Here for the Hearing

*
T RA CK I NG PO P
s e ri e s e d ito r s : jo c e ly n n e a l , joh n covach ,
r o b e rt fin k , a n d l o r e n kajikawa

re ce n t ti t l e s in t h e s e r ie s :

Here for the Hearing: Analyzing the Music in Musical Theater

by Michael Buchler and Gregory J. Decker, Editors

Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities,

and Contemporary Performance
by Lauron J. Kehrer
Critical Excess: Watch the Throne and the New Gilded Age
by J. Griffith Rollefson

Soda Goes Pop: Pepsi-Cola Advertising and Popular Music

by Joanna K. Love

The Beatles through a Glass Onion: Reconsidering the White Album

edited by Mark Osteen

The Pop Palimpsest: Intertextuality in Recorded Popular Music

edited by Lori Burns and Serge Lacasse

Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer

by Bill Bruford

I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B

by Andrew Flory

Hearing Harmony: Toward a Tonal Theory for the Rock Era

by Christopher Doll

Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in

Critical Perspective
edited by Philip Lambert

Krautrock: German Music in the Seventies

by Ulrich Adelt

Sounds of the Underground: A Cultural, Political and Aesthetic

Mapping of Underground and Fringe Music
by Stephen Graham
Ꚕ
Here for
the Hearing
Analyzing the Music
in Musical Theater

Michael Buchler and

Gregory J. Decker, Editors

University of Michigan Press

Ann Arbor
Copyright © 2023 by Michael Buchler and Gregory J. Decker
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Contents

List of Examples vii

List of Figures xiii
List of Tables xv
Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction
Michael Buchler and Gregory J. Decker 1

Part 1: Chapters That Engage Multiple Works

Chapter 1. “Was It Ever Real?” Tonic Return via Stepwise
Modulation in Broadway Songs
Nathan Beary Blustein 9

Chapter 2. Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality

Drew Nobile 35

Chapter 3. Topical Interpretive Strategies in American

Musical Theater: Three Brief Case Studies
Gregory J. Decker 63

Chapter 4. A Phenomenological Approach to

Music Theater Rhyme
Richard Plotkin 88

Chapter 5. The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends

R achel Short 113
 vi / contents

Part 2: Chapters That Engage a Single Work

Chapter 6. Three Notions of Long-­Range Form in Guys and Dolls
Michael Buchler 145

Chapter 7. Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show

Nicole Bia monte 169

Chapter 8. Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s

The Last Five Years
Jonathan De Souza 190

Chapter 9. Lesbian Desire in Fun Home

R achel Lumsden 212

Chapter 10. The Hip-­Hop History of Hamilton

Robert Kom aniecki 235

Chapter 11. “Isn’t It Queer?” The Kinsey Sicks and the

Art of Broadway Parody
J. Daniel Jenkins 253

Contributors 275
Index 279

Digital materials related to this title can be found on the Fulcrum platform
via the following citable URL https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11969716
List of Examples

Example 1.1a. “What a Game,” from A to A′ (mm. 37–­41). 13

Example 1.1b. “What a Game,” from A′ to trio (mm. 77–­81). 13
Example 1.1c. “What a Game,” from trio to A′′ (mm. 102–­105;
final measure as written in score). 13
Example 1.2. “The Wizard and I”: “Unlimited” interlude into
thematic return in B major. 15
Example 1.3. “’Til Him”: Modulations across choruses,
via underscoring in D♭ major. 20
Example 1.4. “Unworthy of Your Love”: Modulation up by whole
step, from the end of the bridge to the duet chorus
(home key marked with asterisks). 24
Example 1.5. “I Can Cook, Too,” verse: Beginning (left);
modulation up by whole step in second phrase (right). 27
Example 1.6. “Too Many Mornings”: Stepwise modulations from
Sally’s solo (F♯ major) to duet (B♭ major). 30
Example 2.1. “Being Alive” (Company): chordal reduction of
first vocal phrase (mm. 3–­11). 40
Example 2.2. “Johanna (Todd)” (Sweeney Todd, No. 20):
chordal reduction of “City on Fire” section, mm. 57–­86. 40
Example 2.3a. Instances of 3–4 oscillation over a tonic
pedal, “In Buddy’s Eyes” (Follies), mm. 45–­48. 44
Example 2.3b. “Sorry-­Grateful” (Company), mm. 3–­4. 44
Example 2.3c. “Agony” (Into the Woods, No. 10), mm. 2–­5. 44
Example 2.3d. “Merrily We Roll Along”
(Merrily We Roll Along, No. 2), mm. 6–­7. 45
Example 2.3e. Some other examples of 3–4
oscillation from Company (1970) to Passion (1994). 45
Example 2.4a. “Opening (Part III)” (Into the Woods, No. 1C). 46

