Sondheim Rips the Great Lyricists

[JSngry]

How are those two lyrics similar in feeling? One's about being without a partner, the other one about having one.

And anyway, "play of sound and accent"...what does that mean exactly? To me it implies a linguistic ploy, and what if the language being used is no longer widely spoken? Or what of people who never really spoke that language in the first place? Are we to assume that their expressions of similar life-realities are somehow less "noble, or that they are less "sophisticated"?

How much "understanding" is on display when said "understanding is only situationally displayed?

Not very much, if you ask me.

Yet we are hit upon on all sides by those who claim to possess the "true" American voice, higher sophistication, greater insight, what have you.

It's all bullshit, including

Our love is as deep as the sea

our love is as great as a love can be

or

I'll go my way by myself,

this is the end of romance.

I'll go my way by myself,

love is only a dance.

both of which could just as easily be from a freakin' prepubescent doo-wop song as from a Great American Popular Song (and I know, in the doo-wop song you'd not get all that superb adult commentary that comes along with it, but adults can be just as big of ninnies about "love" as can kids, probably worse, because adults know how to, uh, justify their fantasies, a lot better than do kids...). Which is why I like me some of both, but have no great illusions about either.

Words don't mean a whole helluva lot. Sentiments do, a little bit more, but really, sometimes (often, actually), a "well-crafted song lyric" is something that contributes about as much to the ultimate welfare of humanity as does a "well-crafted sitcom". I'm a big fan of both, but let's not kid ourselves, in either case, you get out of it what you bring to it in the first place, so let's not get too feel-goody about things being "special" when we like what we see in the mirror just becuase the mirror is in somebody else's house.

Or shop.

[JSngry]

But here's my question for Jsngry: are we talking Great American Songbook (aka GAS), or are we talking the song form in general?

Would you care to show me how those two are separated to any meaningful extent in the current "enlightened" environment?

Ticket receipts end once the game is over. But memorabilia sales go on forever.

Well, actually "forever", becuase eventually most people forget most things, which overall is really a pretty healthy, if messy, trait.

Beware those who will sell you your "heritage", especially if you have to take their word for it...odds are it's neither truly yours nor truly heritage.

You've been warned!

I get what you're saying, but I'm not going to hold the artists accountable now just because of how they may be marketed, or mis-marketed, decades and decades later.

Nor will I, but I'll do as much as possible to get to the art(ists) by bypassing the hype-masters as much as is humanly and (quasi)legally possible.

[GA Russell]

As I understand it, there was a period of about 35 years, maybe from Show Boat ca. 1928 to Camelot ca. 1962, when Broadway provided a lot of good songs that became hits, even when the shows were flops.

In the nearly fifty years since then, Broadway has produced few songs people remember, and many of those have been the product of Andrew Lloyd Weber. And throughout those fifty years, Sondheim has been considered the king of the Broadway hill.

So if Sondheim's opinion is worth quoting, why hasn't the public taken to his songs the way it took to his predecessors? I think that Sondheim is treated by the media as more important than he really is.

[Larry Kart]

How are those two lyrics similar in feeling? One's about being without a partner, the other one about having one.

And anyway, "play of sound and accent"...what does that mean exactly? To me it implies a linguistic ploy, and what if the language being used is no longer widely spoken? Or what of people who never really spoke that language in the first place? Are we to assume that their expressions of similar life-realities are somehow less "noble, or that they are less "sophisticated"?

How much "understanding" is on display when said "understanding is only situationally displayed?

Not very much, if you ask me.

Yet we are hit upon on all sides by those who claim to possess the "true" American voice, higher sophistication, greater insight, what have you.

It's all bullshit, including

Our love is as deep as the sea

our love is as great as a love can be

or

I'll go my way by myself,

this is the end of romance.

I'll go my way by myself,

love is only a dance.

both of which could just as easily be from a freakin' prepubescent doo-wop song as from a Great American Popular Song (and I know, in the doo-wop song you'd not get all that superb adult commentary that comes along with it, but adults can be just as big of ninnies about "love" as can kids, probably worse, because adults know how to, uh, justify their fantasies, a lot better than do kids...). Which is why I like me some of both, but have no great illusions about either.

