Musical Eurythmics

Not the latest exercise DVD.

Instead it's former Eurythmics man Dave Stewart who has been talking musicals in the Independent. He’s the composer of the new stage version of the film Ghost. And he’s found the going tough:

“There's nothing quite like the massive onslaught that comes with pulling a musical together. I've made a lot of records, collaborated with different singers and worked on music for television and movies, but nothing prepared me for writing songs for musicals...sometimes you need to write songs that propel the story forward, sometimes songs that get an emotion across, and sometimes the songs have to weave in and out of each other”

And sometimes songs that do all these things at the same time. Tricky stuff, musical witing. But we can only be glad he’s trying.

In the good old days, the journey from pop songs (i.e. Tin Pan Alley) to theatre songs (i.e. Broadway) wasn’t such a long road (i.e. literally). It was the career move that many songwriters aspired to make. Not so the boomer rockers. Paul Simon wrote Capeman and, more recently, Bono and The Edge [of what exactly, by the way?] had a crack at Spiderman. But successes these were not. Only Elton John has made a real go of original musicals.

That’s a shame. And not just for musical theatre.

Musicals offer a natural path for a developing songwriter: solos, duets, choruses, writing in character, developing themes. I’m not saying that pop songs are easy. But rock ‘n’ pop is limiting (as is any form, that’s sort of the point). It’s essentially hooky 3-minute singles about lu-u-urve. It’s also a young person’s game which is why there are no rock equivalents to the elderly couple’s song from Gigi:

"We met at nine
We met at eight
I was on time
No, you were late
Ah, yes, I remember it well"

Instead the aging rocker has to rely on his back catalogue:

“Well she was just seventeen
You know what I mean”

From a pensioner, that’s just creepy. In fact Paul McCartney did end up branching out into orchestral works which is just fine. But it’s not songwriting. Only musicals offer the opportunity for songwriters to develop as songwriters.

So I hope that Dave Stewart gets his hit. Musical theatre needs songwriters like him. And, in a strange way, he needs musical theatre.