/ vii /
 viii / list of examples

Example 2.4b. “Your Fault” (Into the Woods, No. 22), opening vamp. 46
Example 2.5. (0148) at the beginning of “Another National Anthem”
(Assassins, No. 8, mm. 83–­85). 46
Example 2.6. Opening of “Happiness (Part I)” (Passion, No. 1). 47
Example 2.7. “Farewell Letter” (Passion, No. 16, titled “Scene 13” in
the vocal score): (0148) and polychord at beginning and end. 47
Example 2.8. End of “No One Has Ever Loved Me” (Passion, No. 17,
mm. 39–­43, titled “Scene 14” in the vocal score). 47
Example 2.9. Transition from opening flourishes into
“Sunday in the Park with George” (Sunday in the Park with George,
No. 3, mm. 1–­3). 50
Example 2.10. Reduction of “Sunday in the Park with George.” 51
Example 2.11. (0148) sets in “The Day Off” (Sunday in the Park
with George, No. 12, mm. 55–­56). 52
Example 2.12. Flourishes leading into “Sunday” (Sunday in the
Park with George, No. 24, mm. 9–­26). 53
Example 2.13. The return and resolution of (0148) in “Sunday”
(mm. 41–­45). 53
Example 2.14. Tonic with persistent 4 in the “into the woods”
theme (Into the Woods, No. 1A, mm. 1–­2). 55
Example 2.15a. “I Know Things Now” (No. 6, mm. 9–­10). 55
Example 2.15b. “Giants in the Sky” (No. 9, mm. 7–­8). 55
Example 2.15c. “On the Steps of the Palace” (No. 13, mm. 23A–­25). 55
Example 2.16. “No More” (Into the Woods, No. 23, mm. 69–­70):
appearance of 3 within a tonic 3–4 oscillation. 57
Example 2.17. “No One Is Alone” (Into the Woods, No. 25,
mm. 1–­12): prominent 3. 57
Example 2.18. “Children Will Listen” (Into the Woods, No. 26B,
mm. 80–­84, titled “Finale (Part III)” in the vocal score):
resolution of 1–2–4–­5 to 1–2–­3–­5
in final section. 57
Example 3.1. Melody of “A Fine White Horse,” mm. 1–­4, rebarred. 64
Example 3.2. Melodic reduction of “Winter’s on the Wing,” mm. 5–­6. 66
Example 3.3. Accompaniment figure for “A Little Priest,” mm. 93–­96,
piano reduction. 68
Example 3.4. “Johanna,” piano-­vocal reduction, mm. 25–­30. 69
Example 3.5a. “Ladies in Their Sensitivities,” melody, mm. 5–­8. 77
 list of examples / ix

Example 3.5b. Recomposition in  meter reveals conventional

contredanse.77
Example 3.6. “I Can See It,” harmonic reduction, mm. 96–­108. 79
Example 3.7. “Plant a Radish,” end of introduction, mm. 9–­10a. 79
Example 4.1a. “Reprise: Sixteen Going On Seventeen,”
The Sound of Music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. 90
Example 4.1b. Modified lyrics. 90
Example 4.2a. Period with rhymed antecedent/consequent
(c.i.1/c.i.2): “It All Fades Away,” The Bridges of Madison County,
music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. 94
Example 4.2b. Sentence with rhymed presentation/continuation
phrase (b.i.2/cadential): “I Get to Show You the Ocean,” by
Georgia Stitt. 94
Example 4.2c. Sentence with rhymed continuation/cadential:
“One Hand, One Heart,” West Side Story, music by
Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. 94
Example 4.2d. Hybrid theme (antecedent + continuation):
“Cabaret,” Cabaret, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. 94
Example 4.2e. Sentence: “My Favorite Things,” The Sound of Music,
music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. 95
Example 4.2f. Hybrid theme (antecedent + cadential): “Some
Other Time,” On The Town, music by Leonard Bernstein and
lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. 95
Example 4.2g. Deviant, symmetrical theme (sentence with
interpolation, expanded continuation): “Something’s Coming,” West
Side Story, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by
Stephen Sondheim. 95
Example 4.3: Compound Period: “Balcony Song,” West Side Story,
music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. 96
Example 4.4. “In Summer,” Frozen, by Kristen Anderson-­Lopez
and Robert Lopez. 103
Example 4.4a. Trio of monosyllabic rhymes within the
musical sentence. 103
Example 4.4b. Quartet of rhymes. 103
Example 4.4c. Same music as 4b, but with a trio of rhymes. 103
Example 4.4d. Shifts the rhyme to the end of the thematic unit. 103
Example 4.5. Illustration of each grammatical ending of
Example 4.2b connected to the next. 109
 x / list of examples

