Saturday Seven: Favorite Musicals - #musical #lyrics #SaturdaySeven #LASR

I grew up with music. My father was a jazz musician who played clarinet and sax in bands from the time he was eleven. My mom had an amazing singing voice (and was also a dancer) and played piano. And I’ve always had an exceptional memory for tunes and lyrics.

I know dozens of the 1940’s torch songs my mom liked to sing. I also picked up my parents’ love of musicals and comic opera. (They took me to my first Gilbert and Sullivan concert when I was only five years old!)

So here are seven of my favorite musicals—many of which I know by heart!

My Fair Lady – Lerner and Loewe

I have often walked down this street before,

But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.

All at once am I several stories high,

Knowing I’m on the street where you live.

This may have been the first musical I ever heard. My mother loved to play the record (yes, the vinyl record...!) and sing along. Pretty soon I was doing that too.

This classic tale of the snotty, sexist Professor Henry Higgins and the alluring Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle was an early introduction to romance.

Gypsy – Style and Sondheim

You can sacrifice your sacro

Working in the back row,

Bump in a dump till you’re dead,

But you’ve gotta get a gimmick

If you wanna get ahead

“Gypsy” was another family favorite, though it’s hard to imagine a plot or tone more different from “My Fair Lady”. This wonderful musical is based on the life of legendary burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee, who started out as a child performer managed by her bossy mother.

I still remember most of the lyrics, though it has been almost sixty years. I guess I identified a bit with Louise (as Gypsy Rose was originally named). My own mother had show business aspirations for me and my siblings. We even appeared as a singing trio on TV!

Camelot – Lerner and Loewe

It’s May, it’s May, the lusty month of May,

That gorgeous month when everyone goes

Blissfully astray

As a kid I loved to read tales of King Arthur’s knights. This musical offers something of a different view! I didn’t hear this at home, but saw the movie with Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet and Richard Burton (the original Broadway cast) and was hooked. I don’t know all the songs from this play, but I’ve always viewed “The Lusty Month of May” as something of a theme song!

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical – Ragni, Rado and MacDermot

Harmony and understanding,

Sympathy and peace abounding,

No more falsehood or derision,

Loving living dreams of vision,

Mystic crystal revelation

And the mind’s true liberation

Aquarius...

We marched against the Vietnam War. We wore flowing skirts, love beads, flowers in our hair. We repudiated the hypocrisy of our parents’ generation, determined to build a new society based on love, peace, nature, sensuality... “Hair” gave us our anthems.

The Age of Aquarius didn’t quite turn out the way we’d hoped, but the music still captures the ferment and the optimism of my teen years. Meanwhile, the vibrant sexuality of this musical definitely influenced my future development as a woman and an author.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show – Richard O’Brien

It’s astounding

Time is fleeting

Madness

Takes its toll.

The Rocky Horror film came out while I was in graduate school. In one week, I went to see it three times. Silly, sexy, exuberant and irreverent, the story struck a chord. I’ve listened to the sound track hundreds of times since then; I don’t seem to get tired of it.

Erotic visions without any measure,

And sensual daydreams to treasure forever...

Another influence on my writing, I guess, and very likely a source of my enduring interest in gender-bending characters.

The Phantom of the Paradise – Brian De Palma

Our love

Is an old love, baby;

It’s older

Than all our years.

I see in strange young eyes

familiar tears.

My lover/Master introduced me to this rather obscure musical film early in our relationship. It’s a peculiar mash-up of The Picture of Dorian Grey, Faust and the Phantom of the Opera. Actually, I’ve never seen the film; I’ve just listened to the haunting song “Old Souls”, again and again.

Once More With Feeling – Joss Whedon

Apocalypse -

We’ve all been there,

The same old tricks,

Why should we care?

Unlike most of America, I never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV, but years after the show ended, a friend loaned us the full series on DVD, and I was hooked.

“Once More With Feeling” is one episode of the series, in which the major and minor characters all burst into Hollywood-esque songs under the influence of a demon. I was impressed enough by the music (Joss Whedon is a multi-talented genius) that I got the soundtrack. Now I listen to it frequently. When I’m not singing it, that is!

By the way, all the lyrics in this post are from memory, so they might have errors. However, I’ll bet there aren’t many.

Be sure to check out the other Saturday Seven posts today. You'll find the links at Long and Short Reviews.


 

Give My Regards to Broadway

For my recent birthday, my brother sent me the soundtracks for "Gyspy" and "My Fair Lady". I knew why, even before I read his note. Our childhood was full of music, and Broadway shows ranked high on the list of our favorites. I guessed, correctly, that he was indulging in a bout of characteristic nostalgia.

My mother used to play "Gypsy" a lot (I think she identified with Rose--certainly she encouraged us to go into show biz...). I knew all the lyrics, and can still sing them now:

Let me entertain you.
Let me see you smile.
Let me do a few kicks,
Some old and then some new tricks,
I'm very versatile.

Hmm. Might be my theme song as a writer!

Anyway, I've always loved musicals. I didn't grow up reading romance, but perhaps the Broadway shows from my early years taught me about love and happy endings.

I could have danced all night,
I could have danced all night,
And still have begged for more...

I have often walked
Down this street before
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I
Several stories high
Knowing I'm on the street where you live.

I enjoy singing, and have a moderately good voice, but I never learned to sight-read music. Still, one of my long-time fantasies is to perform in a musical. Which one would I pick? That's a difficult choice. "West Side Story" has always tugged at my heartstrings, but I'm not sure that I'm the serious heroine type--and after all it is a tragedy, almost an opera. Certainly not a "musical comedy". I'm a huge fan of Gilbert and Sullivan with their topsy-turvy logic. I don't know how familiar readers are with their repertoire, but I'd adore the chance to play the part of Mad Margaret in "Ruddigore", a woman driven insane by thwarted love, or Katisha in "The Mikado", the brash older noblewoman who sits at the right hand of the Emperor and tries to win the love of his son. Then there's the glamorous actress Desirée in "A Little Night Music":

Just when I'd stopped
Opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again with my usual flair,
Sure of my lines--
No one is there.

Or I could play Mary Magdalene in "Jesus Christ Super Star", perhaps an appropriate role for an erotic author:

I don't know how to take this.
I don't see why he moves me.
He's a man.
He's just a man.
And I've had so many men before,
In very many ways
He's just one more.

Considering my personality and my appearance, however, I just might opt to play Shirley Maclaine's role in "Sweet Charity". I love her eternal hope as well as her sassy attitude:

The minute you walked in the joint
I could tell you were a man of distinction,
A real big spender.
Good looking,
So refined.
Hey wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind?
Let me get right to the point.
I don't pop my cork
For every guy I see.
Hey, big spender,
Spend a little time with me.

I love the old Broadway classics, silly as some of them were, and the newer musicals, too. A measure of my addiction: I generated all the lyrics in this post from memory. Since receiving my brother's package, I've been indulging myself, singing in the shower and while I'm doing the dishes. Soon I'll be working out to "You've Got to Have a Gimmick" and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face".

Life is good!