The Musicals Meme

[filkertom]

Also nicked from admnaismith: Guess my favorite songs (one each, to make it a challenge for both of us) from my favorite ten musicals:

1. Chicago -- This was really, really tough, because (as the case with most of these shows) I really frickin' love almost all of the numbers. It finally came down to "All I Care About", which ices the cake on our cast fantastically, and the final winner, "They Both Reached For The Gun", one of the best combinations of music, lyrics, and choreography ever.
2. Godspell -- "All For The Best", the duet between Jesus and John the Baptist, is such a wonderful, joy-filled number, capturing both scripture and spirit and making them catchy as all get-out.
3. Chess -- In "The Deal", the American (the former chess champion of the world, now working for the Soviet Union) tries to entice back his former partner Florence with hints about her forgotten childhood, while trying to persuade/bribe/threaten the Russian player, now Florence's lover, to throw the match. What the American doesn't see is that Florence and the Russian see right through him, and are aghast that even he would stoop so low. Leads directly into the tour-de-force "Pity The Child", which is my second-favorite.
4. Weird Romance -- "My Orderly World", the opening number for Act Two, Her Pilgrim Soul, perfectly captures a man who wants to feel passion, knows he should feel passion... but simply can't, and has no idea why -- and the fact that he has no idea why is just as bad.
5. Little Shop of Horrors -- "Feed Me (Git It)" is one of the unacknowledged gems of musical theater -- a perfect plot song, dialogue song, challenging and fun to sing, and smacks you from hilarity to horror and back again and back again.
6. Disney's Beauty and the Beast (full Broadway version) -- one of the only lacks in the animated Beauty and the Beast was that the Beast didn't get his own song -- in fact, he gets one verse of an ensemble piece. "If I Can't Love Her" and its reprise more than make up for that -- the Beast's loneliness, frustration, rage, and longing are palpable, and on a sheer performance level Terence Mann kicks all kinds of ass. My only regret is that they aren't in the enhanced version of the movie.
7. Assassins -- Of all the songs that highlight the insanity, the purpose, the complex diseases of the mind felt by these people, nothing focuses it so well as "Gun Song", which builds to four-part harmony and demonstrates how several utterly different people can be drawn to the same conclusion. "What a wonder is a gun... what a beautiful invention -- first of all, when you've a gun [klik]... everybody pays attention...."
8. Sweeney Todd -- No contest. While the entire opera, start to finish, is one of the most glorious creations of American music, the theater-rattling, blood-chilling "Epiphany" cannot merely be sung, cannot merely be acted... it has to be lived by the performer, and Len Cariou and George Hearn (in their various recordings) reach out right through the speakers and grab your throat.
9. The Music Man -- "Seventy-Six Trombones", and its reprise in tandem with "Goodnight, My Someone", are the most important songs in this tightly written musical. In the first one, we reach the crescendo of Harold Hill's sales pitch -- this is where he has to hook their asses on buying the band, and Robert Preston's building energy reigned in by a sudden drop to nearly hushed reverence as he intones "... and John Philip Sousa" makes you hungry for those first musical notes. The reprise? Same thing, except Harold suddenly realizes he's beginning to sell an entirely new product... to himself.
10. Pippin -- "Glory" not only codifies the madness of war in both senses -- its pointlessness and its emotional appeal -- but does so in a way which almost but doesn't quite parody itself. Brilliant lyrical work.

Thanks to everyone for playing!

(Goodness. I could've really messed you guys up with this one -- nothing here from Metropolis, or Moby Dick, or Return to the Forbidden Planet, or....)

Comments

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

6. Disney's Beauty and the Beast (full Broadway version)

Be Our Guest?

[gpeefalt.livejournal.com]

Chicago - Cellblock Tango
Chess - One Night in Bangkok
The Music Man - Trouble in River City

[roane.livejournal.com]

Sweeney Todd -- A Little Priest

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

1. "Screw Billy, we want Tom!"
2. "Jesus is Just All Right, but Tom Kicks Ass!"
3. "Why Isn't Tom Here Playing Chess?"
4. "I Love Tom In A Wierd Way"
5. "Won't You Come Down To Skid Row, Tom Smith?"
6. "This Song Has Nothing To Do With Tom Smith"
7. "Let's Never Kill Tom Smith"
8. "I Left My Heart In Tom Smith's Lunchbox, and I'm Afraid It Will Spoil"
9. "The Music Man is a Tom Smith Fan"
10. "Pippicanoe, and Tom Smith Too!"

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

1. If only I'd heard this more in my youth....
2. Now, now. I'm not even one of the Beatles.
3. Used to, in high school. Through a major fluke, I actually had a Master rating for a whole twelve hours. Then I got put up against actual Masters, and that was that.
4. And this is different from everyone else because...?
5. That was where I played Thursday. Nietzsche's in Buffalo has incredible ambience, which is to say it hasn't been condemned yet because it blends into the background and they can't find the front door to post the notice. (I kid. But it is in a somewhat... Bohemian part of Buffalo.)
6. Hey, you started this. If you can't win a game of your own devising....
7. Didn't you read the snip from my Living Will the other week?
8. Not with Thermos° lunchbo- ewww.
9. And he sells Raisinets to the kids in the town, and Big Grab Chips and M&M Mars! Carbo-hy-drates, carbo-hy-drates! And the Pepsi-Cola! Pepsi-Cola! Pretzel sticks too, with a shiny gold braid runnin' down!
10. As soon as I get out of this river, that Longstocking bitch will die.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

My guesses (which are not necessarily my own favorites):
1. All that Jazz
2. We Beseech Thee
5. DENTIST!
6. Be Our Guest
7. How I Saved Roosevelt
8. A Little Priest
9. Ya Got Trouble in River City
10. "Magic to Do" or "No Time At All" (I think that's the title--it's the one sung by the Grandma)

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

1. Since Cell Block Tango was already guessed, I'll go with Razzle Dazzle.
3. I Know Him So Well
7. The Ballad of Czlogosz
8. A Little Bit of Priest
9. The Wells Fargo Song

I don't know, but I associate you with patter/verbally twisty songs.