Example 4.6. Distillation and compression of the possibilities

presented in Example 4.5. 109
Example 5.1a. “Over the Rainbow” (The Wizard of Oz, Harold Arlen
and E. Y. Harburg, 1939). 118
Example 5.1b. “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (Show Boat,
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, 1927). 118
Example 5.1c. “On the Street Where You Live” (My Fair Lady,
Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, 1957). 118
Example 5.2a. “Younger than Springtime” (South Pacific,
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II 1949). 120
Example 5.2b. “Being Alive” (Company, Stephen Sondheim, 1970). 121
Example 5.2c. “What More Can I Say” (Falsettos, William Finn
and James Lapine, 1990/1992). 122
Example 5.2d. “Someone to Watch Over Me” (Oh, Kay!, George
and Ira Gershwin, 1926). 123
Example 5.3a. “Some Enchanted Evening” (South Pacific,
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, 1949). 125
Example 5.3b. “This Nearly Was Mine” (South Pacific,
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, 1949). 125
Example 5.3c. “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” (The Fantasticks,
Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, 1960). 126
Example 5.4a. “If I Loved You” (Carousel, Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II 1945). 127
Example 5.4b. “Far from the Home I Love” (Fiddler on the Roof,
Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, 1964). 127
Example 5.4c. “Soliloquy/ Javert’s Suicide” (Les Misérables,
Claude-­Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, 1985). 129
Example 5.5a. “Fine, Fine Line,” (Avenue Q, Robert Lopez and
Jeff Marx, 2003). 130
Example 5.5b. “Inútil” (In the Heights, Lin-­Manuel Miranda, 2008). 130
Example 5.5c. “Hurricane” (Hamilton, Lin-­Manuel Miranda, 2015). 131
Example 5.6a. “Days” (Fun Home, Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, 2015). 133
Example 5.6b. “I Believe in You” (How to Succeed in Business
without Really Trying, Frank Loesser, 1961). 134
Example 6.1. “Fugue for Tinhorns,” three-­voice canon with
Escher-­like descents. 153
 list of examples / xi

Example 6.2. Expansive sentential phrase structure in the verse of

“Traveling Light,” which was cut before the show’s
Broadway début. 164
Example 8.1. Middleground and foreground sketches for the motif
introduced in “Still Hurting,” mm. 5–­6. 191
Example 8.2. Middleground and foreground sketches for “Nobody
Needs to Know,” mm. 9–­12, illustrating looping progression. 198
Example 8.3. Reduction of melodies with a shared chord
progression, from Cathy’s song “Still Hurting” (see mm. 5–­6) and
Jamie’s “If I Didn’t Believe in You” (see mm. 19–­20). 202
Example 9.1. “Ring of Keys,” first verse. 217
Example 9.2. Hypothetical recomposition of first phrase of “Ring of
Keys” as a paradigmatic (but much more boring) sentence. 218
Example 9.3. “Ring of Keys,” mm. 63–­72. 219
Example 9.4. “Changing My Major,” mm. 26–­41
(first phrase of chorus). 224
Example 9.5a. Hypothetical recomposition of chorus,
staying in A♭ major. 227
Example 9.5b. Tesori’s (much more interesting) version of this
passage, with dissonant chords in mm. 24–­25 and sudden
modulation to A major through “slippery” voice leading. 227
Example 9.5c. More “slippery” voice leading returns the music to
A♭ major for the second verse. 227
Example 9.6a. “Changing My Major,” mm. 112–­123. 229
Example 9.6b. “Edges of the World,” mm. 87–­98. 229
Example 10.1. The evolution of Lafayette’s character is
demonstrated rhythmically in “Guns and Ships.” 240
Example 10.2. The off-­kilter nature of the septuple meter at the
beginning of “Meet Me Inside” underscores the chaotic
nature of the scene. 241
Example 11.1. Rhythmic Transcription of “Send in the Clones,”
opening of verse 2. 267
List of Figures

