Sondheim's Blues
Friday Quote for the Ages:
"There had been progress in the music department on the day off. The song Steve had delivered to Mathilde was for Buddy in Loveland. I was handed a copy from which I was to extract the lyrics for the script. By this time I had learned how particular Steve was about how he wanted lyrics typed. In the script, they were to be in capitals with all punctuation in place - lines ending in commas, semicolons, periods, question marks if the line is a question, quotation marks if the line is a quote, and no punctuation only if the next line is a continuation. All slang was to be kept as written but vowels would be restored to words if they were removed in the piano/vocal sheet to indicate how specific syllables were to be sung (For example, 'EVERY' would go in the script, while 'Ev'ry' would go with the two corresponding notes in the score.) Spoken lines were to be written with normal usage of lower- and uppercase letters. The new song was entitled 'The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues.' It included internal dialogue, quotes, hyphens, and slang - the whole bit. As always, the stage managers were anxious that I get the lyrics typed out as quickly as possible. On the typewriter, the hyphen was a lowercase key, the capital letters, of course, uppercase, which meant constant shifting. The following was typical: 'I'VE GOT THOSE 'GO-AWAY-I-NEED-YOU,' 'COME-TO-ME-I'LL-KILL-YOU,' 'DARLING-I'LL-DO-ANYTHING-TO-KEEP-YOU-WITH-ME-TILL-YOU-TELL-ME-THAT-YOU-LOVE-ME-OH-YOU-DO-NOW-BEAT-IT-WILL-YOU? BLUES.' The song was written for two men in drag to represent Sally (Buddy's wife) and Margie (his mistress). From this moment on, it was alternately titled 'Buddy's Blues.'"
-Ted Chapin in Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies; New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2003
"There had been progress in the music department on the day off. The song Steve had delivered to Mathilde was for Buddy in Loveland. I was handed a copy from which I was to extract the lyrics for the script. By this time I had learned how particular Steve was about how he wanted lyrics typed. In the script, they were to be in capitals with all punctuation in place - lines ending in commas, semicolons, periods, question marks if the line is a question, quotation marks if the line is a quote, and no punctuation only if the next line is a continuation. All slang was to be kept as written but vowels would be restored to words if they were removed in the piano/vocal sheet to indicate how specific syllables were to be sung (For example, 'EVERY' would go in the script, while 'Ev'ry' would go with the two corresponding notes in the score.) Spoken lines were to be written with normal usage of lower- and uppercase letters. The new song was entitled 'The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues.' It included internal dialogue, quotes, hyphens, and slang - the whole bit. As always, the stage managers were anxious that I get the lyrics typed out as quickly as possible. On the typewriter, the hyphen was a lowercase key, the capital letters, of course, uppercase, which meant constant shifting. The following was typical: 'I'VE GOT THOSE 'GO-AWAY-I-NEED-YOU,' 'COME-TO-ME-I'LL-KILL-YOU,' 'DARLING-I'LL-DO-ANYTHING-TO-KEEP-YOU-WITH-ME-TILL-YOU-TELL-ME-THAT-YOU-LOVE-ME-OH-YOU-DO-NOW-BEAT-IT-WILL-YOU? BLUES.' The song was written for two men in drag to represent Sally (Buddy's wife) and Margie (his mistress). From this moment on, it was alternately titled 'Buddy's Blues.'"
-Ted Chapin in Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies; New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2003
posted by Gypsy at 12:44 PM
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