Finishing the Sandwich: Thoughts on "Breaking Into Song" by Adam Lenson

So this is a really interesting book. I mean, really interesting. 

I mean 'forget about your cheese sandwich mid-bite and, instead, spend the rest of the afternoon re-thinking a lot of what you thought you knew about musicals' kind of interesting. 

Maybe that's just me.

Ostensibly, this a book for those who hate musicals. The kind of high-minded critic who would rather suffer an unfortunate accident with a chandelier than sit through a single performance of Phantom of the Opera. But it's also a book for the Phantom Mega Phan, bogged down with merch, and on their six thousandth visit. Both could be said to have a narrow view of musicals and this book is an attempt to widen their gaze.  

Unfortunately, I'm not sure either group will be taking notes, so that just leaves everybody else. There's certainly plenty in here for those working in musical theatre, particularly in the UK. Practical things about how and why current practices need to change. 

For me, however, the most interesting chapters are the more philosophical ones. The ones that contain thoughts like this:

"I think that all musicals are memory plays and the best ones acknowledge that, these characters are retelling a story, they are remembering a story..."

That feels like it could be true but I've no idea why. Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that musicals tend to be very melodic and melodies can only exist in our memories.

Then there's this:

"So perhaps musicals, rather than the world, show us our minds, show us what thinking feels like..."

Again, that feels true but also very mysterious. Perhaps the unique combination of story, words and music can offer a simultaneous expression of thought and feeling, one that is closer to the truth of our inner experience. In a film, it's only the musical element, the score, that can really take us 'inside' a character. Maybe that's what musicals do all the time but with more than just music.

And there's also this:

"I have often compared a good musical to a lasagne."

Erm.

OK, so sometimes the philosophical metaphors are a tad extended and I would have loved a few more examples from specific musicals. But there's probably a good reason for this: those musicals have yet to be written. You see, this book is fundamentally about the future. 

Now I've read a few "how to" books on musicals. The ones that take you through the basic building blocks like story structure, song placement, "I want" numbers (and, oh my, they do like their "I want" numbers). They're good books but, by necessity, they're about the past. They tell you what's worked.

If you want to know about the future, you have to go deeper. Instead of talking about the building blocks of a musical, you have to ask what the blocks are made of, philosophically speaking. Only then, can you really start to re-imagine what a musical could be. That's why a book like this is so important.

To use a film analogy, it's basically The Lego Movie. In the modern musical theatre landscape, everyone's got the building blocks [er, what was that about extended metaphors? - ed]. The problem is that everyone's been following the instructions for so long, they've forgotten how to do anything else. What's needed are a few Lucys to lead a few Emmets into the Badlands and become Master Builders who can dismantle everything and start re-making the world the way they want to make it. 

That's not a bad plan. It worked in the movie. Here's hoping it works for musicals.

The future could be awesome.

And I've got a sandwich to finish.

Songs From New British Musicals #3 Don't Look Down

 

by Richy Hughes and Joseph Finlay (2017)

This is from a one-man show called Superhero. It's the story of a recently separated father who is fighting for his parental rights with regards to his daughter. 

Now I've never seen this show (I'm just getting the info from here). But I do remember the campaign group, Fathers4Justice, which, I'm guessing, were part of the inspiration. Fathers4Justice campaigners would occasionally make headlines by dressing up as superheroes and scaling famous buildings. (I seem to remember Batman once got up the front of Buckingham Palace, although it later turned out to be Prince Charles washing the windows. The ears confused people.)

So, for this song, our father-hero is dressed as Robin and climbing Big Ben. 

"Bing bong bing bong

Bing bong bing bong"

OK, so nobody actually sings "bing" or even "bong". Still, starting with the melody of the famous chimes lets us know exactly where we are and, presumably, saves on set design. In fact, this song is doing an awful lot of theatrical work, as we'll see. For the moment, though, we're more concerned with the character's vertigo.

"Is it a bird, is is a plane?

No, it's a twit in tights who's scared to death

Come on, dammit, dig deep breath and

Don't look down"

The great lyricist Ira Gershwin once said that "a title is vital". If his composer brother George ever replied, I'm sure he would have said something along the lines of "yeah, but the tune's a boon, bro". The point being that, if the title of a song is important, then the musical setting of the title is equally so. 

