I mean...
(they play more of the song)
Listen, boys, Maybe it's me,
But that's just not a hum-um-um-um-um-um-ummmable melody!
(leaving)
Write more, work hard!
Leave your name with the girl.
Less avant-garde!
Leave your name with the girl.
Just write a plain old melodee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee …
Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee …(last part to the tune (sort of) of Some Enchanted Evening)
(Yes, I'm one of the ten people in the world who love Merrily We Roll Along. Flawed, to be sure, but the score is filled with gems.)
I don't see it. Simon lyrics are thoughtful, interesting, and fun, but lack the combined precision and wit that Sondheim has. If Sondheim had written "At the Zoo," it would be clear why the animals have the attributes they have, beyond rhyme scheme.
ReplyDeleteI love that show! Great songs.
ReplyDeleteSimon didn't really mature as a lyricist until close to the end of S&G's run, and he really hit his stride as a solo artist. There's some crap in the solo catalog, but there's also "the heart will howl like a dog in the moonlight/the heart can explode like a pistol on a June night" or "Detroit, Detroit/got a hell of a hockey team/got a left-handed way of making a man sign up on that automotive dream."
ReplyDeleteSo 3 of the ten are readers here! I love Merrily, certainly as a score. And that overture is what? One of the five best ever? three best? And Marsha, you left out the most biting part of that awesome parody, whcih is that the "bum-bum-bum-de-bum" stuff Alexander sings as an example of a "hummable" melody is sung to the tune of the melody he's disparaging.
ReplyDeleteAs for Simon, I remember reading somewhere around the time of Capeman someone discussing how they asked Simon what "one and one-half wandering Jews" meant, and how Simon answered that it refered to him and his half-Jewish wife, and how that was an example of why Simon was a poor choice for theater, that theater lyrics need to be easier to parse. I love Capeman as music, but see the point - some pop/rock lyricists you can see writiing theater - they have a story-based, character-driven, concrete style (Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen leap to mind). But most are more poetic/abstract, which doesn't work in musical theater. I bow to no one in my worship of U2, but (and the Spider-Man song they premiered on Good Morning America a few weeks back bears me out) Bono is no theater lyricist.
I love it too!
ReplyDeleteThat's four. Where are the other six? Merrily fans have a way of knowing when they're being talked about.
ReplyDeleteAnd T&C, you're absolutely right about the melody use. That whole show is great that way - the melodies keep returning and themes recur.... the backwards-in-time element really brings that into sharp relief. I'm also partial to the costumes for the show - the various Mrs. Shepherd/Ex-Mrs. Shephers/Future Mrs. Sheperd t-shirts never fail to crack me up.
And "Our Time" never fails to make me misty-eyed. The lyrics are a little trite, to be sure, but trite is appropriate for those characters at that point. And that melody is one of his best.
Recently performed it! Awesome show.
ReplyDeleteThe into of "Our Time" gave me chills every night. We could post for days about Merrily.
ReplyDeleteOh- the overture is killer. The '94 recording- OMG.
ReplyDeleteI sang Our Time to my twins when they were babies - changed to "Your Time". Surprisingly effective.
ReplyDelete