"Merrily We Roll Along" is such a brilliant show. I realise it's not Sondheim's best one, but it still is my favourite, and that's because of songs like "Opening Doors": genius lyrics, amazing music, and brilliant storytelling (which - I believe - is a reminder of "A Weekend in the Country" from "A Little Night Music"). Sondheim really is the best composer Broadway has ever had.
Talk about brilliant lyrics, that number about the Kennedy years...."We'll have Leontine Price to sing a/medley from Meistersinger, and Margot Fonteyn to dance Giselle. Won't it be perfectly swell?!"
It’s top 5 for me, along with Company, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd & A Little Night Music. Respect to Passion & Pacific Overture... and all them really.
Just recently heard this for the first time.... as someone who took SO many theory/ music history / etc classes.. the line "I'll let you know when Stravinsky has a hit" cracked me up. I had to listen to that a few times. Ah, Stravinsky....
One thing I've always loved as a bit of a commentary on the character of Frank is the fact that all of the melody and style work he's doing trying to come up with "Good Thing Going" is merely reworking of the melody of "The Hills of Tomorrow", the graduation song he wrote in high school that opens and closes the show.
Yes, we see "Good Thing Going" in multiple preceding forms back to his school days. That opening school graduation scene was eliminated for most previous productions. I've always had mixed feelings about that. You lose the initial statement of some important motifs and the earliest version of that song, but it shortens the show and elininates a scene that can seem sour and puts kids front and center from the start. I'm not wild with the replacement opening, as it ends up spending more time with the middle-aged characters at their worst, with Frank a lecherous sellout, Mary a maudlin drunk, and Charley perpetually disappointed. A small dose of that goes a long ways.
Seth is so funny. If I may make one additional point that I hoped would be touched upon- the whole "Opening Doors" chorus has a counter melody of "Old Friends". You can really hear it first introduced during the tuba solo around 5:28. The brass is playing: "Hey, Old friend, what do you say old friend".... those are the half steps Seth refers to throughout the song.
Fun deconstruction. From what I've read, Tunick's orchestration was based on high school marching band which ties in with the original, if misguided, scenic design- gym floor, lockers... hence the tuba solo which I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. It's delicious. And Anne Morrison not Annie Golden.
I do too! Tuba is featured a lot in the show, it get's a solo in the overture too! In one of Tunick's interviews around the time the Encore's recording came out, he said that since the show happens backward, he wanted the Overture to be backwards, which is why it ends with a Timpani roll (instead of at the beginning), and that the Tuba is featured a lot, when it usually isn't.
"misguided scenic design..." Wow, how dead-on. I saw it, and really thought it was like some attempt to bring amateur theatrics ironically onto Broadway. Totally did not work. Very unpleasant to look at. And most in the audience totally confused about the retrograde telling of the story, even with signs on either side of the proscenium, flashing "1973", etc.
SETH... I W O R S H I P you.. I am CONSTANTLY STAGGERED by your talent, vision and CORRECT "Deconstructions".. I am a " SONDHEIM-OPHILE" ... I am DEVOTED to so much of his work..AND have seen most original casts in many expressions on stage. I did not see ORIGINAL Merrily, but it is a MOST AMAZING body of work, unfortunately panned, filled with LONG LASTING, HYPER FABULOUS songs, melodies and lyrics. I have seen all revivals..I am so enamored with the score and book and have always said.. WHY make a MOVIE of SWEENEY w that horrid JOHNNY DEPP when a most brilliant cast could have been assembled to create the MAGIC of this show in a MODERN setting..THANK YOU SETH!!!
The Balzac line is great because it captures the way young artist friends encourage each other: "You're the next Balzac!" "You're the next Sondheim!" "You're the next ______!" They imagine a romanticized version of the artist's life, but then when they get to work they realize there's nothing romantic about it at all. As usual, Sondheim captured all of that in three or four words.
LOVED doing this number as Frank in a very daring community theater production (1988?) which was a great success. Our musical director sampled the entire score on an Ensinq keyboard -- completely recorded for performances-- so we had no room for error in the timing. This is consummate Sondheim although the blank/ ignorant audience just can't get this show! The original holds our hearts, but I even love all the revivals of the soundtrack. I agree, too, that Jason Alexander was a powerhouse dancer and singer, but chose to play George on Seinfeld which I'm guessing both launched and ruined/type-casted him and his career.
I feel like later recordings lose a lot because of the loss of those two songs and scenes (The Hills of Tomorrow), which is another version of the same song that becomes Good Thing Going.
Hm, I thought the ear-screeching voice of the woman auditioning was intentional, since it would reference "No more coaching those sopranos with voices like bees" from It's a Hit. More perfection achieved through circumstance?
Seth is a crack-up. I love it. Wonderful analysis and yes do more Sondheim. Even though all of his songs are about REGRET he always gives that feeling entertaining grandeur.
I was fortunate to be at the opening night of MERRILY... my only such experience. I even got to go back to congratulate Sondheim. I remember that Hermione Gingold was directly in front of me in the crowd. I SO agree with Seth.... the score and it's extraordinary inventiveness make the show worth more closing after 4 performances. But it WAS an exceptionally misconceived production... very ugly to look at (set and costumes... T-shirts with labels? Really?) and a mistake to cast it with the young cast (that they are revealed to be by the end of this show, which moves chronilogically backwards... which also most of the audience was confused by). They all looked like kids playing "mommy and daddy". But, the score? the Lyrics? Among his best. (the usually unparalleled Jonathan Tunick didn't help much with his orchestration... Seth is right; what IS it with that tuba?)
Well then there's something wrong with me because I saw it too (a late preview) and I thought it was fantastic, touching, affecting, devastating. I was 23 at the time and in grad school. (Unaware that I'd be taking my own hard left turn in 4 years.) Yes it was visually ugly, but kids in street clothes usually are, and I thought it was brilliant and emotionally wrenching to cast it with kids because of that final scene - I left the theater in tears.
