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Sondheim: "Could I Leave You?"

Leave you? Leave you?
How could I leave you?
How could I go it alone?
Could I wave the years away
With a quick goodbye?
How do you wipe tears away
When your eyes are dry?


I realized in writing about "Follies" yesterday that I left out one of Sondheim's all-time masterworks, "Could I Leave You?" This is one of his sharpest examinations of ambivalence. It starts with something that seems like certainty. Could I leave my husband? Not only could I; I could do it with "a quick goodbye." Phyllis doesn't directly confirm this truth, but she restates the question in a biting way: "How do you wipe tears away when your eyes are dry?" The sting in the question underlines the fact of Phyllis's wit; she has just found a particularly memorable way of saying, I could easily put you on ice.


Sweetheart, lover,
Could I recover,
Give up the joys I have known?
Not to fetch your pills again
Every day at five,
Not to give those dinners for ten
Elderly men
From the U.N.--
How could I survive?


The "sweetheart" and "lover" are tricky. They seem sarcastic--but are they entirely sarcastic? Phyllis then deflates her husband's ego. Ben--the prominent NYC man-about-town--requires "pills at five." Phyllis finds herself on a roll; caring for Ben means "dinners for ten." Not just that--it's "ten elderly men." And--most distressing of all--they're "from the UN." They're statues in suits, and Phyllis must laugh girlishly when she's around them. 


Could I leave you
And your shelves of the World's Best Books
And the evenings of martyred looks,
Cryptic sighs,
Sullen glares from those injured eyes?
Leave the quips with a sting, jokes with a sneer,
Passionless lovemaking once a year?
Leave the lies ill-concealed
And the wounds never healed
And the games not worth winning
And-wait, I'm just beginning!


These lines have a free-associative quality. The "World's Best Books" reference complements the image of the elderly UN men; we see a fusty Ben without a sense of humor, concerned at all times with conveying an aura of dignity and rectitude. Phyllis sees past the World's Best Books. She sees the Ben the world doesn't see--the sullen glares, quips with a sting. (Adjective-noun, adjective-noun, adjective-noun. Injured eyes, cryptic sighs, martyred looks.) There's other parallelism in the final lines of this section: "lies ill-concealed," "wounds never healed," "games not worth winning." Noun-adjective, noun-adjective, noun-adjective. You have the sense of a lawyer mounting her case. Brilliantly, Sondheim then imagines Ben simply walking away, so Phyllis cuts herself off. "Wait, I'm just beginning!" Now the central question of the song--"Could I leave you?"--will shift slightly. It turns out the question we should be asking is: "Could I leave you again?"


What, leave you, leave you,
How could I leave you?
What would I do on my own?
Putting thoughts of you aside
In the south of France,
Would I think of suicide?
Darling, shall we dance?
Could I live through the pain
On a terrace in Spain?
Would it pass? It would pass.
Could I bury my rage
With a boy half your age
In the grass? Bet your ass.
But I've done that already--or didn't you know, love?
Tell me, how could I leave when I left long ago, love?


These lines are so stunning because they so, so casually disclose the fact of Phyllis's past indiscretion. We might expect the news of the affair to be a shattering, climactic thing, but here it's almost like a parenthetical aside. So dazzling. And the crispness of the imagery: "Could I bury my rage with a boy half your age in the grass?" I also want to call attention to the architecture of this song. Sondheim likes taxonomies. "Ladies who Lunch" is like a trip to the zoo--there are the monkeys, there are the bears--and it builds to a self-indictment in a surprising twist. "A Little Priest" surveys all the working men in London before arriving at an absurd and inevitable conclusion: "We'll serve anyone to anyone in this world." "Could I Leave You?" has a subtle, complex structure. Phyllis, with her enviable mind, recognizes that the question itself is a labyrinth. "You?" "What do *you* represent?" (You're the ten old men from the UN.) And--wait--how can we ask this question, when the leaving has already occurred? Next, Phyllis will reverse the subjects and objects in the sentence. Why should *I* be the subject? This is a two-way street. Let's consider whether you could leave me.


Could I leave you?
No, the point is, could you leave me?
Well, I guess you could leave me the house,
Leave me the flat,
Leave me the Braques and Chagalls and all that.
You could leave me the stocks for sentiment's sake
And ninety percent of the money you make.
And the rugs
And the cooks--
Darling, you keep the drugs.
Angel, you keep the books,
Honey, I'll take the grand,
Sugar, you keep the spinet
And all of our friends and--
Just wait a goddam minute!
Oh, leave you? Leave you?
How could I leave you?
Sweetheart, I have to confess:
Could I leave you?
Yes.
Will I leave you?
Will I leave you?
Guess!


Bitterly, Phyllis imagines the thought of being "left." Of course, she puts a spin on "left." She gives it several direct objects we don't expect: "leave me the Braques," "leave me the grand," "leave me the flat." (And I love that "all of our friends" are placed on the same level as "the drugs and the books." Drugs, friends--what's the difference? So bleak, and very funny.) Do you see the grammar twist? "Me" has just shifted from a direct object to an indirect object. "Leave me." "Leave (to) me the grand." (Do you notice again that Ben's attempt to depart is built into the song? Phyllis cuts herself off. "Just wait a goddamn minute!" I love that Sondheim is thinking of Ben's stage directions while still writing from Phyllis's p.o.v.) Ultimately, Phyllis can't give many answers. "Could I leave you? Sure." But--the final question--"*Will* I leave you?" Well....In a fabulous act of aggression, she leaves Ben in uncertainty, the uncertainty she herself must feel. Neither can really guess the other's intentions. Both are in a state of intense paralysis and pain. There are compelling reasons to stay and to go, and Sondheim won't put a tidy bow on anything for us. I'm amazed that this song exists in a show that already offers us the riches of "Losing My Mind," "Too Many Mornings," "I'm Still Here," and "Broadway Baby." I'm in awe of this guy.


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