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Sondheim: "Assassins"

[CZOLGOSZ]
It takes a lot of men to make a gun,
Hundreds,
Many men to make a gun:
Men in the mines
To dig the iron,
Men in the mills
To forge the steel,
Men at machines
To turn the barrel,
Mold the trigger,
Shape the wheel-
It takes a lot of men to make a gun...
One gun...
[BOOTH]
And all you have to do
Is move your little finger,
Move your little finger and-
You can change the world.
Why should you be blue
When you've your little finger?
Prove how just a little finger
Can change the world.
[CZOLGOSZ]
I hate this gun...
[GUITEAU]
What a wonder is a gun!
What a versatile invention!
First of all, when you've a gun-
Everybody pays attention.
When you think what must be done,
Think of all that it can do:
Remove a scoundrel,
Unite a party,
Preserve the Union,
Promote the sales of my book,
Insure my future,
My niche in history,
And then the world will see
That I am not a man to overlook!
Ha-ha!
[GUITEAU,BOOTH,CZOLGOSZ]
And all you have to do
Is squeeze your little finger.
Ease your little finger back-
You can change the world.
Whatever else is true,
You trust your little finger.
Just a single little finger
Can change the world.
[MOORE]
I got this really great gun-
sh*t, where is it?
No, it's really great-
Wait-
sh*t, where is it?
Anyway
It's just a .38-
But-
It's a gun.
You can make a statement-
Wrong-
With a gun-
Even if you fail.
It tells 'em who you are
Where you stand.
This one was on sale.
It- no, not the shoe-
Well, actually the shoe was, too.
No, that's not it-
sh*t, I had it here-
Got it!
Yeah! There it is! And-
[ALL]
All you have to do
Is crook your little finger,
Hook your little finger 'round-
[MOORE]
sh*t, I shot it...
[OTHERS]
- You can change the world.
[QUARTET]
Simply follow through,
And look, your little finger
Can
Slow them down
To a crawl,
Show them all,
Big and small,
It took a little finger
No time
To change the world.
[CZOLGOSZ]
A gun kills many men before it's done,
Hundreds,
Long before you shoot the gun:
Men in the mines
And in the steel mills,
Men at machines,
Who died for what?
Something to buy-
A watch, a shoe, a gun,
A thing to make the bosses richer,
But
A gun claims many men before it's done...
Just
One
More..


This is the best material in "Assassins," and it's worthy of awe for a few reasons. First, it looks at guns from an odd angle. Czolgosz is not focused on shooting the gun. He's interested in the socioeconomic history of the gun-making process. And that's genius. Sondheim asked himself, how would my little Communist view a material object? And: BOOM! Sondheim knew that Czolgosz would dwell on the exploited workers who made the gun happen. And so we get a dizzying array of action verbs and concrete nouns: "dig the iron," "forge the steel," "turn the barrel," "mold the trigger," "shape the wheel." The artist's job is to "de-familiarize": to make you see the world in a new way. Before "Assassins," had you ever--for a moment--given even half a thought to the specifics of the gun-making process?

The brilliance continues. A main observation in "Assassins" is that these killers are not evil masterminds; they're pained, confused individuals, incapable of organizing even a small handbag. To put a force of destruction into the hands of any one of these people--! Ah, the world we live in! "All you have to do is move your little finger. You can change the world. Why should you be blue when you've your little finger? Prove how just a little finger can change the world!" We can imagine Sondheim pumping his fist in victory when he stumbled on the "move/you've" rhyme. And "prove." And the "shadow" rhymes of "blue" and "you." More de-familiarization: It is indeed one finger that is repeatedly responsible for major tragedies in history. Had you ever thought of mass killings in that way?

Another thing. Sondheim is providing bits of deft characterization all the while. Form underlines content. Csolgosz and Booth are thoughtful, slow-paced, poetic; by contrast, Moore and Guiteau are wordy, frenetic, unfocused. Who on Earth can do this lyrical work more effectively? Again, form underlines content: Guiteau is such a scatterbrain, he actually accidentally fires his gun in the midst of his raving. Real lunacy: He doesn't shudder at the crisis averted, but, instead, he's spurred on to new and exciting thoughts. When you fire a gun--"everybody pays attention!" Guiteau's monomania creeps up and casts the lofty talk of "preserving the Union" aside. Really, this is about "promoting the sales of my book." There's no hierarchy of priorities here: book promotions are treated with solemnity, just as the question of "Union preservation" is treated. So much fun to have on-stage.

I've praised the Moore soliloquy elsewhere, so: on to the big payoff. Sondheim often gets mileage from slight switches in the last verse. Remember, in "Johanna," "buried sweetly" becomes "sweetly buried." Here, in "The Gun Song," we end where we started. We're back to the men in the mines and in the steel mills, the men at machines. But we're no longer focused on their work. Now, the thought is this: "A gun kills many men before it's done." The laborers are exploited, enduring poor conditions, just to "make the bosses richer," to make possible some kind of purchase--"a watch, a shoe." Czolgosz's killing of McKinley will be an anticapitalist statement: "A gun claims many men before it's done. Just one more." And we have our tidy segue to the Czolgosz/McKinley showdown in Buffalo.

This work seems so breezy and effortless, it's tempting to overlook the thought that went into the drafting. That's what I'm here for. Sondheim was winding down when he wrote "Assassins." At the start of his career, via Rose, SS had made an observation about talent: "You either got it, or you ain't." 

Boys, in "Assassins," he's still got it.



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