Fun Fact the entire show was costumed with detailed costumes of each time period. The original idea was that they weren't supposed to look their age until the end and you see that they are full of hopes and dreams. I assume the make up was also going to make them seem older at the beginning. I heard that during a run through with the full costumes suddenly Hal was like "we lose the sight of the fact that they are kids" and so with only a small amount of time to previews he said to have them put shirts with the names on them. The actual shirts that were in the show were a smidge nicer, but the only thing they could get ready for the photos is the iron on letters. My friend was in the show and so I have heard so much about this show and that original production and what went wrong. I wish more of that was in the documentary. The original concept is so dark and twisted had it gone right. It's just really hard for people to wrap there head around the going backwards in story. (and sondheims brilliance of having resprises before the actual songs) . I kinda love that its this story of three friends who are full of dreams hoping to make it big, they do and it ruins their lives and their friendships. Yet since the ending of the show is the begining of the story and you see them full of hope, you leave feeling happy. I have seen several productions of this show now, i think it's as good as its going to be, but I would love to see a talented cast do that original script.
I was absolutely OVERTAKEN with the T shirts after the gowns come off. How could this have happened????? at the Alvin???? Also, that set...that set needed to be cleaned up....but the music...the music and lyrics were pure gold. That's why I saw it twice - once in previews. But I just could not believe that they could not spiff it up. The orchestra....with Paul....SUPERB. Seth, I absolutely love your deconstructions. You are brilliant! I would have brought in Douglas Schmidt to doctor up the set. Look what he did in "They're Playing Our Song" at the Imperial. That was why Hal was so stuck...because he did not have a really good set to work with. After Company at the Alvin, I was really shocked that the whole show looked like it was still in its planning state. I felt so bad for them all. That show still sticks with me - and I was pulling for them all. And then the fallout ...with Prince and Sondheim...I was so depressed.
Did you see the bizarre bit in previews where Gussy gets pushed into a swimming pool made of paper? Hal made some of the strangest decisions in this show. Its not like the man doesnt know how to work with a simple set. Evita's original staging is amazing, yet this show had so many moments where you wonder how he did everything else.
The t-shirts were a change made in previews based on the difficulty audiences were having recognizing the characters. Prince decided labeling them would solve that, and chose t-shirts and sweatshirts to go with the youthful performers. The original costumes changed in date with the scenes and were not cheap. The set didn't get similar changes, as it was always simply staged, but that was hardly a novelty by the 1980s, when many works were staged with very little fixed scenery.
@@brettmastema7056 Prince always said that he worked veat when he had a clear vision for what a show would look like, and he never had one for "Merrily". Others thought that was a bit of an excuse after the fact for its failure, but it's true that some of his moat striking shows had ginormous aets that took over the whole theater. There were exceptions. Company's aet with its elevators and stairs was Boris Aronson's conception, not Prince's, though it very much determined the way the show was staged. The success of "A Little Night Music" wasn't really detrmined by its staging, either. Subsequent priductions have been very successful with staging of various sorts.
The irony of him humming "Some Enchanted Evening" is that he actually gets a note wrong in his humming - thus the producer is showing that he can't remember melodies at all!
Yeah... so typical of non-musician people who run the administrative end of musical enterprises... like opera companies, etc. Pretending to an expertise that they don't possess.
A comment here about the choice of "Some Enchanted Evening" for the tune hummed by the Producer in this piece. Of all the melodies to pick from, Sondheim goes for a Richard Rodgers melody. On first listening (all right, second listening) I asked myself why. Especially knowing the animosity between these two talents. However. If you listen close enough, you'll notice the Producer is humming the song incorrectly. Lovely snub and oh so subtle a tweaking of Rodger's nose.
Hmm. Not sure he meant it that way, but maybe. He may not have liked him, but he had great respect for Rodgers's ability as a creator of great melodies. I think it's partly just a simple riddle to see how much of the audience recognizes the tune, and how many of those that it's slightly wrong. But the bigger point is that Joe Josephson thinks he knows what a hummable melody is, but can't actually hum a famous one accurately. The version he hums is stranger and less conventional than anything Sondheim ever wrote, yet here it's being held up as what Frank and Charley should be doing. I suspect it's based on the limited musical knowledge of actual producers Sondheim encountered.
You mention motif...... yes, I have always Sondheim is very much about motif.... using little musical turns from other songs in different songs... FANTASTIC......Tuba solo, Patti Lupone in Sweeny???..... too funny!!!!!
I have always said that too about that damn tuba in the show. Same as the tuba section in the overture. I think it may be cut on the original album. But it just sounds like its in the background going "i sound so depressing but i will play anyway". Although eventually the tuba grew on me.
After listening to this, I'm so disappointed by the Six by Sondheim version they didn't deliver some of the things that you mentioned well at all, like them trying to change the song into a melody or him being interrupted and saying 'listen boys'
I too was obsessed with this album when it came out, even though it’s the worst cover of all time. They take Hirschfeld’s brilliant cartoon and cut it in half to stick on the Sondheim portrait. Why? Because the show was a flop, and they at least wanted Sondheim fans to buy it in case they missed the run or read the bad reviews.
There was an outer sleeve with a square opening revealing just the Sondheim picture. You didn't see the Hirschfeld drawing until you removed the sleeve. It was quite effective in practice.
i always saw the tuba as representing weighty clumsy ness but with the possibilty of a golden nugget... which is sort of like the way creative process can be. with annes voice being set so high, its like the hesitancy and barely concealed hope for the future and with annes voice going down... for me it feels like a little bit of seriousness and weightyness coming into life, (funny refernce to bea arthour)bava to you ,thumbs up. xx
I saw the show a few days after Andrew Rudin (see his trenchant remarks, below)--or so I presume, as the performance we had tix to was supposed to be almost a week after the opening...which was pushed back, notoriously, several times...And, dude, if they can't rehabilitate "Candide" 's libretto, which makes the thrilling score painful to wait for, "Merrily" hasn't a prayer. The audience sat uncomfortably through the Comden-and-Green-ish Kennedy spoof, the forced merriment of "It's a (palpable) Hit," Ann Morrison's struggles with her dialogue and songs....
