Skip to main content

Sondheim: "Old Friends"

 One trick of Sondheim's is to dissect each and every word in a common phrase.


"Could I Leave You?" ....Sondheim looks at "could" vs. "will".... (Yes, I *could* leave you--but, for an end to this story, you'll have to wait and see....) Could *I* leave you? ("How could *I* leave....when I left long ago?")

Could I *leave* you? ("No, the point is....could you *leave* me?")

Could I leave *you* ....and *your* shelves of the world's best books...and the evenings of martyred looks, cryptic sighs....?

A similar magic is on display in "Old Friends," from "Merrily We Roll Along."

What is a friend?

Most friends fade...
Or they don't make the grade....
New ones are quickly made--
And, in a pinch, sure, they'll do....

What does it mean to be "old," in someone's life? (Maybe you learn an answer by contrasting "old" with "good" ....)

Good friends point out your lies--
Whereas OLD friends live and let live...
Good friends like and advise--
Whereas OLD friends love and forgive....

Most of us don't question what it means to be an old friend, but Sondheim does--and the question yields riches. Sondheim's leading characters beam at one another while also attempting murder-by-strangulation. The words help us to recall mysteries--without providing solutions. (Actually, there are no solutions.) This song was the highlight of the Tony Awards.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When
3 comments
Read more

Dad Diary

 When babies are very tiny, a fair portion of the day is just napping/cuddling. But if your charges are two and four, things become sort of acrobatic. A big influence for me is Roz Chast, who has written extensively about her experience as a parent. She says that her own mother would often report, "I'm not your friend." And this drove her batty, such that she took on a different motto with her own kids: "I'm both your parent and your friend." It's a tricky sentence. You have to commit to one role over the other--at times. It's so wearying to say, "We don't eat a cupcake at 2:30 PM," just knowing your sentence is going to land on deaf ears, and that there will be tears, tears, and more tears. Another source of help for me is the Roz Chast set of "Bad Mom Trading Cards." She has taken her worst parenting moments and turned them into "collectibles." One example: "The day you run out of orange juice, so you offer or
4 comments
Read more

Curb Your Enthusiasm

  The cliche about writing is that you should write for yourself; write the story that you would want to read. But so many writers struggle with this. So much material seems committee-tested, pandering. Then there is Larry David. Here is an extraordinary recent scene from "Curb Your Enthusiasm." A group of friends has opted to dine at a Chinese restaurant. One friend discloses that he is dating a powerful executive at Disney. Now things become surprising--and somehow inevitable. The bawdiest friend discloses that he would like to fuck Tinkerbell. "She's so sexy, she'd bop over...wink at me....I'd put her in my pocket....." (Art gets at the truth--and the Tinkerbell in Disney's "Peter Pan" is bizarrely, inappropriately sexy. How often is this discussed?) As if things can't get stranger, Larry David interrupts this discussion to observe a fish, in a decorative fish tank. The fish is clearly stuck to a filter. But the host doesn't want
Post a Comment
Read more