Second Music Post

This is Taylor again, with Katherine Reinert.

First Music Post

In years to come, no doubt finer minds than ours will produce volumes of scientific research demonstrating the impact of climate change on the performing arts. And when they do, it will be old news to me. After losing a third of our Fringe performances to Hurricane Irene in 2011, and a chunk of a recent songwriting workshop to Sandy in 2012, it seemed almost inevitable that in 2013, submissions to the Fringe and the ASCAP workshop would be jeopardized by a blizzard called NEMO, for crap's sake. Nevertheless, we will make our deadlines. The recordings will not be exactly what we might have hoped, but at the last minute our arranger, the lovely and talented Taylor Williams, stepped up to record the male parts of the various songs, and since by a ridiculous coincidence, an old musical theater colleague of his not only moved to New York from San Francisco two weeks ago, but unbeknownst to both of them, had actually moved into an apartment three blocks from his building (which is where we were recording), she was able to hike through the snow to record the female parts.

I wasn’t sure whether I should upload any of the songs here -- the recordings are a little rough, but you know what? The whole point of doing this was to show the evolution and progress of this project, and when the final recordings are done, it will make for an interesting comparison, so here are a couple, what the heck why not?

Songs About New York (Part II)

Who’s the luckiest girl I know?
I’m the luckiest girl I know!
Here in the heart of a city just starting its day
After waking at dawn to its siren song of urban decay

Where’s the prettiest town I know?
Here’s the prettiest town I know!
Under the crime, and the layers of grime — like Pompeii!

Now, the dirt the noise and the fear
May not be what brought me here
But attractions like these
Are just some of the reasons I stay

Who’s the victim of unfair press?
You’re the victim of unfair press!
People complain that you’re loud and you’re vain and you’re cold
Put me straight in the ground if I ever sound so tired and old

Who’ll be with you through thick and thin?
I’ll be with you through thick and thin!
Here at your side, I’m along for the ride — all the way!
I can take on whatever may come
If here’s where I’m starting from
Think of all that could be
And it’s easy to see why I stay!

Back home they think I’m crazy
New York’s no place to be!
Well, E.B. White and I respectfully disagree
Ring Lardner and O’Henry —
They seemed to liked, too
Why not? When every window
Offers a bird’s-eye view
Of a fabulous picture postcard
From the city of my dreams
Where the message on the back says: BOOM!!
And it rattles and crashes and screams:

“Who’s the luckiest girl I know?
You’re the luckiest girl I know!
Stick with me, kid, like those other guys did and … some day!”
The allure of wealth and acclaim —
Sure, that may be why I came
But it ain’t happened yet, and do I look upset?
So please don’t ever let me feel doubt or regret
Could I leave you, my pet? Rue the day that we met?
I’d be lost you can bet, if I ever forget why I stay!

Songs About New York

The book pictured at the left is a new reprint of a wonderful 1960 children’s book by Miroslav Sasek. I happened to stumble across it in, of all places, an Anthropologie store last week. It was one of those funny little WTF moments, because the second song in the second act of Skyline is called This is New York, and I had just been thinking about it, and about the other New York song in the show, and about New York songs in general.

Broadway musicals have produced a whole catalogue of songs about New York, from New York, New York (On the Town) to I Happen to Like New York (The New Yorkers); from NYC (Annie) to Another Hundred People (Company) — and dozens more, each with its own distinct character and flavor, each a near perfect evocation of the city, in all its guises and forms: big and exciting, scary and loud, alienating and cold. And in writing a show set so specifically in New York, and in such a particular time period, it was probably inevitable — even necessary — that I’d wind up writing a song that aspired to those ranks. That second act song is a plot song, by which I mean that it’s less a celebration, or even generally descriptive, of the city, than it is a means of unifying the events that transpire in this particular scene. But there is “New York song” in the show, in the opening number in fact. It’s Allison’s portion of a musical scene called Go!(Stop)/Go!(Stay). It’s the number that introduces both Paul and Allison to the audience, and gives us a sense of who they are, their characters and desires and what we can expect of them and all that “Musicals 101” hibbeldy-bibbeldy.

I don’t know why, but Stay (Allison’s song) was just one of the most hair-pullingly, infuriatingly difficult things I’ve ever had to write. It took – without exaggeration – over a year of on-and-off, pick it up and put it back down writing and re-writing. Even though I knew exactly what I wanted to say, exactly the way I wanted to say it – even the basic structure I wanted the song to take it just kept being … too much! It was too long, the lines were too long, the rhyme scheme too complex, the details too wordy and overdrawn. I just.couldn’t.get it. And then one day, while standing in the shower (which as we all know is the place where all the best ideas come – seriously, I don’t know why world leaders don’t just all take a bath together. They could solve 90% of humanity's problem in about an hour), it suddenly came to me. I figured out how to take the first two lines of the first A, slap them together with the last two and eliminate everything in between (or at least, move it somewhere else). Once I had that, everything else followed, and although it still took months to actually write the damn thing, when I finally finished it, it was one of those things where – okay. I said in probably the first post on this blog that there were few things in the world more boring and obnoxious than writers talking about writing, but the thing is, we all have experiences in our lives where something just goes so beautifully right: baking a perfect tray of lemon bars, completing our first continuous three-mile run, successfully potty-training our kid, that no matter how petty and mundane they are, we just can’t help wanting to share it. We bring the lemon bars to work, post our miles on a runner’s website, memorialize the event for grandma in a photograph that will keep that poor kid in therapy for the rest of his life.

And this is one of mine: I’ve written a New York song. And I did a good job. Not only in the sense that it’s “a good song,” but in the sense that it does everything it needs to do dramatically speaking. It’s not just a New York song, it’s Allison’s New York song. It’s a song for a character who is both young and inexperienced and a little naïve, and also smart and ambitious and tougher than she looks. A young woman who moved to New York at a time when young women simply didn’t do that kind of thing, because she wanted to be a “real writer,” and you couldn’t be a “real writer” back in Ohio. Who loves everything about the city, the good and the bad of it, but who still manages to maintain a true New Yorker’s sense of humor and irony about it. A young woman who, shortly after singing this song, will sing another song, one in which she describes the moment, experienced by bright, ambitious young people throughout history, where she realizes that “I could change everything – and I probably should.”

I am happy about this. It was a long, drawn-out, painful process, but it’s done, and it’s good, and I really feel like it’s a great way to start a musical. A song about New York, for a musical about New York.