This has always been my favorite show. I am one of those people who claim the show does work, but I I'll admit that is because it works for me personally, but might not for everybody. What I want to ask your opinion on is this... I think the show loses a lot with the loss of the original opening and closing. I guess people thought those scenes were too cheesy and didn't work... but without them the opening becomes the song Merrily We Roll Along, and the closing is now Our Time.
Seth, the point you don't really touch on here is that when Jason Alexander's character is criticizing the guys song for not having a memorable melody he is actually Singing their melody back to them! That's the whole point of what Sondheim did there. Love your work, thanks for the great deconstructions and thankyouthankyouthankyou for Broadway 101!!!
Eh, no, it's "Some Enchanted Evening" slightly misremembered. It bears almost no resemblance to "Good Thing Going". This has been discussed by people involved with the show regularly over the years. Sondheim, of course, had known "South Pacific" since well before it opened and had seen the song become a huge popular hit. It was exactly the song a producer would have had in mind circa 1960.
Seth, this is a fantastic deconstruction. Hard at work on my own musical right now, and this reminds me to lift the bar just that little bit higher. But, two awesome things you missed: 1) The accompaniment figure to the chorus ("We're opening doors!") is the melody to "Old Friends"; this song shows how that old friendship was forged. 2) Joe Josephson (Jason Alexander) gets the second phrase of "Some Enchanted Evening" wrong. He can't even remember the song he picked out as memorable.
Yes, just a couple of notes subtly wrong, but they make an elegant "hummable" melody strange and awkward. It's one of rhe best subtle jokes in the show.
I mean...to be honest, it's close enough to the actual melody that it's an incredibly subtle joke and one that no doubt flies over the heads of the vast majority of people who watch/listen to Merrily We Roll Along unless they happen to be intimately familiar with Some Enchanted Evening - to a casual listener, it just sounds as though Joe is singing the melody a few notes lower to keep it in his range, not that it's identifiably wrong. For most people, the joke of that moment is the obvious meta one that Sondheim's "unhummable" melodies were often compared unfavourably to the big Richard Rodgers tunes like Some Enchanted Evening, and so it's a little dig at his critics (especially since we already know by this point in the show that the specific melody Joe is rejecting will become Frank and Charley's big hit with literally the only change being that Good Thing Going is far more legato rhythmically and ironically even less like what Joe demonstrates as being "hummable" - melodically, nothing changes in the song between the snippet here and Good Thing Going). Honestly the joke in those terms works perfectly fine even if that's all you get out of it. Joe's rendition of Some Enchanted Evening being wrong is just a miniscule bonus and a likely dig at the possible producers Sondheim no doubt came up against who espoused the virtues of "hummable melodies" yet had trouble actually remembering them. Even if you don't realise that the melody is wrong, the joke ultimately still stands and loses nothing.
@@overlydramaticpanda He doesn't sing it lower though (well he does but) it's the fact that he gets the actual notes wrong. "Some enchanted evening" as "dum dum dumed" out is right but the "You may see a stranger" isn't--most notably the final "stranger". If that makes ANY sense in my explanation. But yeah--there's no argument that the main joke is as you say (and honestly most audiences who pick up on that joke are too distracted laughing to hear that he even screws up the "hummable melody" of Some Enchanted Evening. As you point out I realize. My point just is that Sondheim isn't satisfied with just the one obvious joke and has to hammer it home, even if much of the audience won't notice--and that I was surprised though that Seth didn't seem to. But, I realize, as amazing as Seth's song analyses are, he's not all knowing. I was shocked at the recent Stars in the House devoted to the concert Anyone Can Whistle that he knew virtually nothing about the show (even well known facts like that There Won't Be Trumpets was cut out of town). I just assumed every Broadway, err, afficianado of his age who likes Sondheim knew the show.
@@EricMontreal22 Oh don't worry, your explanation makes perfect sense (to me, at least. Great minds..?) To be entirely honest, it was only a couple of years ago when my father (who loves Some Enchanted Evening as a song) pointed it out that I realised the melody Joe was humming was actually genuinely *wrong* , hence why I said that to someone with only a passing knowledge of Some Enchanted Evening (i.e. me) the joke of the "hummable melody" being hummed wrong would go completely missed because all that's really identifiably "off" about it for someone who's not all that familiar with the song is that Joe hums the "you may see a stranger" line lower than written. The joke of the melody actually being wrong does undeniably make the situation even more funny but it's almost ridiculously subtle and since the whole section building up to it is a much more clear joke that also works on its own, I ultimately can't fault Seth for missing it - along with the fact that it makes me feel validated for having missed it for so many years as well. And since Seth admits that he isn't much of a fan of South Pacific, it's not surprising that it would go over his head. Having excused him with regards to this though, I must say that I was also a tad surprised by how much he didn't seem to know about Anyone Can Whistle in that SITH episode; I know it's technically still on the more obscure end of Sondheim (ish... I mean there's still Road Show/Bounce, Saturday Night and Evening Primrose to deal with...) but it's one of those shows that I've always assumed a Sondheim nerd would eat up trivia for... But as you say, even Seth can't be expected to know anything and lord knows just how much Broadway trivia he's got stored up in his head already...