Words don't mean a whole helluva lot. Sentiments do, a little bit more, but really, sometimes (often, actually), a "well-crafted song lyric" is something that contributes about as much to the ultimate welfare of humanity as does a "well-crafted sitcom". I'm a big fan of both, but let's not kid ourselves, in either case, you get out of it what you bring to it in the first place, so let's not get too feel-goody about things being "special" when we like what we see in the mirror just becuase the mirror is in somebody else's house.

Or shop.

More later, Jim, especially about the play of sound and accent here (it would help to have clips of a recording or two of those songs; I'll see what I can find), but right now I've got to leave the house for the evening. As for how these songs/lyrics are similiar in feeling, though, how about the theme of "aloneness"?

[JSngry]

(it would help to have clips of a recording or two of those songs; I'll see what I can find),

Dude. I know the songs. ok?

As for how these songs/lyrics are similiar in feeling, though, how about the theme of "aloneness"?

Well, uh, ok, but that's kinda like saying that "Gloomy Sunday" & "All The Things You Are" are both about "life"...

[Chuck Nessa]

The song has ended but the malady lingers on.............

[AllenLowe]

yes, and a pretty girl.....

[Chuck Nessa]

and a disease.

[GA Russell]

The song has ended but the malady lingers on.............

Remember when Al Capp gave a title to each of his Sunday Lil Abners?

I remember one was "Lasagna's ended, but the malady lingers on."

[JSngry]

It ain't "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden,"

Assuming that the house/garden metaphors were intended as suggested earlier, why the condescending tone? It's a metaphor to which many people can relate to their own life experience, probably at least as many as can relate to "The starless night were not in vain"...that it's not "artfully constructed" assumes that it is even concerned with working the same "technical" turf as Dietz/Schwartz, which I seriously doubt is the case.

That it for whatever reason "should" be so concerned is a conceit which I do not share. This specific instance is hardly a "glorious" example, but I have a very difficult time justifying why anybody "should" strive for one mode of expression over the other, especially when somebody is communicating effectively to/with whom they are attempting to communicate about that which they are attempting to communicate. I have an even greater time assuming "superiority" when I myself may very well not be able to communicate effectively with that target/group/audience/whatever.

What I have no difficulty in saying is that my wife enjoys gardening, that my heart would have to ready be very hardened for me to even try to take that from her, and that if I did, her heart would be irrevocably hardened, and that, yes, that would be a pretty damn sad thing to have happen, no matter how you express it, the bottom line is that it would pretty much suck as hard as anything could suck.

There's an infinite number of ways to express that, but none of them would make it suck any less.

Edited November 12, 2010 by JSngry

[ghost of miles]

But here's my question for Jsngry: are we talking Great American Songbook (aka GAS), or are we talking the song form in general?

Would you care to show me how those two are separated to any meaningful extent in the current "enlightened" environment?

? Rightly or wrongly, I don't think there's any question that they're separated. Most people think of GAS as the songwriters Sondheim's talking about, operating pretty much in the period that GA Russell describes...and popular song form since being the provenance of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, etc. (Somewhere--I can't seem to find the source right now--Dylan's quoted as saying that he helped kill Tin Pan Alley, that "before me it was all 'I love you and you love me, riki-tiki-tiki, do-re-mi.' I ended all that." Never mind that Dylan later would profess a penchant for standards; a friend of mine remembers the Tambourine Man driving fans out of the arena during a 1987 concert with his renditions of "I'm in the Mood for Love" and other popular-song chestnuts.) GAS devotees to this day still tend to howl if standards singers try to introduce pop-rock material of the past 40-50 years into their repertoire.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument, but for me the song form still has the ability to connect, to be relevant. Here's one example, from Elliott Smith (who, yes, I know, has been annointed some sort of Emo Martyr-God since his strange 2003 death, but in spite of the post-GOOD WILL HUNTING hype, he was a damn good songwriter)--his 1997 song "Between the Bars":

drink up, baby, stay up all night

the things you could do, you won't but you might

the potential you'll be that you'll never see

the promises you'll only make

drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days

do what i say and i'll make you okay and drive them away

the images stuck in your head

people you've been before that you don't want around anymore

that push and shove and won't bend to your will

i'll keep them still

drink up, baby, look at the stars, i'll kiss you again

between the bars where i'm seeing you

there with your hands in the air waiting to finally be caught

drink up one more time and i'll make you mine

keep you apart deep in my heart separate from the rest

where i like you the best

and keep the things you forgot

the people you've been before that you don't want around anymore

that push and shove and won't bend to your will

i'll keep them still

Video of Elliott Smith singing "Between the Bars"