Figure 1.1a. Chart for “Company.” 28

Figure 1.1b. Chart for “A Strange Loop.” 28
Figure 3.1. Mirka’s semiotics of topical signification (modified). 64
Figure 3.2. Common associations with the waltz. 66
Figure 3.3. Summary of numbers, characters, musical
characteristics, and social-­class divisions. 68
Figure 3.4. Semiotic representations of folk associations in
The Secret Garden. 69
Figure 3.5. Elevated topics assist musical class oppositions. 71
Figure 3.6. Musical associations with physical space in
The Secret Garden. 72
Figure 6.1. Dramatic framework of Guys and Dolls. 148
Figure 6.2. Associative landscapes in Guys and Dolls. 160
Figure 7.1. Tonal and sexual relationships in The Rocky Horror Show. 173
Figure 7.2. Songs, characters, styles, and keys in
The Rocky Horror Show. 175
Figure 7.3. Chord chart for “Touch-­a Touch Me,” verse 2 into
first chorus. 179
Figure 7.4. Chord chart for “Rose Tint My World,” verses 1–­4. 181
Figure 8.1. Temporal chart for The Last Five Years. 197
Figure 10.1. Lyrics excerpted from “Farmer Refuted.” 248
Figure 11.1. Conceptual model of “Send in the Clowns.” 263
Figure 11.2. Annotated lyrics to “Send in the Clones.” 265
Figure 11.3. Conceptual model of four-­on-­the-­floor dance music,
after Butler 2006. 266

/ xiii /
List of Tables

Table 4.1. Phenomenological chart based on the above

preference rules. 100
Table 4.2. Phenomenological chart of “In Summer.” 106
Table 6.1. List of musical works and keys. 158
Table 8.1. Songs in The Last Five Years, arranged by show order and
hypothetical story order. 196

/ xv /
Acknowledgments

Thank you to all of our authors, who brought tremendous breadth and
musicality to our project, and who gamely and expertly created most of
their own musical examples and charts. They were all delightful to work
with, and unfailingly understanding when we encountered delays. When
we started approaching people and collecting essays, and before that
ideas for essays, we didn’t know precisely what shape this project would
take and what musical and intellectual paths would be traversed. But our
authors’ wonderful ideas, beautiful writing, and skillful analyses affected
our own sense of what’s possible in analyzing musicals. We have no doubt
that their work will similarly inspire this book’s readers to think more
expansively about musical theater, just as they inspired us.
Sara Cohen, Anna Pohlod, and Marcia LaBrenz at the University
of Michigan Press have been endlessly supportive in shepherding this
book through the review process and helping us bring it to publication.
The University of Michigan Press and Florida State University Libraries
also provided funds to offset the cost of open-­source publication. We are
incredibly grateful that, through their support, this book will reach so
many more people, including scholars who lack access to research libraries
or the resources to purchase this volume.
Thank you, also, to Jeff Alcenius for creating the clean and lovely line
art that you’ll see in several chapters, where figures or musical examples
required a level of skill that was beyond our authors’ (and editors’) exper-
tise. Thank you to our colleagues at Florida State University and Bowling
Green State University for your unfailing support of our work, and, most
importantly, thank you to Nancy and Jeff for your endless love and support.

Michael Buchler (Tallahassee, FL)

Greg Decker (Bowling Green, OH)

/ xvii /
 Introduction
Michael Buchler and Gregory J. Decker

Twenty years ago, very few music scholars examined Broadway musicals.
If musicologists were a bit slow to approach the musical theater reper-
toire (and they were), theorists and analysts arrived—­and are only now
arriving—­more than fashionably late to the party. We hope that this vol-
ume loudly announces that we are here.
Music theorists care about musical theater. We know this anecdotally,
but convincingly so. Over the past several years, talks on musicals have
become more commonplace at theory conferences in North America
(especially those of the Society for Music Theory) and are often among
the best-­attended presentations; articles involving musical theater are also
appearing with greater frequency, including in each of the SMT’s journals:
Music Theory Spectrum, Music Theory Online, and SMT-­V. As the method-
ologies we employ and the repertoire we study have broadened, and as
the entire field has, in turbulent times, become increasingly invested in
expanding the scope of what we do, musical theater is one place we should
be looking to do more work. While Broadway shows might not be as nim-
ble as popular music at reacting to civil unrest and in reflecting our soci-
ety’s changing views, they nevertheless reflect our shifting musical tastes
and common values.
Musicals (both entire shows and their constituent songs) offer a spring-
board for coupling notions of musical structure and style with the ways
 2 / here for the hearing

they derive and enhance meaning. Every essay in this collection examines
the role musical structures play in conveying aspects of drama.
We are not trying to reinvent musical theater scholarship. Musicol-
ogists and theater historians have much to tell us about the genre’s his-
tory and social contexts, and their critical readings of musicals form an
important body of scholarship—­one to which we eagerly contribute. Our
collective goal is to enrich critical and historical research foci with deep
musical engagement. This collection of essays introduces analytical tech-
niques that ground our observations and also invite comparison between
the structures of musical theater and those of other popular and common-­
practice repertoires. Because none of our essays requires a specialist’s
knowledge of analytical methodology, we hope this book will speak to
musicologists, theater scholars, performers, musically astute aficionados,
and of course our fellow music theorists.