@@overlydramaticpanda While it didn't take me as ridiculously long as it took you to realize the Some Enchanted Evening quote was wrong (I tease!) it was at least a few years after my initial obsession with Merrily as a teen (and I was very familiar with South P). Yeah--and you didn't mention Frogs! (Whenever people bring up relatively obscure Sondheim shows that I don't usually expect a lot of fans to know, those are the four that come to mind.) Whistle's cast album has never been out of print (which is true of most Sondheim original cast albums--even if not best sellers they are steady sellers, but obviously not true of most flops or forgotten shows) and even Tennessee Williams joked on talk shows in the 1970s that one of the biggest common lies he knew was the number of theatre people who claimed to have seen Anyone Can Whistle on Broadway (the joke being that if they all had, it would have run for years, not 9 performances). Also, it was one of the first Sondheim cast albums I became familiar with (when I was ten--around 1990, it was actually one of the few Sondheim cast *records* my library still stocked) so maybe that assumption that everyone with a certain love and knowledge of Sondheim and musical history would know it is just my own personal bias ;)
Seth, sorry you're too young to have seen Jason Alexander in "Jerome Robbin's Broadway." Filling Zero Mostel's shoes was quite an undertaking, I'm sure you can go down to the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center and catch some videotape. According to the documentary which just came out (2016), "The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened," Jason Alexander considered returning to Broadway for the 8 performances a week but decided to spend time with his children growing up. After they're grown, who knows?What you failed to point out was that the quote from "Some Enchanted Evening" was also a reference to Sondheim's mentor, Oscar Hammerstein (although, of course, it is just a melodic reference by Richard Rodgers). It is also useful to note that the "We'll do a review" is a reference to Bernstein/Comden/Green. Never noticed that little "Franklin Shepard, Inc." excerpt, and thanks for the lyrics we can't even hear!
A favorite part of a song for me is out of Music Man. (Marion, a librarian, is discussing a man who followed her home after work. Her long-suffering mother, on the other hand, is just hoping that this might be a suitor who will sweep Marion off her feet at last.) Mrs. Paroo: If you don't mind my sayin' so, It wouldn't have hurt you To find out what the gentleman wanted. Marian: I know what the gentleman wanted. Mrs. Paroo: What, dear? Marian: You'll find it in Balzac. Mrs. Paroo: Excuse me fer livin' but I never read it.
Sorry guys but I just can't get into Sondheim. (Seth is great.) I'm a songwriter and I can acknowledge that he's a genius but there's something about his melodies are not resonating with me.
I actually think that that kind of proves that he's awesome because a lot of his songs are deliberately written to be uncomfortable. Like the anxiety in opening doors or the entirety of Assassins or Sweeney Todd!
"melodies don't resonate with me"? Really? Not even... "not a day goes by", or "losing my mind", or "Lovely" or "comedy Tonight" from Forum? Or "i am unworthy of your love"from Assassins... or the one bona fide cross over "Send in the Clowns"?
Thanks for your reply. You bring up a lot of good points. My palet must be not adjusted to most of his songs. I clearly take full responsibilty for my lack of getting it. However, "Losing My Mind" is possibly one of the best songs ever written. "ComedyTonight" is also very catchy and I feel an exception to my rule. "Send In The Clowns" to me is more effective because of the lyrics. The melody drones on to me. I don't generally resonate witih his chord prgressions. It's defentely me. I was raised on the Beatles music, as a songwriter, Lennon/McCartney are my benchmark. Broadway composers I gravitate toward Weber, Herman, Schwartz. I never heard "Lovely" . I will check it out.
Good commentary, but I prefer to listen without watching due to the acting-along. But I wouldn't consider Rudetsky to be superbly insightful, rather more just a reiteration of what's in the score and script.
Most of which are missed by most people. And simply pointing out (and yes with his lip-syncing and gestures) the exceptional craft and detail in really good song writing IS, IMHO, exceptional. Most people dismiss Broadway as somehow an inferior music. In the hands of Loesser, Sondheim, Bernstein, Porter, Berlin, Rodgers.... certainly not so. Though when all the details fall into place, it seems so natural as to be inevitable and therefore like "nothing all that special". Hah. Dream on. Current young composers of new opera should sit and learn.
I need this for every song from this show.
"Merrily We Roll Along" is such a brilliant show. I realise it's not Sondheim's best one, but it still is my favourite, and that's because of songs like "Opening Doors": genius lyrics, amazing music, and brilliant storytelling (which - I believe - is a reminder of "A Weekend in the Country" from "A Little Night Music"). Sondheim really is the best composer Broadway has ever had.
Talk about brilliant lyrics, that number about the Kennedy years...."We'll have Leontine Price to sing a/medley from Meistersinger, and Margot Fonteyn to dance Giselle. Won't it be perfectly swell?!"
@@AndrewRudin Andrew you're a pretty swell composer yourself ...
It’s top 5 for me, along with Company, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd & A Little Night Music. Respect to Passion & Pacific Overture... and all them really.
Merrily is in my top 3 Sondheim shows…so beautiful and deep and such a good analysis of friendship…
Merrily We Roll Along has such an incredible score. It really is theatre in song, not just a couple of pretty numbers.
Just recently heard this for the first time.... as someone who took SO many theory/ music history / etc classes.. the line "I'll let you know when Stravinsky has a hit" cracked me up. I had to listen to that a few times.
Ah, Stravinsky....
My jaw just fell open when he spoke about the "Some Enchanted Evening" melody :O Mind = Blown.
This is your funniest deconstruction by far...
"they're doing my one ACCCt" and bea arthur to name a few. LOVE U!!
One thing I've always loved as a bit of a commentary on the character of Frank is the fact that all of the melody and style work he's doing trying to come up with "Good Thing Going" is merely reworking of the melody of "The Hills of Tomorrow", the graduation song he wrote in high school that opens and closes the show.
Yes, we see "Good Thing Going" in multiple preceding forms back to his school days. That opening school graduation scene was eliminated for most previous productions. I've always had mixed feelings about that. You lose the initial statement of some important motifs and the earliest version of that song, but it shortens the show and elininates a scene that can seem sour and puts kids front and center from the start. I'm not wild with the replacement opening, as it ends up spending more time with the middle-aged characters at their worst, with Frank a lecherous sellout, Mary a maudlin drunk, and Charley perpetually disappointed. A small dose of that goes a long ways.
I'd love to see a deconstruction of "Franklin Shepherd, Inc" with all of its implied rhymes and hilarious little in-jokes.