Now, some people might tend to knock Elliott Smith for being relevant primarily to 20/30something would-be artist types and slackers who drink too much, etc. Damn straight, I suppose! But all I can say is that this song hit awfully close to home for a number of people I knew, not to mention myself. And it was just one of many that Smith wrote that caused people to feel a strong sense of connection. (Though you might be interested to know that shortly before his death he was much more into what he called "soundscapes," or "noise tracks" as they're known in the ES online community... but even those tended to be built around some kind of motif or hook, and I think ES's desire to create them spoke mostly to his sense that for him, after six albums and change worth of songs, he might be ready to expand his notion of what he was doing musically. I don't think he ever fully repudiated songwriting or song form, though.)

Or here's another song, by Nick Drake, with lyrics that might seem banal or silly when read on the page, but which to me are articulating the same sort of identity/closing-contorting sense of possibilities that Smith's getting at in "Between the Bars":

I could have been a sailor

Could have been a cook

A real live lover

Could have been a book

I could have been a signpost

Could have been a clock

As simple as a kettle

Steady as a rock

I could be

Here and now

I would be, I should be

But how?

I could have been

One of these things first

I could have been

One of these things first

I could have been your pillar

Could have been your door

I could have stayed beside you

Could have stayed for more

I could have been your statue

Could have been your friend

A whole long lifetime

Could have been the end

I could be

Yours so true

I would be

I should be

Through and through

I could have been

One of these things first

I could have been

One of these things first

I could have been a whistle

Could have been a flute

A real live giver

Could have been a boot

I could have been a signpost

Could have been a clock

As simple as a kettle

Steady as a rock

I could be

Even here

I would be, I should be

So near

I could have been

One of these things first

I could have been

One of these things first

Nick Drake singing "One of These Things First"

...and I'm just scratching the surface here of (IMO, of course) good, relevant songs written over the past 40 years that don't fit into the world of GAS and all that it evoked or now evokes, but whose composers have connected powerfully with listeners (yes, mostly the white college-kid and white post-college kid world in the examples that I'm giving, but that's the world I probably know best). But hell, "Straight Outta Compton" is a strong song in its own right... what's wrong with a form that tries to give a poetic/melodic expression of some of the things we struggle with in our environments, ourselves, etc.? I don't think anybody's putting it up on a pedestal or giving it some sort of sacred power that it doesn't possess (not to say, though, that music doesn't have some sort of powerful influence/hold over us, which I guess should go without saying... I used to treat certain pop-rock artists with a kind of reverence and still have that feeling now for certain jazz artists).

I still love listening to Billie Holiday, Sinatra, Nat King Cole et al sing standards. I think these days that can easily veer between connoisseur appreciation and Starbucks "lifestyle" soundtrack for a lot of people, but that music has, for better or worse, become somewhat canonized as mid-20th-century Americana. When it comes to modern-day singers, I'd generally rather hear somebody like Madeleine Peyroux try to sing Elliott Smith's Between the Bars or Dylan's You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go then the Billie Holiday songbook. I'd rather listen to their originals, too, while I'm at it. I'd rather listen to people try, in general, and take some risks in pursuit of putting across material--whatever it is, originals, post-1965 pop, or the Great American Songbook--with some spark of soul, passion, and creativity. But I don't think you have to jettison song form to do it, and I don't think song form is exhausted.

Edited November 12, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Larry Kart]

It ain't "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden,"

Assuming that the house/garden metaphors were intended as suggested earlier, why the condescending tone? It's a metaphor to which many people can relate to their own life experience, probably at least as many as can relate to "The starless night were not in vain"...that it's not "artfully constructed" assumes that it is even concerned with working the same "technical" turf as Dietz/Schwartz, which I seriously doubt is the case.

That it for whatever reason "should" be so concerned is a conceit which I do not share. This specific instance is hardly a "glorious" example, but I have a very difficult time justifying why anybody "should" strive for one mode of expression over the other, especially when somebody is communicating effectively to/with whom they are attempting to communicate about that which they are attempting to communicate. I have an even greater time assuming "superiority" when I myself may very well not be able to communicate effectively with that target/group/audience/whatever.

