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.

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.

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!