Nathan Lawrence That number is like a vocal decathlon. Seconded.
My favorite Sondheim song!!!
Seth is so funny. If I may make one additional point that I hoped would be touched upon- the whole "Opening Doors" chorus has a counter melody of "Old Friends". You can really hear it first introduced during the tuba solo around 5:28. The brass is playing: "Hey, Old friend, what do you say old friend".... those are the half steps Seth refers to throughout the song.
And various parts when things go wrong are sung to the melody of "Old Friends" but sped up in equal note rhythm.
At 17:10 for example.
And 13:16
Indeed. The same bits of thematic material get restated throughout in interesting ways.
Fun deconstruction. From what I've read, Tunick's orchestration was based on high school marching band which ties in with the original, if misguided, scenic design- gym floor, lockers... hence the tuba solo which I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. It's delicious. And Anne Morrison not Annie Golden.
I do too! Tuba is featured a lot in the show, it get's a solo in the overture too! In one of Tunick's interviews around the time the Encore's recording came out, he said that since the show happens backward, he wanted the Overture to be backwards, which is why it ends with a Timpani roll (instead of at the beginning), and that the Tuba is featured a lot, when it usually isn't.
"misguided scenic design..." Wow, how dead-on. I saw it, and really thought it was like some attempt to bring amateur theatrics ironically onto Broadway. Totally did not work. Very unpleasant to look at. And most in the audience totally confused about the retrograde telling of the story, even with signs on either side of the proscenium, flashing "1973", etc.
SETH... I W O R S H I P you.. I am CONSTANTLY STAGGERED by your talent, vision and CORRECT "Deconstructions".. I am a " SONDHEIM-OPHILE" ... I am DEVOTED to so much of his work..AND have seen most original casts in many expressions on stage. I did not see ORIGINAL Merrily, but it is a MOST AMAZING body of work, unfortunately panned, filled with LONG LASTING, HYPER FABULOUS songs, melodies and lyrics. I have seen all revivals..I am so enamored with the score and book and have always said.. WHY make a MOVIE of SWEENEY w that horrid JOHNNY DEPP when a most brilliant cast could have been assembled to create the MAGIC of this show in a MODERN setting..THANK YOU SETH!!!
And now, I'm obsessed with you! Fabulous deconstruction!
I truly LOVE all of these - YOUR Brilliant- and I'm obsessed!
totally agree with your "I'll let you know when Stravinsky has a hit" too too funny!
I love that my fair lady line too!
The Balzac line is great because it captures the way young artist friends encourage each other: "You're the next Balzac!" "You're the next Sondheim!" "You're the next ______!" They imagine a romanticized version of the artist's life, but then when they get to work they realize there's nothing romantic about it at all. As usual, Sondheim captured all of that in three or four words.
Can't recall if you said it, but I also love how "Old Friend" is the bass line to this.
LOVED doing this number as Frank in a very daring community theater production (1988?) which was a great success. Our musical director sampled the entire score on an Ensinq keyboard -- completely recorded for performances-- so we had no room for error in the timing. This is consummate Sondheim although the blank/ ignorant audience just can't get this show! The original holds our hearts, but I even love all the revivals of the soundtrack. I agree, too, that Jason Alexander was a powerhouse dancer and singer, but chose to play George on Seinfeld which I'm guessing both launched and ruined/type-casted him and his career.
Omigod you're so brilliant, I'm obsessed ...
Brava Rudetsky!
No need to email, Seth, I believe SS has acknowledged that "Who Wants..." does harken back to that particular song. You got it exactly right.
His tuba is SO FUNNY!!! I canNOT stop watching it
I feel like later recordings lose a lot because of the loss of those two songs and scenes (The Hills of Tomorrow), which is another version of the same song that becomes Good Thing Going.
Musically, I agree, but dramatically the high school graduation opening is a drag on the rest of the show.
Hm, I thought the ear-screeching voice of the woman auditioning was intentional, since it would reference "No more coaching those sopranos with voices like bees" from It's a Hit. More perfection achieved through circumstance?
What a GREAT teacher. My GOD.
Drink every time he says "I'm Obsessed".
OMG, Seth, you are brilliant!
Seth, you are brilliant and brilliantly funny. That's entertainment!!! You really made us laugh. Best wishes, Lauren Ward and Matthew Warchus
Thanks! More like this!
Listened in headphones, didn’t know it was in stereo!
Also lol at the Synanon reference at 17:50 (by Charley)
Seth is a crack-up. I love it. Wonderful analysis and yes do more Sondheim. Even though all of his songs are about REGRET he always gives that feeling entertaining grandeur.
In the refrain, the orchestra is playing the melody to "Old Friends"! Check the sheet music :D
many thanks!!!
Seth is THE BEST!!!!
and the humming "Some Enchanted Evening" I think is Sondheim's little tribute to his mentor Oscar Hammerstein and (Richard Rodgers)
I was fortunate to be at the opening night of MERRILY... my only such experience. I even got to go back to congratulate Sondheim. I remember that Hermione Gingold was directly in front of me in the crowd. I SO agree with Seth.... the score and it's extraordinary inventiveness make the show worth more closing after 4 performances. But it WAS an exceptionally misconceived production... very ugly to look at (set and costumes... T-shirts with labels? Really?) and a mistake to cast it with the young cast (that they are revealed to be by the end of this show, which moves chronilogically backwards... which also most of the audience was confused by). They all looked like kids playing "mommy and daddy". But, the score? the Lyrics? Among his best. (the usually unparalleled Jonathan Tunick didn't help much with his orchestration... Seth is right; what IS it with that tuba?)
woh thanks for your insight!! :)
Well then there's something wrong with me because I saw it too (a late preview) and I thought it was fantastic, touching, affecting, devastating. I was 23 at the time and in grad school. (Unaware that I'd be taking my own hard left turn in 4 years.)