What I have no difficulty in saying is that my wife enjoys gardening, that my heart would have to ready be very hardened for me to even try to take that from her, and that if I did, her heart would be irrevocably hardened, and that, yes, that would be a pretty damn sad thing to have happen, no matter how you express it, the bottom line is that it would pretty much suck as hard as anything could suck.

There's an infinite number of ways to express that, but none of them would make it suck any less.

Jim -- How you can't see that both "By Myself" and "Alone Together" are powerfully about aloneness baffles me. It makes me wonder whether we can even continue to talk about this stuff, though of course we can and will continue to talk about a whole lot of other things.

I'm kind of baffled, too, about your use of the phrase "linguistic ploy," as though constructing a song in which the interplay of words and music, sound, sense, and accent, were some kind of elitist lifted-pinky game. Surely it's quite common in music in general, and in jazz in particular, to set up a framework of structural expectations (harmonic, rhythmic, etc.) such that a deviation from those expectations give a particular phrase or note a meaning that comes in part from its novel "position" within that structure, a meaning different from what it would have had otherwise. That's what I'm talking about.

In particular, and you do know those songs, here's where some the accents fall at key moments "By Myself" and "Alone Together":

I'll face the unknown,

I'll build a world of my own;

No one knows better than I, myself,

I'm by myself alone.

Alone together the blinding rain

The starless night were not in vain

For we're together and what is there

to fear together

And we can weather the great unknown

If we're alone [pause] together

Surely you can see, for example, that the enforced pause between "alone" and "together" in the final line of the song gives that final repetition of the title phrase a new darker meaning, one that is set up above by the chime between "we're" and "fear."

As for your "Words don't mean a whole helluva lot. Sentiments do, a little bit more..." forgive me if I mention the famous conversation between Degas and Mallarme, as related by Paul Valery:

"[Degas] told me that, dining one day...with Mallarme, he gave vent to his feelings about the agonies of poetic composition. 'What a business!' he lamented. 'My whole day gone on a blasted sonnet, without getting an inch further.... And all the same, it isn't ideas I'm short of ... I'm full of them... I've got too many....'

"'But Degas,' said Mallarme ... 'you can't make a poem with ideas... You make it with words.'

Go tell the shade of Lockjaw that his solo on "Whirlybird" was made of sentiments, but its notes "don't mean a whole helluva lot..." Sure -- Jaws, and you and I and everyone and his uncle know about and feel the sentiments, but the actual notes matter immensely, no?

As for my condescending tone about "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden," I have no problem with the house-garden metaphor or with the sentiment, but its verbal expression seems awfully clunky to me, rhythmically and otherwise. And if you're going to do a "but that's the way plain people talk" number, I think you'll be under-rating so-called plain people terribly. No, they may not talk in the same way Howard Dietz's lyrics do, but Johnny Cash's

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

Because you're mine, I walk the line"

or the lyric of Patsy Cline's "Crazy"

Crazy, I'm crazy for feelin' so lonely,

I'm crazy, crazy for feelin' so blue...

I knew, you'd love me as long as you wanted,

And then someday, you'd leave me for somebody new.

Worry, why do I let myself worry?

Wonderin', what in the world did I do?

Oh, crazy, for thinkin' that my love could hold you...

I'm crazy for tryin' and crazy for cryin'

And I'm crazy for lovin' you.

or Clarence Ashley's version of "The Coo-Coo Bird"

Gonna build me a log cabin

On a mountain so high

So I can see Willie

As he goes passing by.

Oh, the coo-coo, she’s a pretty bird

She wobbles as she flies

She never says coo-coo

Till the fourth day of July.

I’ve played cards in England

I’ve played cards in Spain

I’ll bet you ten dollars

I beat you next game.

Jack-a-Diamonds, Jack-a-Diamonds

I’ve known you from old

You’ve robbed my poor pocket

Of my silver and my gold.

My horses ain’t hungry

They won’t eat your hay

I’ll drive on a little further

I’ll feed ‘em on my way.

are crafted IMO in ways that "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden" are not. Craft does matter, even though styles of craft obviously vary a great deal. "Obstacles ... prompt despair in some, while they only convince others that there is something beyond."

