If you aren’t a Sondheim nerd, stop here. If you are a Sondheim nerd, here’s “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAWWiYy_frY
And here are some things to notice:
-An opening song needs to set a tone and introduce some of themes we will pursue in the course of the evening. Sondheim learned this the hard way, when “Forum” almost tanked. (Sondheim saved his show by adding in “Comedy Tonight.”) Famous openers include “O What a Beautiful Mornin’,” which puts an emphasis on “the land.” (And note that “Oklahoma” returns to the land at the end of the evening: “We know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand.”) Another well-known opener is “In the Heights,” from the show of the same name, which introduces us to several characters and makes clear that we are going to spend two hours contemplating the notion of “striving.” “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” gives us our central character, underlines his weirdness, and shows that our night will be about the contrast between surfaces and realities. It will be an evening about hypocrisy. “Freely flows the blood of those who moralize.” “And what if none of their souls were saved? They went to their maker impeccably shaved.”
-Sondheim himself has written brilliantly about the first line. “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.” “Attend” is archaic; it means “listen to.” That one word sends us back in time, to the nineteenth century. “Tale” lets us know that we’re seeing something heightened, finessed; this isn’t kitchen-sink realism. And then there is alliteration paired with three stressed syllables: “TEND,” “TALE,” “TODD.” Sondheim says this twist makes the line seem formal, stiff--and that that stiffness becomes sinister when it's paired with a “sepulchral, rumbling” musical accompaniment.
-Sondheim becomes a ventriloquist, a mouthpiece for nineteenth-century voices. “He trod a path that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd.” “For neatness he deserved a nod, did Sweeney Todd.” This is a song that gives us a “lavabo” and “a leather strop.” We’re in “London Town.” The “gentlemen” who visit Sweeney are “never thereafter heard of again.” Lin-Manuel Miranda chooses to give twenty-first century vocabularies to his “Hamilton” characters, but Sondheim actually “wears the skin” of the characters he is writing about.
-And then some small gems. A “demon barber”: You don’t expect those two words to go together, and there’s a little shock of pleasure when you first hear them. Two staccato syllables--“Fleet” and “Street”--make me think two quick, precise slashes with a razor blade. We often have choruses cheering on a sole figure--“Sail on! Godspeed, Titanic!” “Go, Go, Joseph; you know what they say!” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow!”--but “Swing your razor wide, Sweeney!” seems to be a sick parody of this trend. “God is in the details,” details can create a world, and so Sondheim lingers over the “fancy chair,” the “mug of suds,” “an apron, a towel, a pail, and a mop.” And finally: Sondheim so memorably illustrates the tension between a surface and an inner life. “Back of his smile, under his word, Sweeney heard music that nobody heard.” A metaphor for madness: Just behind his smile, just under his speaking voice, there’s a “private music” for Sweeney, the music that causes him to do what he does. “What happened then? Well, that’s the play--and he wouldn’t want us to give it away.” As if we ought to defer to Sweeney’s wishes. Sondheim takes pleasure in the counterintuitive: Here, we are celebrating a murderer, and the lyricist wants us to feel at least some momentary queasiness.
More soon!
P.S. I didn’t get to discuss my fondness for the rhyme: “Sweeney was”/ “clean he was.” And my fondness for “Sweeney planned”/ “machine, he planned.” And my fondness for the parallel structure: “Inconspicuous Sweeney was...Quick and quiet and clean he was...” “Sweeney pondered and Sweeney planned; like a perfect machine, he planned...” I didn’t get to discuss how Sondheim makes sure that the stress falls on the proper syllable in “inconspicuous”--and how he goes batty when other writers stress weird syllables. Some other time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAWWiYy_frY
And here are some things to notice:
-An opening song needs to set a tone and introduce some of themes we will pursue in the course of the evening. Sondheim learned this the hard way, when “Forum” almost tanked. (Sondheim saved his show by adding in “Comedy Tonight.”) Famous openers include “O What a Beautiful Mornin’,” which puts an emphasis on “the land.” (And note that “Oklahoma” returns to the land at the end of the evening: “We know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand.”) Another well-known opener is “In the Heights,” from the show of the same name, which introduces us to several characters and makes clear that we are going to spend two hours contemplating the notion of “striving.” “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” gives us our central character, underlines his weirdness, and shows that our night will be about the contrast between surfaces and realities. It will be an evening about hypocrisy. “Freely flows the blood of those who moralize.” “And what if none of their souls were saved? They went to their maker impeccably shaved.”
-Sondheim himself has written brilliantly about the first line. “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.” “Attend” is archaic; it means “listen to.” That one word sends us back in time, to the nineteenth century. “Tale” lets us know that we’re seeing something heightened, finessed; this isn’t kitchen-sink realism. And then there is alliteration paired with three stressed syllables: “TEND,” “TALE,” “TODD.” Sondheim says this twist makes the line seem formal, stiff--and that that stiffness becomes sinister when it's paired with a “sepulchral, rumbling” musical accompaniment.
-Sondheim becomes a ventriloquist, a mouthpiece for nineteenth-century voices. “He trod a path that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd.” “For neatness he deserved a nod, did Sweeney Todd.” This is a song that gives us a “lavabo” and “a leather strop.” We’re in “London Town.” The “gentlemen” who visit Sweeney are “never thereafter heard of again.” Lin-Manuel Miranda chooses to give twenty-first century vocabularies to his “Hamilton” characters, but Sondheim actually “wears the skin” of the characters he is writing about.
-And then some small gems. A “demon barber”: You don’t expect those two words to go together, and there’s a little shock of pleasure when you first hear them. Two staccato syllables--“Fleet” and “Street”--make me think two quick, precise slashes with a razor blade. We often have choruses cheering on a sole figure--“Sail on! Godspeed, Titanic!” “Go, Go, Joseph; you know what they say!” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow!”--but “Swing your razor wide, Sweeney!” seems to be a sick parody of this trend. “God is in the details,” details can create a world, and so Sondheim lingers over the “fancy chair,” the “mug of suds,” “an apron, a towel, a pail, and a mop.” And finally: Sondheim so memorably illustrates the tension between a surface and an inner life. “Back of his smile, under his word, Sweeney heard music that nobody heard.” A metaphor for madness: Just behind his smile, just under his speaking voice, there’s a “private music” for Sweeney, the music that causes him to do what he does. “What happened then? Well, that’s the play--and he wouldn’t want us to give it away.” As if we ought to defer to Sweeney’s wishes. Sondheim takes pleasure in the counterintuitive: Here, we are celebrating a murderer, and the lyricist wants us to feel at least some momentary queasiness.
More soon!
P.S. I didn’t get to discuss my fondness for the rhyme: “Sweeney was”/ “clean he was.” And my fondness for “Sweeney planned”/ “machine, he planned.” And my fondness for the parallel structure: “Inconspicuous Sweeney was...Quick and quiet and clean he was...” “Sweeney pondered and Sweeney planned; like a perfect machine, he planned...” I didn’t get to discuss how Sondheim makes sure that the stress falls on the proper syllable in “inconspicuous”--and how he goes batty when other writers stress weird syllables. Some other time!
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