And here's a good example. The words "don't look down" start with two short staccato notes, followed by a longer note on the off beat. Three notes separated by brief rests. That little musical formulation is very precise. Those rests feel like snatches of breath: "don't [breath] look [breath] down". Like the shortness of breath you get with extreme anxiety. It's musicalising the physical expression of the emotion.

Here's another example:

"Me legs have turned to jelly

With every step I feel my belly scrape"

On the first line, the music modulates into a minor key and shifts from jumpy figures to wobblier broken chords. Meanwhile the melody descends by tentative half-step semi-tones which get increasingly dissonant against the sustained G in the bass, until, finally, we get to "scra-a-a-pe" on an ear-crunching Ebm6 chord. Again, the music is imitating the physicality of the moment.

That is very clever writing. 

It's also a very British. I don't just mean the London accent and the famous landmark. I mean the British sense of humour: the dryness, the self-deprecation. And, of course, the knob gags:

"I wanted Batman, they only had Robin

No extra larges, just smalls

I'm getting fat, man, I just squeezed my knob in

This costume, I can't find the balls"

Always appreciate a good "Robin/knob in" rhyme. You won't find that in Cole Porter's catalogue.

So we have an interesting setup, clever writing, funny rhymes and knob gags. What more could you want? Well, let's add dramatic ambition. This, I think, is where the song really stands out.

Throughout, there are these sudden shifts in who the singer is singing to. He starts out talking to himself ("What was I thinking...?) and giving himself a pep talk ("Come on, damn it, big deep breath..."). In the next verse, he's remembering and talking to the audience ("I wanted Batman, they only had Robin..."). Later he's addressing the crowds below ("Kids need Dads!"). Later still, he's shouting at the police or the parliamentary officials or Harriet Harman or whoever it is who's trying to talk him down ("Get back! Now way I'm coming down!").

These shifts allow the song to paint a very 3D picture. It's not just a soliloquy. The song is doing much more than showing us his inner feelings. It's expressing the physicality of the climb, his memories, the events going on around him. All through the words and music.

Then something different happens with the return of the chorus. The preceding section gradually builds as the character, frankly, starts going a bit nuts [keeping up the knob gags, I see - ed.]. The superheroes and villains in his head seem to be merging with real life ("Catwoman can't touch me or that Riddler of a judge"). The music modulates like crazy. The melody gets higher and higher.

And, all of sudden:

"Dad, look down..."

This isn't just a change in the person he's singing to, it's a change in the singer. Musically speaking, we're in an entirely different voice, having gone from Eb to the unrelated key of G. It's the voice of his little girl:

"I saw you on the telly

Your belly stuck out under your disguise..."

Now it's not actually clear what's happening at this point. Presumably the Dad isn't actually hearing his little girl's voice since he's half way up Big Ben. Maybe he found out what she said later and is retelling the story. Maybe he's spotted her in the crowd and is imagining what she might be saying. Maybe he's dreaming the whole thing. Honestly, it doesn't matter. What matters is his little girl. That's what this final shift in perspective is telling us and that's why it is so effective.

So the ending may be sentimental, but it's certainly been well earned:

"A silly superhero

But still a superhero in my eyes"

It's a proper musical theatre moment. That is, it's the kind of thing that only musical theatre can do and, as such, probably the kind of thing that musical theatre should be trying to do more often.

That, and knob gags, obvs.

TATAR #13 Is My Team Ploughing?

 

by AE Houseman and George Butterworth (1909)

I've put these two names together as if they were some kind of songwriting duo. Although "Houseman and Butterworth" has a nice ring to it, they were, in fact, a poet and a composer. The poem is taken from Houseman's best known work, A Shropshire Lad, written in 1896. It was later set to music by Butterworth around 1909. 

So this isn't quite a song in the way in which we think about songs today. It's poetry set to music and from what you might call the "posher" end of the culture. Nevertheless, it has an immediacy that gives the songs a very different feel to most classical songs and, to my ears, much closer to a theatre song.

Why so?

Well, for a start, it's a very simple structure. The poem consists of alternate verses in alternate voices. The first voice is that of the ghost of a recently-deceased young man asking a series of questions:

Is my team ploughing

That I was used to drive?

And does the harness jingle

When I was man alive?