Previewing This Collection

Most scholarly collections on music group their constituent chapters into

several large units that feature common threads, clustering essays by
methodology or repertoire. We might well have done that here, but the
intersection between chapters in this book is as complex as the web of rela-
tionships in Into the Woods. Sure, the baker’s wife is married to the baker,
but she also has a tryst with Cinderella’s prince. And then there’s Cinder-
ella, who ostensibly is grouped with her prince, but who plays an import-
ant role in the storylines of the baker, his wife, Little Red Ridinghood, and
of course the witch. Everyone is affected by the witch and also by the baker
and certainly by Jack and his magical beans. In this tangled analogy, two
common threads are braided like Rapunzel’s hair from the top to the bot-
tom of this book: the interactions of drama and musical structure.
Drafting a thumbnail sketch of this collection seems a bit like trying to
write a pithy synopsis of Into the Woods. Like many contemporary books
and journals on music analysis, we collectively examine both small-­and
large-­scale readings of form: the form of music-­theatrical phrases, of
songs, and of entire shows; we also examine harmony and key relations;
we study rhythm, meter, and, more broadly, temporality; and we engage
with topic theory and the ways that musical style creates and enhances
meaning beyond what one can readily read in scripts and lyrics. Like many
 Introduction / 3

books and journals on musicals, we collectively examine narrativity and

drama, the ways in which love and its absence are expressed, social poli-
tics, racial and ethnic identity, and gender and sexuality, with a particular
focus on queerness.
We wound up grouping the chapters according to whether or not they
focused on a single show, but across these artificial boundaries you will, for
example, find three chapters that explicitly offer music-­analytical read-
ings of queerness. Nicole Biamonte charts the various styles and overall
key structure, offering a large-­scale reading of The Rocky Horror Show and
how gender dichotomies are established and challenged. Rachel Lumsden
views the unusual structure of Fun Home, which cycles repeatedly through
three different timelines, through the lens of “queer temporality,” and she
also closely examines musical structures in two songs, “Ring of Keys” and
“Changing My Major,” showing how they help to construct queer/lesbian
identity. Those two songs contrast the central character with her father,
delineating two pathways for Alison to understand and accept her own
sexuality. Whereas Biamonte and Lumsden carefully contextualize their
discussions of individual songs within the frame of their respective shows,
J. Daniel Jenkins shows how an especially famous Broadway song, Sond-
heim’s “Send in the Clowns,” attains new meaning and produces sophis-
ticated social commentary through parody and decontextualization.
Jenkins convincingly demonstrates how The Kinsey Sicks’ use of uncon-
ventional musical choices in their “Send in the Clones” enhances their cri-
tique of gentrifying and neoliberal trends in the gay community.
Key structure might have been another organizing principle. Like
Biamonte, Michael Buchler examines how the relationship between song
keys helps structure an entire musical, and he points to the differentiation
of musical style in portraying two different groups. In his reading of Guys
and Dolls, Buchler unpacks the different kinds of musical material sung by
the gamblers and the missionaries and shows how their songs create an
interwoven structure that gradually becomes less contrasting and more
blended as the two groups better learn to communicate with one another.
Buchler also demonstrates how duets between the four main characters
inform the show’s overall plot and formal structure.
Rachel Lumsden and Jonathan De Souza both focus on unusual tem-
poralities. While Lumsden examines Fun Home through the lens of “queer
temporality,” De Souza analyzes The Last Five Years, a musical that portrays
the burgeoning and disintegrating relationship of a heterosexual couple.
 4 / here for the hearing

He draws on literary theory, philosophy, and music psychology, invoking

the work of Gérard Genette and his description of discursive temporal
reorderings as “anachronies,” and on Paul Ricoeur’s ideas of the double
temporality of narrative. De Souza shows how musical repetition and
musical style work together with a “bilinear presentation of the story” to
open space for interpretation. He also makes more than passing reference
to other shows that play these narrative games, including Fun Home and
Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.
Greg Decker’s chapter confronts the role that style and particularly
musical topic play in establishing meaning and offering insight into the
characters and their social place, issues also touched on in the chapters
by De Souza, Biamonte, and Jenkins. Decker observes that some shows,
including Sweeney Todd, primarily use topics to particularize their char-
acters, telling us something specific about each of them; other shows,
including The Secret Garden, lean more strongly toward topics as generaliz-
ing agents, identifying characters as members of either the upper or lower
class. Its protagonist, Mary Lenox, uniquely transcends these groupings,
occupying both musical and dramatic spaces. The Fantasticks blends both
of these strategies: its musical topics group characters according to their
generation, but the show’s three waltzes frame the musical, inviting
broader comparison of its contexts while simultaneously particularizing
the singers in each of its iterations. Decker constructs a reading that explic-
itly compares the characters’ different narrative and musical contexts. He
also briefly explores how the waltz topic helps to differentiate women of
different races in Show Boat. And Buchler similarly examines how an all-­
Black adaptation of Guys and Dolls from the 1970s signified racialized dis-
tinctions of morality by recasting some portions of Frank Loesser’s duets
as disco anthems.
In his chapter on Hamilton, Robert Komaniecki also examines sty-
listic differences and how those differences support characterization.
Komaniecki demonstrates that two important aspects of flow in rap and
hip-­hop—­rhythm and rhyme—­reflect the personality traits, motivations,
and character development of Alexander Hamilton, the Marquis de Lafay-
ette, Thomas Jefferson, and others. These differentiated modes of delivery
draw on particular styles of hip-­hop, and the associations that surround
those styles are brought to bear on listeners’ interpretations.
Richard Plotkin provides a very different detailed examination of
rhyme scheme, setting out ways in which rhyme, phrase structure, and
 Introduction / 5

