Bowie, Rimes and Higgins

An unfounded story about a possible David Bowie musical (made up, apparently) has prompted this post by Tom Ewing on the Guardian website:

“Not all jukebox musicals succeed, but enough do that we're unlikely to see an end to them yet. What's the appeal? On one level, it's nostalgia, but more fun and creatively silly than the average tribute band. But there's also something compelling in the idea of turning songs we love into stories”

I’d agree with nostalgia. But what about the stories bit?

“The main problem is that narrative and pop don't always mix. Pop music is a thing of bottomless power when it comes to nailing a mood or a moment, but songs that fit into stories often have to move them along”

Is this true? Yes and no. Songs that fit into stories don’t always move the action along. But they should have some inherent movement. In My Fair Lady, when Professor Higgins realizes that he loves Eliza in “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”, he’s not really moving along the action. Quite the opposite in fact, he’s “nailing the mood” (not, I’d guess, a phrase that Higgins himself would use. More likely “dawdling in a moment of self-awareness” or some such). But the mood has movement: it comes about as the result of particular characters and events and has implications for what's going to happen to those characters. The song is part of a story.

Mr. Ewing stumbles onto something else in his last paragraph:

“One of my most thrilling experiences this year was first hearing the hardcore band F***ed Up's Queen of Hearts – a song full of big dreams…But on repeat listens I paid more attention, and the dispiriting spectre of narrative crept in. Who were the "David" and "Veronica" in the song: why should I care?”

Now I've no idea who Fudged Up are or what a hardcore band sounds like but this observation does speak to one of the big differences between pop/rock and theatre songs, a difference highlighted by Jennifer Toksvig in what must be one of the most interesting things ever written about lyrics. One of her points, if I've understood it correctly, is that pop lyrics tend towards a universal emotion (like the “big dreams” of the Queen of Hearts song) so that we, the listener, have the opportunity to fill in the specifics from our own experience. Theatre lyrics, on the other hand, already have the specifics of the story and the experiences of the characters (like the “David and Veronica” of the Queen of Hearts song) and so must find the universal therein.

To put it another way, LeAnn Rimes can sing a song like this:

“How do I live without you? I want to know

How do I breathe without you if you ever go
How can I ever, ever survive

How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?"

All well and good. Big, generic emotions expressing how you feel about someone you love. Everyone can think of their own loves and sympathise with poor LeAnn. But sing it as a character in a story and you’d assume the woman is nuts.

A character requires more specific characterization. So Professor Higgins, being emotionally cold and stubborn and arrogant (and, well, English) is more likely to express the feeling thus:

“Her smiles, her frowns
Her ups, her downs
Are second nature to me now
Like breathing out and breathing in…
I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”

No doubt David Bowie said it his way too.