Making Emile of it: manliness and the musical

Recently caught the Chichester production of South Pacific. Good stuff, although I'm never sure how to judge a production when the story and songs are so familiar.

Anyhoo, one of the most surprising things was Emile De Becque. In part, it was the voice. The character was written for an operatic bass and Julian Ovenden who plays him in the Chichester production is a trained opera singer. I couldn't remember the last time I had heard that kind of voice - rich, deep, powerful - in a musical.

But it wasn't just the voice; it was the manliness. Debeck is a manly man. He's been around a bit. He's killed a guy, made a fortune from scratch, had kids. In the show, he not only survives a dangerous military operation but also bags a young nurse. Let's just say, Evan Hanson, he ain't.

Is it my imagination or don't you see this kind of manly man is musicals these days? Male characters tend more towards the geeky and shy and awkward. Perhaps musicals have always had a touch of the nerdiness about them. But it seems that in recent years they've been playing more and more into that stereotype. I suspect it started sometime between High School Musical and Glee or maybe it was the other way round. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention.

The point is that sometimes it feels that modern musicals have gone full geek.

Now there's nothing wrong with that. I like geeks. Some of my best friends are geeks. It only becomes a problem if it limits the kind of stories that musicals can tell and the kind of characters that musicals can portray. And I wonder if Emile De Becque would ever find a place in a modern show.

There are times when it's all about that bass. 

TATAR #8 Bulletproof

 

by Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid (2009)

Also known as pop-synth duo La Roux (whatever pop-synth means).

Now I generally like pared down versions of songs when I'm trying to do a bit of analysis but this cover from Pomplamoose is too much fun to ignore.

Anyways, what's the song all about? Pretty straightforward really. A girl is ditching some douchebag boyfriend and making sure she's impervious to any of more of his nonsense.

And when I say straightforward, I mean everything about the song is wonderfully straight and forward. It's a simple verse-chorus. Each verse is 8 bars and divides into two 4-bar phrases. The chorus is 8 bars and divides into two 4-bar phrases. And every one of those 4-bar harmonic sequences is the same: Cm-Fm-Ab-Cm. And the melody is basically a lot of repeated notes for the verses and a repeated 4-note phrase for the chorus.

Musically speaking it's tighter than a pair of skinny jeans. There's no give. It's sticking to its tight structure and tight harmonies and tight melody and impervious to any attempt to any monkeying around. Just like the character singing it.

So if I do have a quibble, it would be with the lyrics. They're not quite tight enough.

It does have some punchy starts to each verse to go with those repeated melody notes.

Been there, done that, messed around...

Do, do, do you dirty words...

Tick, tick, tick, tick on the watch...

And the chorus and title works fine. 

This time, baby, I'll be bulletproof

Apparently the first version didn't have the word or notes for 'baby' and it only came together when they were added. I can hear that. The word 'baby' lends a sarcastic edge and keeps up the verbal attack. Also without that additional 'baby' there would too much of a pause and the song would lose it's oomph. After all, it's a tirade and you don't pause during a tirade.

So the lyrics are good but, for me, they really need more perfect rhymes.

I won't let you turn around (A)

And tell me now, I'm much too proud (A-ish)

To walk away from something when it's dead (B)

Do, do, do you dirty words (C)

Come out to play when you are hurt? (C-ish)

There's certain things that should left unsaid (B)

It's attempting something quite hard - a really tight rhyme scheme of AABCCB. But those sort-of-ish-not-really rhymes (around/proud, words/hurt) let it down. The sentiment's there but needs to be sharper. 

I can only imagine what Ira Gershwin would have done with the lyric.

Do, do, do your dirty words

Like you done, done, done before, baby 

Alas, I don't think he ever did do pop-synth.

To Whom?

Super smart fella Sam Carner has written a super smart article with the title of 'Will I ever make a sound: modes of musical communication in the musical theater'.

And he asks this question.

"When characters sing in a musical, who are they singing to?"

Interesting.