And may I say that I think you have excellent taste in musicals. But then, I own both versions of Assassins.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

2) By the Willows is my favorite...
5) Dentist, gotta be. :-)

[isolde-deely.livejournal.com]

1. Mr Cellophane man
2. Where are you going...will you take me with you? (don't actually remember the title to that one )
3. Pity the Child
5. Somewhere it's green
6. Be our guest

my guesses

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

1 - chicago - all that jazz or When You're Good To Mama

2 - godspell - Day by day or prepare ye the way of the lord

3 - chess - Nobody's side

4 - weird romance - no clue

5 - Little Shop of Horrors - Suppertime

6 - Disney's Beauty and the Beast - Human again

7 - assassins - no clue

8 - sweeney todd - worst pies in london

9 - The Music Man - Wells fargo wagon or gary indiana

10 - pippin - magic to do or corner of the sky

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Guessing completely and utterly at random:

1. Chicago - Mr. Cellophane
2. Godspell - God Save the People
3. Chess - if the original British version, A Model of Decorum and Tranquility. If the screwed-up US version, you're on your own. I hate what they did to it.
4. Weird Romance - never heard it. Is it weird?
5. Little Shop of Horrors - Downtown
6. Disney's Beauty and the Beast (full Broadway version) - Be Our Guest
7. Assassins - another no-guess. I am uncultured!
8. Sweeney Todd - Wait
9. The Music Man - the train song, whatever it's called
10. Pippin - the sex song, whatever it's called

Sex! presented Pastor-al-ly!

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

it's called "Simple Joys"

;)

[singlemaltsilk.livejournal.com]

1. "Class"
3. "Anthem"

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

3. "Quartet"
5. I would have said "Dentist," but that's obviously not it. I'm going to guess that you really like doing Audrey II impressions and try "Feed Me (Git It)."
9. "Rock Island" (the song at the beginning with the salesmen on the train...)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You made a real good guess,
And didn't get it wrong,
Now you'll pay for success,
But with a different song.
It's easier to rhyme --
And now it's SUPPERTIME!

[capt-video.livejournal.com]

Godspell -- Light of the World

Chess -- The Story of Chess (I would have bet money on Nobody's Side)

Little Shop of Horrors -- Mean Green Mother from Outer Space

Beauty and the Beast -- Gaston

The Music Man -- Marian the Librarian

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The tricky part of my favorite musicals is that I love them so completely that it's very, very difficult to say, "Yeah, this is my fave". I do have my reasons for each, but Chess is a perfectly good example: I pretty much love every song from every version I've ever heard.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

"Apukhad Eros Katzchen"?

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

#2) Alas, For you. just a stab...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Very close.

[holmes365.livejournal.com]

1. When you're Good to Mama
9. Shipoopi
10. No time at all (one of my all time favs too!)

[janet-coburn.livejournal.com]

The only song I know from Chess is One Night in Bangkok, so that's all I can guess there.

For Chicago, I'd have to go with whateverthat one is with the puppetry press conference (They both reached for the gun). Amazing staging.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

The others have either been guessed already, or I'm not sufficiently familar with them, but...


Assasins squeeage! my personal fave is "Unworthy of your Love" but for you I'm guessing "Ballad of Guiteau" (which I can't hear without grinning).

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

One of the top three. If I could play Guiteau, I'd be a happy man.

[billroper]

9) Would it be "Seventy Six Trombones / Goodnight, My Someone"? (Yes, those have the same music at sharply different tempos.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

It would indeed. :)

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Wow, so few of the above made the cut. I'll try again:

7. Another National Anthem
9. The Sadder but Wiser Girl
10. War is a Science.
There are very few songs left unmentioned that I even like, except in Sweeney Todd, which is just a gold mine. I'll say "Pretty Women" next for that one.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Ah, you posted as I was updating sorry. Although "War Is A Science" is really close.

[huskiebear.livejournal.com]

4. Weird Romance - My Orderly World
6. BATB - Human Again (specifying the b'way version is a bit of a hint!)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You pest! You know me very well indeed! But not quite well enough.

[kshandra]

Something makes me want to say that it's "Embassy Lament" for Chess. (Which is being performed as the first Alumni production from Childrens Musical Theatre San Jose. I can't wait.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

That is a truly funny song. Bureaucratic snark -- man, you just wanna slap their heads with fresh trout or somethin'.

[nuveena.livejournal.com]

Chess: hrm. Not "The Story of Chess?" I'm surprised. "Endgame?" Or "Embassy Lament."

I'm not a big fan of the American version, but I have to say, "Someone Else's Story" is the BEST song for when you've just been dumped and have had too much to drink.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I do absolutely love that song. Although the one between Florence and her father near the end of the show is, shall we say, nauseating.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

6. How about "No Matter What"? Unconditional acceptance for being who and what you are, particularly when you are an extraordinary person in an ordinary world.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's my least favorite of the new songs, excepting the "singing pork, dancing veal, what an entertaining meal" verse added to "Be Our Guest".

If no one's got 'em by noon, I think that'll be it.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Heh. I thought about guessing the "Epiphany" a couple of times, but decided it didn't have the music, compared to so many of the other songs. But yeah, an excellent choice.

I learned some about your taste in musical drama, and got to reminisce about some kick-ass Broadway that enriched my youth. Thanks for putting it up.