Everybody Says Don’t

by

Throwback Thursday #11

Image by Hans from Pixabay

One of the pleasures of doing a Throwback Thursday blog post — as you may well know — is rediscovering something one once wrote (which one may have completely forgotten!)

In the case of this Throwback Thursday, I also rediscovered a song by Stephen Sondheim called “Everybody Says Don’t” which I had forgotten I’d recorded.

You can click here to check it out if you are curious.

A new biography of Mr. Sondheim came out earlier this year which my sister gave me for my birthday.

I just finished reading it and — not surprisingly — come away with renewed respect and gratitude for the wealth of songs and shows he helped to create over the course of a 50+ year career…

If you are not very familiar with his work, he wrote the lyrics for two blockbuster Broadway favorites — WEST SIDE STORY and GYPSY.

But what he really wanted to do is create both music and lyrics — which is what he finally got to do with A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, COMPANY, SWEENEY TODD, INTO THE WOODS, ASSASSINS, PASSION and other shows.

Image by Christiane from Pixabay

Mr. Sondheim experienced a few flops along the way, including ANYONE CAN WHISTLE and MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.

But he continued to work on the latter show for decades until he (and various collaborators) finally arrived at a version which was one of the hottest tickets on Broadway — starring, among other talented human beings, Daniel Radcliffe (the original Harry Potter) — during 2023-2024.

A version of this production was filmed and can be watched via various streaming platforms.

And I learned from Wikipedia that Richard Linklater is filming his own version of it over many years (as he has done with other creative projects). Sounds like we may have to wait for a decade or more to see THAT version…

Mr. Sondheim did not have many of his songs become big pop hits, although Judy Collins recorded a lovely version of “Send In The Clowns” from A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC.

He crafted his songs to advance the plot of each show and often wrote them for particular actors to perform.

This specificity may have made it more challenging for pop musicians like Frank Sinatra or Barbra Streisand to pluck one of this songs out of the context of a particular show to become a more generic pop hit — although Ms. Streisand DID include many of his compositions in her two albums devoted specifically to Broadway songs.

Image by Couleur from Pixabay

And Mr. Sondheim, bless him, did agree to write additional lyrics for Ms. Streisand’s version of “Send In The Clowns” so that it made more sense for her to sing it (out of the context of the original show).

I think I may have featured photos of hydrangeas in a previous blog post, but they are what is blooming right now in my neighborhood as summer officially gets underway in the Greater Boston area…

And I LOVE them.

Happy summer to any and all readers in the northern hemisphere of planet earth!

by

Everybody Says Don’t…

Image by laurenta_photography from Pixabay

One of my favorite Stephen Sondheim songs — “Everybody Says Don’t” (on the player embedded above) — is from his first official flop, Anyone Can Whistle, which starred Angela Lansbury, Harry Guardino, and Lee Remick on Broadway in 1964 and ran for nine performances.

Among other topics, the plot explored the classic question of who is saner — the folks in a mental hospital or those who are not.

“Everybody Says Don’t” invites us to consider how we make choices.

Many of us make choices based on what other people say or think.

Sometimes this demonstrates a healthy respect for our shared values as human beings — and helps to keep our societies more, rather than less, civil.

Sometimes it’s a way to avoid saying or doing something important — something which might be utterly, uniquely, and profoundly why we are alive here and now on planet earth.

I might have stayed in my non-musical day job as a PR/development/events professional for another 16 years if I hadn’t been laid off.

The job offered me teamwork, camaraderie, shared purpose, a paycheck, respect from my peers, and daily surprises/challenges.

Will McMillan by Stephen C. Fischer

But it was not tapping very deeply into my musical soul.

Now I am devoted to making music for a living — as a performer, a songwriter, and a Music Together teacher.

The sentiment of “Everybody Says Don’t” reminds me of one of the guiding principles of Music Together — that anything a child chooses to do during class is fine and needs to be respected as part of their learning process/style.

A child’s caregiver may want them to sit still and “play” a drum — or a shaker egg, or a triangle, or a set of wooden sticks — in a particular manner.

But their way of soaking up the music in class may involve moving their bodies around the room, sitting in a corner (seemingly disconnected from everything happening in class), or bouncing up and down in someone’s lap.

As long as the child is not endangering themselves or hurting someone else in class, s/he is free to respond to the music in her/his own fashion — which may change from song to song and class to class.

I sometimes imagine the adult caregivers (moms, dads, nannies, grand mothers, grand fathers, au pairs, uncles, aunts and more) as younger versions of themselves — who may have been told somewhere along the line: “don’t sing so loudly,” or “don’t sing out of tune,” or worst of all, “don’t sing — just move your lips.”

Image by Joe McDonagh from Pixabay

One never knows what musical wounds people may be bringing into our classrooms…

As one teacher remarked at the end of a three day Music Together seminar, “90% of our job is showing up with a compassionate heart.”

I guess that could be true about a lot of our interactions here on planet earth…

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Thank you for reading and listening to this blog post.

I welcome any comments you might be inspired to share below.