The responding verses are told in the voice of his still-very-much-alive friend:

Aye, the horses trample

The harness jingles now

No change, though you lie under

The land you used to plough

So, like a theatre song, there's a lot repetition, more than you would normally find in a classical number. Not only does the tune repeat four times, the answer-response nature of the poems means that the ideas repeat themselves too (like the harness jingling in the first and second verses). This makes the words more immediate and understandable, more like a lyric.

Then there's the simplicity of the chordal accompaniment which allows the singer flexibility with the words. In classical songs or operatic arias, the meaning of the words may be important but the sound of the words - their natural emphases and cadences - usually ain't. The music tends to dominate. In this case, however, the music is much more in service to the words. Like a good song. 

Finally, the innate drama of the song calls on the singer to do a bit more than only pay attention to the music. They have to act a bit which makes it more like a theatre song. There's a distinct change in singing voice required from the thinner, weaker voice of the ghost to the more robust tones of the living friend. And I like the way the performer here nervously fiddles with tips of his fingers when he's singing the ghostly verses. Then, for the final verse, he uses the same gesture, only this time it's the friend who's anxious about the final question:

"Is my friend hearty

Now I am thin and pine?

And has he found to sleep in

A better bed than mine?

To which comes the nervous reply:

"Aye, he lies down lightly

He lies as lads would choose

He cheers a dead man's sweetheart

Never ask me whose"

Awks!

That lovely, sudden and empty note on "whose" with no chords in the accompaniment, only a solitary note, tells you all you need to know about the character's guilt about what he's done.

So we have character, situation, immediacy and a balance of music and words.

Goes to show, even the "posh" fellas, the poets and classical composers, can write a good theatre song from time to time.

TATAR #12 Foundations

 

by Kate Nash and Paul Epworth (2007)

This is odd. One of those surprising hits. There's nothing that really indicates that it could be a hit but it was. Goes to show there are audiences don't always know what they like until they hear it.

Now I am not the audience for this. To be honest, the content of the song barely registers. But the songwriting itself is fascinating.

Let's start with the most apparent aspect of the song, the accent. Kate Nash sings with a heavy London accent (she's originally from Harrow). I don't know if it's authentic. It sounds a bit affected to my ears but that doesn't really matter. The significant thing is that it's not the usual American accent and that, I contend, is not just a performing choice, it's a songwriting one. 

This kind of accent is all closed vowels, dropped Ts and glottal stops. So we get a staccato-type melody without any long, held notes. Really the melody in the verses just dances around the tonic note.This limited movement allows it to be closer to normal speech, which makes it easier to sing in an accent other than the usual American-ese that most singers use. The words are dictating the rhythm and phrasing. It also makes it easier to switch between singing and speaking. So we get lines like:

"You said I must eat so many lemons 'cos I am so bitter

I said I'd rather be with your friends, mate, 'cos they are much fitter"

The first line is sung to a jumpy melody; the second line is pretty much spoken. And we get a nice off-beat drawl on bitter/fitter. Which is kind of funny and memorable.

The next line hints at something nastier, abusive even:

"Yes, it was childish and you were aggressive and I must admit 

I was a bit scared but it gives me thrills to wind you up"

But that "childish" reference is apt. We hear that in the harmonies. They are childishly simple. The verse is three basic chords (I, IV, V). The chorus is another three basic chords (VI, V, IV). No inversions, no added notes. This simplicity not only allows the melody to bounce around on top, it also reflects the character. 

A lot of this song is narrative. She's recounting incidents from a bad relationship. That's all in the words and, yes, the words dominate. It's a very wordy song. But the way in which the narrative is being told, the character of the narrator, that's all the there in the music. The unchanging beat, the limited melody that never quite breaks free, these express a kind of boredom without being musically boring. That's not easy to do. And those childish harmonies. This is a young girl caught up in something bad that she doesn't quite know how to handle. All of which makes the chorus that more affecting: 

"My fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundations

And I know that I should let go, but I can't

Every time we fight I know it's not right, every time you're upset and I smile

I know I should forget but I can't"

And here's the interesting thing. We shouldn't like this character. The character being presented isn't a very appealing one - nasty, vindictive, bored, rude. Yet we do like her and I think it's the fact that she's self-aware. Those two lines are key: "I know that I should let go...I know that I should forget...but I can't". Without those lines, it's really just a laundry list of complaints. Instead we see that she's trapped and she knows that she's trapped. That's much more interesting dramatically. 

In fact, it could be a great theatre song.