Yes it was visually ugly, but kids in street clothes usually are, and I thought it was brilliant and emotionally wrenching to cast it with kids because of that final scene - I left the theater in tears.
Fun Fact the entire show was costumed with detailed costumes of each time period. The original idea was that they weren't supposed to look their age until the end and you see that they are full of hopes and dreams. I assume the make up was also going to make them seem older at the beginning. I heard that during a run through with the full costumes suddenly Hal was like "we lose the sight of the fact that they are kids" and so with only a small amount of time to previews he said to have them put shirts with the names on them. The actual shirts that were in the show were a smidge nicer, but the only thing they could get ready for the photos is the iron on letters. My friend was in the show and so I have heard so much about this show and that original production and what went wrong. I wish more of that was in the documentary.
The original concept is so dark and twisted had it gone right. It's just really hard for people to wrap there head around the going backwards in story. (and sondheims brilliance of having resprises before the actual songs) . I kinda love that its this story of three friends who are full of dreams hoping to make it big, they do and it ruins their lives and their friendships. Yet since the ending of the show is the begining of the story and you see them full of hope, you leave feeling happy. I have seen several productions of this show now, i think it's as good as its going to be, but I would love to see a talented cast do that original script.
@@brettmastema7056 thanks for sharing, please share more if you can about the original production.
I was absolutely OVERTAKEN with the T shirts after the gowns come off. How could this have happened????? at the Alvin???? Also, that set...that set needed to be cleaned up....but the music...the music and lyrics were pure gold. That's why I saw it twice - once in previews. But I just could not believe that they could not spiff it up. The orchestra....with Paul....SUPERB. Seth, I absolutely love your deconstructions. You are brilliant! I would have brought in Douglas Schmidt to doctor up the set. Look what he did in "They're Playing Our Song" at the Imperial. That was why Hal was so stuck...because he did not have a really good set to work with. After Company at the Alvin, I was really shocked that the whole show looked like it was still in its planning state. I felt so bad for them all. That show still sticks with me - and I was pulling for them all. And then the fallout ...with Prince and Sondheim...I was so depressed.
Did you see the bizarre bit in previews where Gussy gets pushed into a swimming pool made of paper? Hal made some of the strangest decisions in this show. Its not like the man doesnt know how to work with a simple set. Evita's original staging is amazing, yet this show had so many moments where you wonder how he did everything else.
The t-shirts were a change made in previews based on the difficulty audiences were having recognizing the characters. Prince decided labeling them would solve that, and chose t-shirts and sweatshirts to go with the youthful performers. The original costumes changed in date with the scenes and were not cheap. The set didn't get similar changes, as it was always simply staged, but that was hardly a novelty by the 1980s, when many works were staged with very little fixed scenery.
@@brettmastema7056 Prince always said that he worked veat when he had a clear vision for what a show would look like, and he never had one for "Merrily". Others thought that was a bit of an excuse after the fact for its failure, but it's true that some of his moat striking shows had ginormous aets that took over the whole theater. There were exceptions. Company's aet with its elevators and stairs was Boris Aronson's conception, not Prince's, though it very much determined the way the show was staged. The success of "A Little Night Music" wasn't really detrmined by its staging, either. Subsequent priductions have been very successful with staging of various sorts.
The new show is so good! If you can go I recommend you do. I think you'll find it redeemed!
I love the Tuba
The irony of him humming "Some Enchanted Evening" is that he actually gets a note wrong in his humming - thus the producer is showing that he can't remember melodies at all!
Yeah... so typical of non-musician people who run the administrative end of musical enterprises... like opera companies, etc. Pretending to an expertise that they don't possess.
Alright, now you know... Sondheim is Primo! Was in a college production of this in the 80's. Would love to see it again.
He refers to Ann Morrison as Annie Golden at 14:16.
I just noticed that!!! Busted!
We would never hold that against you. (Maybe Ann and Annie would.)
A comment here about the choice of "Some Enchanted Evening" for the tune hummed by the Producer in this piece. Of all the melodies to pick from, Sondheim goes for a Richard Rodgers melody. On first listening (all right, second listening) I asked myself why. Especially knowing the animosity between these two talents. However. If you listen close enough, you'll notice the Producer is humming the song incorrectly. Lovely snub and oh so subtle a tweaking of Rodger's nose.
Hmm. Not sure he meant it that way, but maybe. He may not have liked him, but he had great respect for Rodgers's ability as a creator of great melodies. I think it's partly just a simple riddle to see how much of the audience recognizes the tune, and how many of those that it's slightly wrong. But the bigger point is that Joe Josephson thinks he knows what a hummable melody is, but can't actually hum a famous one accurately. The version he hums is stranger and less conventional than anything Sondheim ever wrote, yet here it's being held up as what Frank and Charley should be doing. I suspect it's based on the limited musical knowledge of actual producers Sondheim encountered.
Lol at "The show closed... I'm doing a Bea Arthur."
Anyone else notice the crazy vibrato at 4:14?
Isn’t that ‘score’ a New Joyzee accent?
PS Love you!!
108th comment. Thank you for the video
You mention motif...... yes, I have always Sondheim is very much about motif.... using little musical turns from other songs in different songs... FANTASTIC......Tuba solo, Patti Lupone in Sweeny???..... too funny!!!!!
Also, you should revisit South Pacific. It's tops.
My favorite part of this number is the 3-second transitional piano lick starting at 16:22.
yes! lonny price in RAGS!!!
I have always said that too about that damn tuba in the show. Same as the tuba section in the overture. I think it may be cut on the original album. But it just sounds like its in the background going "i sound so depressing but i will play anyway". Although eventually the tuba grew on me.
Seth, remember Neuhaus chocolates! I remember you on Broadway...great Tubes!
After listening to this, I'm so disappointed by the Six by Sondheim version they didn't deliver some of the things that you mentioned well at all, like them trying to change the song into a melody or him being interrupted and saying 'listen boys'
This is awesome! Please please do more Sondheim!!!