[seeline]

a lot of lyrics that look so-so/bad on paper but ... given the right interpretation, they can be anything but trite.

Re. the Sondheim book, we don't know exactly what he's said about the lyricists mentioned in the OP's link.

And I have to admit that while a lot of Sondheim doesn't do it for me, he's written some really beautiful melodies and lyrics ("I Remember" and "Take Me to the World" - from "Evening Primrose" - are two; also some of the songs from his early show "Anyone Can Whistle").

And his more recent material is meant to be taken in the context of the entire performance (show). Some pieces that sound "eh" when excerpted have a lot of presence when heard in context.

(Just my .02...)

Edited to add: check some of Michael John LaChiusa's work. Very gifted lyricist/librettist.

Edited November 12, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Jim -- How you can't see that both "By Myself" and "Alone Together" are powerfully about aloneness baffles me.

And I'm at least as equally baffled as how you can't see that one is about facing the difficulties of life truly alone, and the other with a partner. One is I'm alone in this world, the other we're alone, and if you can't see what a fundamental difference that makes, then I'll see your "baffled" and raise you 2000 "you gotta be kidding me"s.

As for my condescending tone about "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden," I have no problem with the house-garden metaphor or with the sentiment, but its verbal expression seems awfully clunky to me, rhythmically and otherwise. And if you're going to do a "but that's the way plain people talk" number, I think you'll be under-rating so-called plain people terribly.

Yeah, it seems clunky to me too, and it no doubt is, but as seeline aptly points out, with the right delivery in the right voice, it could be transformed. Could be... (if you ever make it down here, we can do a tour and hear extrremes of this on both ends, possibly by just crossing the street from one joint to another...) But really, I'm defending the notion of the line much more than the line itself.

And believe me, I in no way underestimate "so-called plain people". Most of them I've known (hell, I'm one myself, who am I kidding) are anything but "plain", if by "plain" one means lacking fire and a healthy appetite for the life they have...

There's a reason why not everybody aspires to be Dietz/Schwartz, ya'know. Not every shoe fits all feet, even the most beautiful shoes and the most beautiful feet.

[AllenLowe]

there's always:

" I wanna be your man.....I wanna be your man.....I wanna be your man.....I wanna be your ma-aaan....."

I've spent a bit of time songwriting in the last few years, and though I think I'm ok on the lyric side, I've come to have greater respect for even the most obscure of Tin Pan Alley-ists.

there's also the quite complex tradition of African American lyricism, personified in the blues, but represented for a long time before that - see Howard Odum or even Dorothy Scarborough - incredible world play, and combination of the real and the abstract. I like these:

I'm Alabama bound

I'm Alabama bound

And if the train don't stop and turn around

I'm Alabama bound

Oh, don't you leave me here

Oh, don't you leave me here

But if you must go anyhow

Just leave a dime for beer

Oh don't you be like me

Oh don't you be like me

Drink your good sweet cherry wine

And let that whiskey be

Well your hair don't curve

And your eyes ain't blue

Well if you don't want me, Polly Ann

Well I don't want you

Edited November 12, 2010 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

Jim -- How you can't see that both "By Myself" and "Alone Together" are powerfully about aloneness baffles me.

And I'm at least as equally baffled as how you can't see that one is about facing the difficulties of life truly alone, and the other with a partner. One is I'm alone in this world, the other we're alone, and if you can't see what a fundamental difference that makes, then I'll see your "baffled" and raise you 2000 "you gotta be kidding me"s.

As for my condescending tone about "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden," I have no problem with the house-garden metaphor or with the sentiment, but its verbal expression seems awfully clunky to me, rhythmically and otherwise. And if you're going to do a "but that's the way plain people talk" number, I think you'll be under-rating so-called plain people terribly.

Yeah, it seems clunky to me too, and it no doubt is, but as seeline aptly points out, with the right delivery in the right voice, it could be transformed. Could be... (if you ever make it down here, we can do a tour and hear extrremes of this on both ends, possibly by just crossing the street from one joint to another...) But really, I'm defending the notion of the line much more than the line itself.

And believe me, I in no way underestimate "so-called plain people". Most of them I've known (hell, I'm one myself, who am I kidding) are anything but "plain", if by "plain" one means lacking fire and a healthy appetite for the life they have...