"Another way of framing the question would be: when one character is singing in a musical, what do the other characters hear?" 

Now that really is a smart question.

We're used to hearing questions about about why characters sing in a musical and how they sing and, in particular, how they move from speech to song. But I've never really considered the question of 'to whom?'.

And Mr Carner has done some of the answering too. With categories. (I love categories.)

He categorises non-diegetic songs thusly: 

1. Soliloquy - character expresses internal thoughts and emotions but essentially talking to himself. The audience is 'listening in'. Generally the character is alone but, even if they're not, the other characters can't hear the soliloquy.

2. External Narration - character is addressing audience directly. So the audience aren't 'listening in' as in a soliloquy. However the other characters on stage are generally not being addressed and can't hear the song.

3. Monologue/Dialogue - characters are singing to (or being heard by) each other. The audience is once again 'listening in'. Think of a love duet. What's interesting here is how whether or not we imagine that the characters are actually hearing each other sing. Probably not. Instead, as Mr Carner puts it: "music and musical style often becomes a theatrical metaphor for what the characters understand to be happening".

4. Communal Consciousness - neither audience, nor characters are being addressed directly. Instead the song arises out of a characters sharing an emotional experience or event.

There's even a helpful table to summarise the categories. (I love tables.)

Here's where it gets even smarter. Musicals constantly shift between these musical modes. Not just between the different songs but in the middle of songs too. That's part of their dramatic power.

"Musicals can also achieve much of their impact and storytelling through explicit shifts in the mode of musical communication. When a song or a theme moves from one mode to another, the change can offer an audience important perspective on the story being told. Such shifts are also emotionally charged."

Yet despite all these complicated shifts in modes, it all feels very natural.

"When watching a musical, we do not consciously track these varying and shifting modes. The analytical part of our brain is not engaged, so this musico-dramatic mélange envelops us, bypassing the logical part of our consciousness that might ask why characters are moving instantaneously from singing songs to singing speech to singing thoughts (let alone from speaking to singing). And yet, this very combination is inherent to creating a musical world. The musical depends on a variety of modes of musical expression for its very status as a musical."

And that's why I like musicals. Dramatically, there are plenty of complicated things going on but audiences aren't sitting around parsing their External Narration from their Communal Consciousness. No matter how complicated, audiences instinctively 'get' what's going on in a musical.

There are lessons here for musical writers.

"As a musical theater writer and educator, I encounter a number of works in development...and one of the frequent problems I see has to do with the nascent work relying too heavily on just one form of musical expression—usually the soliloquy song... But when the writers wonder why their piece does not feel as theatrical, as dramatic, as envelopingly musical as they would like, they can often find part of the answer in the uniformity of their musico-dramatic mode. The form of their piece is likely too coherent, too consistent, too rational."

Bring on the irrationality.

You have to be genuinely smart to understand how crazy musicals can be. 

TATAR#7 Falling

by Joy Williams and John Paul White (2011)

(Now this songwriting pair are better known as The Civil Wars and if you want the full-on vocals of the original, it's more than worth it. However this simpler version lets us hear the song more clearly.)

So this song has more drama going on than most theatre songs. And in some unexpected ways.

First off, it's called 'Falling' but rather than the more usual idea of falling in love, this is about falling out of love. Oh right, I hear you say with imaginary insouciance, so it's just another sad song about breaking up, huh? Not quite. 

You see, there hasn't been any breaking up. This woman is still with the man she is falling out love with (or 'the man with whom she is out of love falling' or something - prepositional endings, they can off sod). She wants to leave but, overwhelmed by guilt, can't bring herself to do it. What she really wants is for him to recognize her situation and either rescue or end the relationship. Anything but this drifting emptiness.

So what we have here is not just the drama of a relationship between two people. There is also the inner drama of a woman knowing that something must be done but being unable to do it. She's living in that tension.

We start with the metaphor of sleepwalking.