I too was obsessed with this album when it came out, even though it’s the worst cover of all time. They take Hirschfeld’s brilliant cartoon and cut it in half to stick on the Sondheim portrait. Why? Because the show was a flop, and they at least wanted Sondheim fans to buy it in case they missed the run or read the bad reviews.
There was an outer sleeve with a square opening revealing just the Sondheim picture. You didn't see the Hirschfeld drawing until you removed the sleeve. It was quite effective in practice.
i always saw the tuba as representing weighty clumsy ness but with the possibilty of a golden nugget... which is sort of like the way creative process can be.
with annes voice being set so high, its like the hesitancy and barely concealed hope for the future
and with annes voice going down... for me it feels like a little bit of seriousness and weightyness coming into life, (funny refernce to bea arthour)bava to you ,thumbs up.
xx
I saw the show a few days after Andrew Rudin (see his trenchant remarks, below)--or so I presume, as the performance we had tix to was supposed to be almost a week after the opening...which was pushed back, notoriously, several times...And, dude, if they can't rehabilitate "Candide" 's libretto, which makes the thrilling score painful to wait for, "Merrily" hasn't a prayer. The audience sat uncomfortably through the Comden-and-Green-ish Kennedy spoof, the forced merriment of "It's a (palpable) Hit," Ann Morrison's struggles with her dialogue and songs....
This has always been my favorite show. I am one of those people who claim the show does work, but I I'll admit that is because it works for me personally, but might not for everybody.
What I want to ask your opinion on is this... I think the show loses a lot with the loss of the original opening and closing. I guess people thought those scenes were too cheesy and didn't work... but without them the opening becomes the song Merrily We Roll Along, and the closing is now Our Time.
Seth, the point you don't really touch on here is that when Jason Alexander's character is criticizing the guys song for not having a memorable melody he is actually Singing their melody back to them! That's the whole point of what Sondheim did there. Love your work, thanks for the great deconstructions and thankyouthankyouthankyou for Broadway 101!!!
Eh, no, it's "Some Enchanted Evening" slightly misremembered. It bears almost no resemblance to "Good Thing Going". This has been discussed by people involved with the show regularly over the years. Sondheim, of course, had known "South Pacific" since well before it opened and had seen the song become a huge popular hit. It was exactly the song a producer would have had in mind circa 1960.
@@markmiller3279 You're talking about a different part. It does include Some Enchanted Evening, at the end, but most of it is Good Thing Going.
Seth, this is a fantastic deconstruction. Hard at work on my own musical right now, and this reminds me to lift the bar just that little bit higher. But, two awesome things you missed:
1) The accompaniment figure to the chorus ("We're opening doors!") is the melody to "Old Friends"; this song shows how that old friendship was forged.
2) Joe Josephson (Jason Alexander) gets the second phrase of "Some Enchanted Evening" wrong. He can't even remember the song he picked out as memorable.
And at 13:16 and 17:10, the "Old Friends" melody is sped up and put into equal-note rhythm!
This is brilliant, but how could Seth miss the point that Joe gets the melody of Some Enchanted Evening *wrong*?
Yes, just a couple of notes subtly wrong, but they make an elegant "hummable" melody strange and awkward. It's one of rhe best subtle jokes in the show.
I mean...to be honest, it's close enough to the actual melody that it's an incredibly subtle joke and one that no doubt flies over the heads of the vast majority of people who watch/listen to Merrily We Roll Along unless they happen to be intimately familiar with Some Enchanted Evening - to a casual listener, it just sounds as though Joe is singing the melody a few notes lower to keep it in his range, not that it's identifiably wrong. For most people, the joke of that moment is the obvious meta one that Sondheim's "unhummable" melodies were often compared unfavourably to the big Richard Rodgers tunes like Some Enchanted Evening, and so it's a little dig at his critics (especially since we already know by this point in the show that the specific melody Joe is rejecting will become Frank and Charley's big hit with literally the only change being that Good Thing Going is far more legato rhythmically and ironically even less like what Joe demonstrates as being "hummable" - melodically, nothing changes in the song between the snippet here and Good Thing Going). Honestly the joke in those terms works perfectly fine even if that's all you get out of it. Joe's rendition of Some Enchanted Evening being wrong is just a miniscule bonus and a likely dig at the possible producers Sondheim no doubt came up against who espoused the virtues of "hummable melodies" yet had trouble actually remembering them. Even if you don't realise that the melody is wrong, the joke ultimately still stands and loses nothing.
@@overlydramaticpanda He doesn't sing it lower though (well he does but) it's the fact that he gets the actual notes wrong. "Some enchanted evening" as "dum dum dumed" out is right but the "You may see a stranger" isn't--most notably the final "stranger". If that makes ANY sense in my explanation.
But yeah--there's no argument that the main joke is as you say (and honestly most audiences who pick up on that joke are too distracted laughing to hear that he even screws up the "hummable melody" of Some Enchanted Evening. As you point out I realize. My point just is that Sondheim isn't satisfied with just the one obvious joke and has to hammer it home, even if much of the audience won't notice--and that I was surprised though that Seth didn't seem to.
But, I realize, as amazing as Seth's song analyses are, he's not all knowing. I was shocked at the recent Stars in the House devoted to the concert Anyone Can Whistle that he knew virtually nothing about the show (even well known facts like that There Won't Be Trumpets was cut out of town). I just assumed every Broadway, err, afficianado of his age who likes Sondheim knew the show.
@@EricMontreal22 Oh don't worry, your explanation makes perfect sense (to me, at least. Great minds..?) To be entirely honest, it was only a couple of years ago when my father (who loves Some Enchanted Evening as a song) pointed it out that I realised the melody Joe was humming was actually genuinely *wrong* , hence why I said that to someone with only a passing knowledge of Some Enchanted Evening (i.e. me) the joke of the "hummable melody" being hummed wrong would go completely missed because all that's really identifiably "off" about it for someone who's not all that familiar with the song is that Joe hums the "you may see a stranger" line lower than written. The joke of the melody actually being wrong does undeniably make the situation even more funny but it's almost ridiculously subtle and since the whole section building up to it is a much more clear joke that also works on its own, I ultimately can't fault Seth for missing it - along with the fact that it makes me feel validated for having missed it for so many years as well. And since Seth admits that he isn't much of a fan of South Pacific, it's not surprising that it would go over his head.
