My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Sondheim Files - Merrily We Roll Along

I heard a song from MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG on my new Carly Simon record. It was called TORCH and it was released in 1981 and I bought it, immediately, having developed a great appreciation for the singer-songwriter, thanks to my mom and dad. This new album was a collection of old torch songs like Hurt and I Got it Bad and I Get Along Without You Very Well. There, at the end of the journey, though, I saw a note in the liner notes that said Not a Day Goes By was from the new Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along. That summer, visiting New York, I found that record in a little shop in the village, bought it, and took it with me to college, where I played it every day. Not only did I love the songs, I loved the recording – I loved the performances, the orchestrations, the way it sounded like it was recorded on the stage where it was performed. I found it, then, and find it, now, to be one of the most wonderful cast recordings ever done. It is a record I turn on and let play from start to finish. In the days when I first heard it, the song OUR TIME became an anthem to me – a young man starting college, full of dreams and ambition. It symbolized my future and it pulled me forward into that future of possibilities, of hopes, of dreams. Today, when I heard it, the song OUR TIME symbolizes a past filled with disappointment, with hopes shattered and dreams unfulfilled. It doesn’t matter. That journey made me what I am today (whatever that is) and I wouldn’t change (much of) it. Now I listen to that song with a wistful nostalgia about the boy I was and the life I didn’t get; but also with a deep well of happiness and excitement for young people I know (people like my nieces, who just started college and my honourary Goddaughter who is a teenage working actress) whose lives are just beginning, whose dreams are just now being put to the test. Merrily We Roll Along is more than just a great score from a failed musical, to me: it is my life. The circumstances may be different; but the journey has been just as significant.

I love this recording, the OBC.

I hear there is a recording of a production that starred the recent recipient of my fandom, Malcolm Gets – I will go pick up a copy of it and listen to it. I am really enjoying getting to know his work on musical theater cd – so I am excited.

I was excited when I found a cd of a production that starred the wonderful Evan Pappas and my English diva (who I have, long, believed could do no wrong) Maria Friedman. I put it into my Ipod and listened to it.

Then I deleted it.

Well. I didn’t delete all of it. I did delete a lot of it, though. I won’t listen to it. The OBC is my real deal. No matter how much I love Evan Pappas, I can’t really get behind Maria Friedman’s over the top performance and American accent filled with hard R’s. I am driven to distraction by it and it hurts me. I WORSHIP the woman; but I can’t listen to this cd. Well. I can listen to it, to some of it; but I won’t. I will always go directly to the OBC. Specifically, though, I DID leave songs from this recording that are new to cd because I do want to know them; and I did leave one or two tracks like Old Friends and Our Time (there is a lot of wonderful dialogue included here – which I usually don’t like but which speaks to my soul, here). So at least I haven’t been completely judgmental against my beloved Miss Friedman or my deeply admired Mr Pappas – just a little selective.