Haven't you seen me sleepwalking

'Cause I've been holding your hand

We're in a slow 6/8 in a minor key. There's a little semi-tone clash in the accompaniment that keeps things off balance. Something's not quite right.

Then the pleading begins.

Tell me it's nothing

Try to convince me

That I'm not drowning

And when we get to the chorus, we're into F major. Normally this kind of key change - minor to major - would likely indicate a move from happy to sad. Here, it's more of an emotional clarity, like surfacing briefly from a murky pool. Suddenly we're not drifting. The harmonies have direction, the rhythm has a purpose.   

Please, please tell me you know 

I've got to let you go

I can't help falling out of love with you

Also if you're going to make it an emotional release, then having a nice long note on the word 'ple-e-e-ase' is a fine way to do it. In the final chorus, we get a glimpse of the full despair.

Won't you read my mind?

Don't you let me lie here

And die here

It's a kind of death, this living but not living. 

This is a beautifully simple song. The real complication isn't in the music or lyrics, it's in the idea. The dramatic setup - a woman trapped by her own guilt in a loveless relationship - offers more emotional interest than most songs. There's melancholy, disillusionment, guilt, anger, despair. All in four minutes.

This song reminds me of the astonishing things that music and words can do.

TATAR #6: Andrea

by Victoria Wood (1997?)

Not sure exactly when this was first written and performed but it's available on the 1997 album Real Life, so we'll go with that.

Victoria Wood was a comedian who wrote songs, as opposed to a songwriter who did comedy. So what's really remarkable is how good the music is. That's often the case for comedy songs. After all, it's very hard to make people laugh with only music. You can make people smile with a jaunty tune or raise a giggle with something unexpected. But those big belly laughs are almost impossible to induce with music alone. 

Yet words are never enough for a really great comedy song. The music needs to make the words funnier. So in Victoria Wood's most famous comedy song about the domesticated sex lives of a rapacious wife and a reluctant hubby, "Barry and Freda" (aka "Let's do it!"), it's the triple rhymes that everyone remembers ("Not bleakly / Not meekly / Beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly"). But it's the music that makes it funnier. The quickening pace on the third line, the harmonies that are pushing on towards the end of the musical phrase, as well as the continuous modulations making it feel like the whole thing is getting more and more hysterical.

And for the song "Andrea", the music is again doing a lot of the work. It's not quite a comedy song. There are no big laughs. But it could easily be a great character song from a musical comedy.

And oh, 

I'm seventeen

And I live round here

And it's not so bad

These first four bars are brilliantly boring. The jumpy rhythm hints at some fire in the belly but the rest is dull and duller. Harmonically, it's basically one chord. Melodically, it's essentially the three most conventional notes of the scale - the fifth, the third and the tonic - dropping one by one in an entirely predictable way. 

Then repeat for extra boredom.

And oh,

My sister's left

So I'm just at home

With me Mum and Dad

Normally that would be the end of the first section. Instead we get a couple of extra bars.

(Well, he's not my Dad

But I call him Dad)

These musical afterthoughts are a feature of the song and do two things. One, it makes the song feel more spontaneous, as if these thoughts just popped into her head. And two, they capture the drama underlying the boring exterior. There are mini tragedies in these throwaway lines, like the one about her boyfriend who was involved in a car crash.

He looked the same

But he weren't the same

Has ever a couplet said so much by saying so little? And the slightly bored, commonplace way in which Andrea describes it makes it all the more tragic.

The other thing about this song is that it is unmistakably British. As British as Victoria sponge and Queen Victoria and, well, Victoria Wood. If this were the 'I want' song from a Broadway show then Andrea would be all super passion and deep desire, not to mention a few top notes held for slightly longer than is comfortable. But Andrea is British and so more subdued and ambivalent. She wants to get away but, then again, it's not so bad, she has some friends and, I don't know, I don't have any real plans or anything but it feels as if my life is dribbling away a bit, y'know?

She's trapped and she knows it. At least, she knows just enough to know that she's trapped but not enough to escape. Really it's kind of tragic. 

But also kind of funny.