There's a reason why not everybody aspires to be Dietz/Schwartz, ya'know. Not every shoe fits all feet, even the most beautiful shoes and the most beautiful feet.

Yes, but you said that you saw no more relationship between "By Myself" and "Alone Together" than you did between "Gloomy Sunday" and "All The Things You Are." You gotta be kidding me. Further, I think that the final return of the title phrase of "Alone Together," given the way words and music interact there, pretty clearly is meant to introduce doubt that the singer's stated dream of being "alone together" with his partner is anything but an unsustainable fantasy. In other words, while the song is a plea to a partner that together they flee the world, the guy (if the singer is a guy) probably is going to end up "by himself."

Didn't say and don't think that everybody should aspire to be Dietz/Schwartz. I wasn't attacking the notion of the "house/garden" line but saying that craft (I prefer "paying attention to what you're up to") knows no boundaries.

[AllenLowe]

not to digress (I'm with Larry on the above), but here's Papa Charlie Jackson's version of Alabama Bound:

Stood on the corner : feet got soaking wet

I was hollering and crying to every brown : to hell I'm at

I'm Alabama bound : I'm Alabama bound

Then if you want me to love you babe : you got to leave this town

When the rooster crowed : the hen looked around

Said if you want me to love you babe : you got to run me down

Look here pretty mama : who can your regular be

Says the reason I'm backing out babe : you been so good to me

There's a preacher in the pulpit : Bible in his hand

And the sisters was back in the amen corner : hollering that's my man

Now the boat's up the river : can't be floated down

But she's way down south now darling babe : Alabama bound

Just like a beefsteak beefsteak : ain't got no bone

Then if a man like a good brownskin woman now babe : he ain't got no home

Elder Green's in town : and he's going around

And he's telling all the sisters and the brothers he meets : he's Alabama bound

Now don't you leave me here : don't you leave me here

Just before you and your partner get ready to go : leave a dime for beer

I find that stuff ingenious.

[AllenLowe]

once again, just trying to illustrate that there are vernacular alternatives to the writing of lyrics; Tex Ritter (I think) did a song years ago called Hillbilly Heaven, about a visit to all the now-dead Country Music greats; the following, called Hillbilly Hell, was written as an answer to Tex:

Hillbilly Hell

I dreamt I spent last night in

hillbilly hell -

somebody tossed my guitar down the

old wishing well

so I jumped in after it

and drowned in my own tears

as I dreamed about the casualties of

the hillbilly years

I saw Hank Williams there,

high as a kite -

so blinded by the booze that

he couldn't see the light -

Jimmy Davis was also there,

why, he said he didn't know -

I said 'Jimmy, don't you know why you're here?

it's all about Jim Crow'

when you sang those good old blues

with Oscar Woods, you see -

he didn't know you'd just as soon see him

hangin' from a tree -

and than I saw ol' Alfred Reed

who used to sing for the Klan -

he said to me, "in those days the Ku Kluxers

had a better breed of man."

I pointed and said Alfred, 'don't you see,

those white robed bastards here?

there all consigned to burn in hell

'cause you can't lynch an idea - '

and than from the backroom I heard Fiddlin John Carson,

as his daughter strummed a chord:

he sang: "let's hang the Jewboy for that little girl -

and because he killed our lord" -

while high above, in a puff of smoke,

I saw the ghost of Leo Franks -

'cause Leo went to heaven ahead of his lynch mob -

who were baptized at the river banks -

and that's how I spent last night

in hillbilly hell -

where the stench of gin and original sin

are like the bars of a prison cell

Edited November 12, 2010 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

Yes, but you said that you saw no more relationship between "By Myself" and "Alone Together" than you did between "Gloomy Sunday" and "All The Things You Are." You gotta be kidding me. Further, I think that the final return of the title phrase of "Alone Together," given the way words and music interact there, pretty clearly is meant to introduce doubt that the singer's stated dream of being "alone together" with his partner is anything but an unsustainable fantasy. In other words, while the song is a plea to a partner that together they flee the world, the guy (if the singer is a guy) probably is going to end up "by himself."

I would never have imagined that song as a dream/fantasy/whatever. It has never struck me that way at all. It's always seemed me as a hard-won victory song, a song of triumph, not despair.