Having excused him with regards to this though, I must say that I was also a tad surprised by how much he didn't seem to know about Anyone Can Whistle in that SITH episode; I know it's technically still on the more obscure end of Sondheim (ish... I mean there's still Road Show/Bounce, Saturday Night and Evening Primrose to deal with...) but it's one of those shows that I've always assumed a Sondheim nerd would eat up trivia for... But as you say, even Seth can't be expected to know anything and lord knows just how much Broadway trivia he's got stored up in his head already...
@@overlydramaticpanda While it didn't take me as ridiculously long as it took you to realize the Some Enchanted Evening quote was wrong (I tease!) it was at least a few years after my initial obsession with Merrily as a teen (and I was very familiar with South P).
Yeah--and you didn't mention Frogs! (Whenever people bring up relatively obscure Sondheim shows that I don't usually expect a lot of fans to know, those are the four that come to mind.) Whistle's cast album has never been out of print (which is true of most Sondheim original cast albums--even if not best sellers they are steady sellers, but obviously not true of most flops or forgotten shows) and even Tennessee Williams joked on talk shows in the 1970s that one of the biggest common lies he knew was the number of theatre people who claimed to have seen Anyone Can Whistle on Broadway (the joke being that if they all had, it would have run for years, not 9 performances). Also, it was one of the first Sondheim cast albums I became familiar with (when I was ten--around 1990, it was actually one of the few Sondheim cast *records* my library still stocked) so maybe that assumption that everyone with a certain love and knowledge of Sondheim and musical history would know it is just my own personal bias ;)
Seth, sorry you're too young to have seen Jason Alexander in "Jerome Robbin's Broadway." Filling Zero Mostel's shoes was quite an undertaking, I'm sure you can go down to the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center and catch some videotape. According to the documentary which just came out (2016), "The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened," Jason Alexander considered returning to Broadway for the 8 performances a week but decided to spend time with his children growing up. After they're grown, who knows?What you failed to point out was that the quote from "Some Enchanted Evening" was also a reference to Sondheim's mentor, Oscar Hammerstein (although, of course, it is just a melodic reference by Richard Rodgers). It is also useful to note that the "We'll do a review" is a reference to Bernstein/Comden/Green. Never noticed that little "Franklin Shepard, Inc." excerpt, and thanks for the lyrics we can't even hear!
who is bulsack? (sorry for my ignorance)
@healthyholemealbread It's Balzac, the French writer!
ah right! thanks :D
healthyholemealbread
:))
A favorite part of a song for me is out of Music Man. (Marion, a librarian, is discussing a man who followed her home after work. Her long-suffering mother, on the other hand, is just hoping that this might be a suitor who will sweep Marion off her feet at last.)
Mrs. Paroo:
If you don't mind my sayin' so,
It wouldn't have hurt you
To find out what the gentleman wanted.
Marian:
I know what the gentleman wanted.
Mrs. Paroo:
What, dear?
Marian:
You'll find it in Balzac.
Mrs. Paroo:
Excuse me fer livin' but I never read it.
@@mckenna8663 Not to mention Hermione Gingold enumerating the bad influence Marian has by putting BALLLLLL-ZAC in the library.
here comes Patti Lupone!
"Rewrite old stuff..."
I saw him deconstruct sound of music live.
15:23 LMAO you're busted
Sorry guys but I just can't get into Sondheim. (Seth is great.) I'm a songwriter and I can acknowledge that he's a genius but there's something about his melodies are not resonating with me.
I actually think that that kind of proves that he's awesome because a lot of his songs are deliberately written to be uncomfortable. Like the anxiety in opening doors or the entirety of Assassins or Sweeney Todd!
Thanks for the perspective. I guess he's just over my head.
"melodies don't resonate with me"? Really? Not even... "not a day goes by", or
"losing my mind", or "Lovely" or "comedy Tonight" from Forum? Or "i am unworthy of your love"from Assassins... or the one bona fide cross over "Send in the Clowns"?
Thanks for your reply. You bring up a lot of good points. My palet must be not adjusted to most of his songs. I clearly take full responsibilty for my lack of getting it. However, "Losing My Mind" is possibly one of the best songs ever written. "ComedyTonight" is also very catchy and I feel an exception to my rule. "Send In The Clowns" to me is more effective because of the lyrics. The melody drones on to me. I don't generally resonate witih his chord prgressions. It's defentely me. I was raised on the Beatles music, as a songwriter, Lennon/McCartney are my benchmark. Broadway composers I gravitate toward Weber, Herman, Schwartz. I never heard "Lovely" . I will check it out.
That tuba solo probably came from the fact that tuba players aren't cheap. 🤣🤣🤣
Good commentary, but I prefer to listen without watching due to the acting-along. But I wouldn't consider Rudetsky to be superbly insightful, rather more just a reiteration of what's in the score and script.
Most of which are missed by most people. And simply pointing out (and yes with his lip-syncing and gestures) the exceptional craft and detail in really good song writing IS, IMHO, exceptional. Most people dismiss Broadway as somehow an inferior music. In the hands of Loesser, Sondheim, Bernstein, Porter, Berlin, Rodgers.... certainly not so. Though when all the details fall into place, it seems so natural as to be inevitable and therefore like "nothing all that special". Hah. Dream on. Current young composers of new opera should sit and learn.
I don't get what's deconstructive about this, he just sing along to the lines he likes and needlessly explains the obvious
Pity his diction is so bad.
One of his very best scores. I saw the show and didn't like it much. The story is piffle but the music is magnificent.