formal function often interact in musical theater. He then lays out well-­
defined preference rules for rhyme expectation based on poetic and musi-
cal structure and applies these rules to diverse musical examples, show-
ing how both domains work together to create (and sometimes thwart)
listener expectations. This phenomenology of rhyme gives us tools to
explain such things as why the landing of a particular word is funny or
how collaborators can create songs that sound like the natural declama-
tion of speech. Ultimately, Plotkin invites us to consider that lyrics and
musical structure in musical theater are inseparable, and our analyses and
interpretations do well to treat them as such.
Like Plotkin and Komaniecki, Rachel Short examines aspects of song
form, with a particular eye (ear) toward bridges and the ways they diverge
from the more familiar music that surrounds them. She limits her study
to ballads, which often shed light on their characters’ personal and emo-
tional journeys. Her chapter explores a wide range of musical bridges, from
shows as early as Show Boat to as recent as Hamilton. She views rhythmic
elements of bridges from four distinct vantage points, examining “rhyth-
mic density, phrase beginnings, rhythmic distribution, and syncopation.”
These musical attributes interact and overlap with one another and with
other musical and textual elements.
Nathan Blustein examines a device that commonly occurs at the ends
of bridges: the pump-­up modulation, but Blustein’s chapter looks at a rel-
atively unusual situation where the composer pumps up to return to the
song’s original key. Like Short and Plotkin, Blustein draws on a wide range
of musicals from different eras to form a compelling cross-­stylistic corpus,
shedding light on fascinating formal moves that might have eluded us. He
considers these return modulations from several perspectives: whether
they are perceptible as such, how and why they may have arisen during
the compositional process, where they occur formally, and what meaning
they might suggest within their dramatic contexts.
Many chapters, including Blustein, Decker, Plotkin, and Short, exam-
ine songs from Stephen Sondheim’s musicals, but Drew Nobile takes on
the impressive task of unpacking and demystifying Sondheim’s idiosyn-
cratic use of dissonant harmonies. He posits that bass notes, chords, and
melody, while generally coinciding, are also somewhat independent of one
another, allowing Broadway audiences to hear underlying tonal stability
among dissonant and non-­triadic harmonies. Nobile then considers how
Sondheim’s general musical strategies and their show-­specific deploy-
 6 / here for the hearing

ments create broad metanarratives at the level of the scene and show in
Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods.
“Into the woods, it’s always when you think at last you’re through and
then into the woods you go again to take another journey.” After act 1’s
happily-­ever-­after ending, we learn in act 2 that we need to head back to
the woods. There’s more work to do. With this volume, we try to learn
more about what the music is telling us about the stories and characters
we love, and we do so in multiple, sometimes tangled ways. We hope you
enjoy taking this journey with us, and we hope that the chapters that fol-
low will inspire you to head into the woods yourself. The paths may not be
well marked, but exploration is always rewarding.1

Notes
1. Unless you happen to be the Baker’s Wife, who, tragically, doesn’t survive
act 2.
Part 1
Chapters That Engage
Multiple Works
1 “Was It Ever Real?”
Tonic Return via Stepwise
Modulation in Broadway Songs

