When Sondheim wrote “Losing My Mind,” he was thinking of Ira Gershwin:
Someday, he’ll come along—
The man I love….
And he’ll be big and strong—
The man I love.
You can see a similar approach to structure, in Sondheim:
The sun comes up—
I think about you.
The coffee cup—
I think about you….
In his bridge, Gershwin plays with the idea of time:
Maybe I will meet him Monday—
Maybe Sunday, maybe not.
Still I’m sure to meet him one day…
Maybe Tuesday will be my “good news” day….
In a similar way, Sondheim takes us from sunrise, to a stagnant afternoon, to 12 am:
I dim the lights and think about you…
Spend sleepless nights to think about you….
The fun twist is that Sondheim—in a Gershwin style—is repudiating Gershwin. The subtext of Gershwin is that love wins; once you find your “man,” you get your Jane Austen ending. But Sondheim suggests that—regardless of the path you take—you are doomed to a life of ambivalence.
Sondheim ends with a question mark. The singer looks lost—and she just walks off the stage.
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