“Shakespeare
Lied”
Composer:
Elmer Bernstein and Carolyn Leigh
Performers:
Marlyn Mason, Brenda Vaccaro, and Sammy Smith, original cast recording
Every
once in a while, you chose a song not based on its great melodic contributions
to the world song book, but—and you must remember, I am also a poet—upon its
marvelous lyric gifts. Of course, many great composers, Cole Porter offered both.
But sometimes you just need to recognize where they might suddenly appear like
gems, long hidden in the earthiness of not such great musicals.
I never saw the David Merrick production
of How Now Dow Jones, nor had I even
heard a song from it when, asked to prove to my new New York friends, surrounding
John Diserio, that I must have know everything about Broadway musicals, they
plopped down a record needle on one of the songs from that same musical, and
asked—no, challenged me—to recognize it.
Even today, I can’t imagine what got into
me to immediately identify the song I’d never heard before. Maybe I knew even
more than I thought I did, and today I cannot even recall what song it was.
Perhaps “ABC,” outlining the important elements of the stock market, or “Step
to the Rear,” claiming the wonderful charms of stock brokers? But I, quite
brazenly, stood up to my challengers, claiming it must be from How Now Dow Jones. They were in awe that
this boy from Iowa who, as of yet, had never actually seen a Broadway musical,
could immediately name it. I think I was even in awe of my youthful deceptions.
Yes, I knew a lot about musical theater,
but really, how much could I have actually known in those days? Just words on
paper, and much listening to original cast recordings. What presumptuous! And I
knew it. I think I went home and cried. I had trumped by challengers, but how
much had I not truly known; they might have easily flummoxed me with so many
other musical numbers.
Now, I’ve finally listened, abashedly, to
the wonderful film composer Elmer Bernstein’s only Broadway musical, and for
the most part, alas, his songs are not so very remarkable. I wish they were.
But one song, stood out: a plaintive song about failed love. What made this
song so memorable, however, is not Bernstein’s repetitive chords of “You’ll get
over it,” but lyricist Carolyn Leigh’s terribly clever lyrics about female
sufferers of love, from Juliet, Camille, to Cleopatra, and, finally Joan of
Arc. It’s a marvel of clever lyrics:
The
tears that overtake you and take you in the trachea
Go
away.
Did
she did really intend the end when Cleo clasped her asp?
This is a song so bitter, a kind a macho
apologia for love lost or simply denied. But even Sondheim might have never
done better than Leigh, whose cynical and satirical lyrics summarize what women
through history have truly suffered, but presumably, “got over it.” These are
tough revisionist notions of the historical presumptions that women eagerly
sought out death for their lovelorn despairs. Leigh wrote such great lyrics
throughout her career, but has seldom been as celebrated as she might have
been, although she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, after her
death, in 1985. With Peter Pan, Wildcat,
Little Me, this musical and numerous other film projects, she was certainly
one of the greats.
Los Angeles,
December 23, 2017
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