Nathan Beary Blustein

For contemporary theater audiences, the ubiquity of tonal modulation

has become a lyrical punchline.1 In “The Song that Goes Like This,” from
Spamalot (2005),2 adapted from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
Sir Galahad and the Lady of the Lake sing about the clichés of the Broad-
way love duet (rather than about their own affection for each other). As
the orchestra swells into the third chorus, the pair labors chromatically
upward at the end of the line: “And then we change the ke—­e-­e-­ey!” At the
arrival in the new tonic, a whole step higher than where the song began,
they sing: “Now we’re into E! / That’s awfully high for me. / But as every-
one can see / We should have stayed in D.”3
These examples abound in Broadway parodies.4 In “Show Off,” from
The Drowsy Chaperone (2006), which sends up the 1920s musical comedy,
the diva Janet Van De Graaff announces her retirement from show busi-
ness and the public eye with a showstopper that belies her message. In a
performance of the song from the 2006 Tony Awards, Sutton Foster builds
up to the final chorus with flashy choreography and costume changes, all
while she declares: “You’ll never see this! Never see that! Never see these
again! . . .” The final syllable of the line moves up by half step and becomes

/ 9 /
 10 / here for the hearing

the leading tone of the upcoming new key; the chorus marks the new key’s
arrival with the lyrics: “I don’t wanna change keys no more.”
More recently, in “The Farmer Refuted,” from Hamilton (2015), the
title character mocks a loyalist who reads from the same script over and
over again.5 The musical as a whole is not a parody, but this number imi-
tates eighteenth-­century European dance music—­clashing against the
amalgam of Broadway and hip-­hop that permeates the rest of the score.
Between the loyalist’s second and third reading of his script, he sings at the
top of his range as the key moves up, from C major to D ♭ major. Hamilton
castigates the Farmer for this gesture: “Don’t modulate the key and not
debate with me.”
All of these characters—­t he courtly lovers, Janet, Alexander Hamil­
ton—­use generalized terms: “We change the key”; “I don’t wanna change
keys no more”; “Don’t modulate the key.” But each of these lines is set
specifically to a direct modulation up by a half or whole step. In musical
theater, as in popular music, these pump-­up modulations6 engage with
a network of musical, emotional, and dramatic conventions. They typi-
cally occur with the return of a refrain or chorus and signal an intensi-
fication of mood or overall drama. Instrumental textures become richer
and more virtuosic, or the singer jumps up to a new register. And of
course, in the aftermath of this particular kind of key change, a song will
conventionally end in the new (higher) key.
In this chapter, I explore songs that use stepwise modulation in an
unusual and apparently paradoxical way. The modulation occurs at the
end of a series of key changes, bringing the song back to the key in which it
began—­that is, although we associate the device with tonic departure, in
these cases, it brings about tonic return.
This alignment seems highly uncommon, and this chapter covers vir-
tually every example I know of—­fifteen in all. Dai Griffiths (2015, 28–­31)
refers to stepwise tonic return briefly in separate pop/rock examples with-
out attaching any interpretive significance: for him, they are examples of
“Elevating modulation” (an upward or downward direct change of key)7
without “Elevating form” (a song that begins and ends in different keys).
And in Brian Hoffman’s (2013) discussion of intensifying chromatic third
modulations, he notes that “America” from West Side Story (1957) uses an
intensifying gesture associated with stepwise modulation to complete an
entire major-­third cycle.
Michael Buchler (2008) illustrates this effect with analytical notation,
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 11

which he applies to several of Frank Loesser’s Broadway songs. For pas-

sages with an immediate and direct modulation, Buchler uses an upward
arrow (↑) to indicate a new, higher version of the same scale degree on a
higher pitch, in an otherwise identical musical context; and he uses a plus
sign (+) to indicate a more gradual upward shift. For the songs in this chap-
ter, these notations can accurately describe the immediate sensation of
the final key change, but an ascent by ↑ or + ultimately leads to the origi-
nal, unaltered pitches.
Buchler’s notation invites nuance in exploring the expressive power of
tonal relationships within musical theater songs even if “tonal consistency
might not be necessary to produce a sense of tonal unity” (46). Indeed,
some of this chapter’s songs seem to actively play with this expectation
of stepwise modulation—­t hat is, the expected absence of tonal unity. As
Scott Hanenberg notes in his wide-­ranging discussion of modulation in
rock music (2016), a singular emotional interpretation of a tonal relation-
ship may be difficult to confirm, ­but deviations from expected relationships
open up questions for narrative analysis.
Like many musical theater analysts, I follow in the footsteps of popular
music studies more broadly. But I also offer this study of key changes in
musicals to unsettle the hierarchical conception of Broadway’s music as
within (and beneath) the pop umbrella, as Jocelyn Neal (2007) and Brax-
ton Shelley (2019) have done in country and gospel contexts, respectively.
As Masi Asare and Oliver Wang note, musicals are generically laden with
“sentimentality” and “affective excess,” while pop songs carry less univer-
sal baggage (2019, 47). The pop pump-­up, on the other hand, is generically
a sentimental trope reliant on affective excess to smooth over the absence of
new melodies or lyrics. In this exploration of key changes concentrated on
musical theater songs, event and genre align.
In the vignettes below I show how the specific departure-­return par-
adox of ascending back to tonic expands a song’s rhetorical potential. In
part I, I examine three songs that use a direct stepwise modulation in the
final chorus to return to the opening key. I discuss the musical elements
that support and obscure hearing stepwise modulation as large-­scale tonic
return, and I connect this musical event with each song’s dramatic con-
text. In parts II–­I V, I examine various confounds that problematize this
connection: who writes or performs the modulation, plus how it happens
and when.
 12 / here for the hearing