Just goes to show, yet again, that what you get out of anything is directly relevant to what you bring to it, you're looking for in the first place.

[Larry Kart]

Yes, but you said that you saw no more relationship between "By Myself" and "Alone Together" than you did between "Gloomy Sunday" and "All The Things You Are." You gotta be kidding me. Further, I think that the final return of the title phrase of "Alone Together," given the way words and music interact there, pretty clearly is meant to introduce doubt that the singer's stated dream of being "alone together" with his partner is anything but an unsustainable fantasy. In other words, while the song is a plea to a partner that together they flee the world, the guy (if the singer is a guy) probably is going to end up "by himself."

I would never have imagined that song as a dream/fantasy/whatever. It has never struck me that way at all. It's always seemed me as a hard-won victory song, a song of triumph, not despair.

Just goes to show, yet again, that what you get out of anything is directly relevant to what you bring to it, you're looking for in the first place.

It might be me, too, Jim, but it ain't just me. The element of doubt about romance and the success of romantic pairings-off in the face of a hurly-burly world is a common theme for Dietz/Schwartz, witness two of their more famous songs, "You and the Night and the Music" and Dancing in the Dark":

You and the night and the music fill me with flaming desire,

Setting my being completely on fire!

You and the night and the music thrill me but will we be one

After the night and the music are done?

Until the pale light of dawning and daylight, our hearts will be throbbing guitars,

Morning may come without warning, and take away the stars.

If we must live for the moment, love till the moment is through!

After the night and the music die, will I have you?

Dancing in the dark 'til the tune ends

We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends

We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here

Time hurries by, we're here and we're gone

Looking for the light of a new love

To brighten up the night, I have you love

And we can face the music together

Dancing in the dark

What -- though love is old

What -- though song is old

Through them we can be young

Hear this heart of mine

Wailin' all the time

Dear one, tell me that we're one

Looking for the light of a new love

To brighten up the night, I have you love

And we can face the music together

Dancing in the dark, dancing in the dark

Dancing in the dark

Triumph? I don't think so. Dramatized doubt/anxiety? Tons of it. Also, as Dietz's entertaining autobiography "Dancing in the Dark" makes clear, the several-times-married Dietz, also a man of many dalliances, didn't get things straightened out personally in the realm of romance for a long time, not until his mid-50s when he married celebrated theatrical designer Lucinda Ballard. I met her once by chance, after Dietz's death, and we corresponded for a while. Classy lady.

[GA Russell]

I remember that Steve Allen had a running gag of reading like poetry the lyrics to rock 'n' roll hits.

You-oo-oo-oo send me...

[JSngry]

Sure, I can get that out of ""You & The Night & The Music", that's obvious. Doubt aplenty.

"Dancing In The Dark" seems more tentative, hopeful but not sure. Cautious optimism.

"Alone Together" seems like yeah, we made it after all. Triumph.

A nice little cycle, actually, but still, all this drama and anxiety and stuff...too "theatrical" for this day and time, really, musically and lyrically. We got "theater" pushed in our face 24/7 as is and are numb as a result. Backtracking is an easy out, just as succumbing to the onslaught.

Which leaves...what, exactly? Hell if I know, but when given two bad choices, I do my damnedest to accept neither. Call me crazy.

[JSngry]

I mean, really, where's the angst about the relationship here?

Alone together beyond the crowd

Above the world we're not too proud

To cling together we're strong

As long as we're together

Alone together the blinding rain

The starless night were not in vain

For we're together and what is there

to fear together

Our love is as deep as the sea

our love is as great as a love

can be

And we can weather the great unknown

If we're alone together

Anxiety about the world, sure, but the point is pretty clear, I think, that "alone together", they can - will - get past all that. Triumph in togetherness. Hell yeah.

But also too much damn drama, ultimately. Life is indeed a bitch, so get over it, ya' know?

[seeline]

This song alternates between pretty bad lyrics and a few great ones (imo), but given the right performance...

Edited November 12, 2010 by seeline

[A Lark Ascending]

A side comment. I know very little Sondheim, but...

but he suffers from the same problem Benjamin Britten does...very little melodic gift.

Assertions like this leave me utterly baffled!

Edited November 12, 2010 by A Lark Ascending