I. Direct Modulations to Tonic in Final Choruses

My first example is “What a Game,” from Stephen Flaherty and Lynn

Ahrens’s Ragtime (1998), a musical about the racial, social, and political
tensions of early 1900s New York. The number offers comic relief in the
highly charged second act of this musical. Father—­so named in the show—­
introduces his son Edgar to baseball. As the game progresses, Father real-
izes that low-­class rowdiness and ethnic diversity have “corrupted” his all-­
American pastime. Like West Side Story’s “Gee, Officer Krupke!,” “What a
Game” is full of slapstick and sarcasm and has a catchy tune, but its humor
stems from the societal tensions that color the show.
This number is an abbreviated rag, complete with a contrasting trio
section (a large-­scale AA′BA″, where B is the trio). The rag form is also dra-
matized: in a classic rag, the trio can serve as the ending itself; a return to
the primary theme is entirely optional. But in “What a Game,” the turn-
around to the final A is climactic.
Before the rag proper, Father outlines his expectations of high-­society
collegiality. The first A section, in a jaunty C major, dashes his hopes once
the crowd begins jeering and heckling the players; during A′, in D ♭ , Father
despairs about the changes to the game while the crowd mocks him. The
crowd narrates a single at-­bat in the B ♭ major trio, and at the end Edgar
catches a home-­run ball in the stands. Finally, at A″—­where thematic
return collides with the return of C major—­an all-­out fight erupts among
the spectators.
Example 1.1 sketches the tonal transitions between each section, with
a quarter note representing each measure. All three employ direct modu-
lations: an authentic cadence in one key immediately progresses to a dom-
inant chord in the new key. In the parlance of Hoffman (2014) and Ricci
(2017, 98), this progression is labeled by the functions of the two chords
that bridge the key change: a “I [in the old key]–­V [in the new key] type.”
Griffiths (2015, 39–­40) is more precise, describing the sensation of the
modulation up by step that we see in example 1.1a: a tonic-­to-­dominant
“transformation,” in which 1 in the old key transforms into a leading tone
in the new key.8
The first transition, between A and A′, ascends by half step—­but against
convention, it decreases in intensity: an imperfect authentic cadence is
followed by a measure of silence while the spectators hock and spit, and
a dominant sting gives way to a thinned-­out orchestration of soft solo
equivalent to one  measure in the score.
Example 1.1. “What a Game” transitions. Each quarter note in the example is

Example 1.1a. From A to A′ (mm. 37–­41).

Example 1.1b. From A′ to trio (mm. 77–­81).

Example 1.1c. From trio to A′′ (mm. 102–­105; m. 105 as written in score).
 14 / here for the hearing

instruments. But the calm dissipates: during the instrumental interlude,

a heckler shouts to one of the players: “Take your head out of your ass!”—­
which Edgar tries to imitate, until an alarmed Father puts his hand over
his son’s mouth at the last second.
The trio (Example 1.1b) further thins out, but the transition between the
trio and A″ (Example 1.1c) is the climactic passage: after the ensemble has
reached a satisfying cadence in B ♭ major, the outer voices climb upward on
a tonic voice exchange, followed by the same gesture on the “transformed”
dominant. The harmonic sequence might make us wonder whether the-
matic return has rhetorical weight equal or similar to that of tonic return.
And although these types of return coincide, the instrumental and vocal
crescendos at the end of the trio raise the intensity of this passage, which
adheres to the generic characteristics of a stepwise modulation. The shout-
ing is more frantic in A″ than in earlier choruses, and orchestrated perfor-
mances of the song, like in the original Broadway cast recording, include
loud, high, sustained violin notes and a fast banjo rhythm, both of which
indicate an instrumental intensification that lasts throughout all of A″.
Yet there are elements that support hearing tonic return. The chorus is
singing in the same register in both C-­major sections, with the same vocal
forces. And formally, A″ occurs right when we might hear a double-­return
of theme and key in a classic rag. Our expectations have been set up, and A″
meets them—­w ith the twist of achieving tonic return through a modula-
tion associated with musical theater, and not one associated with ragtime.
This song strikes a balance between the two styles.
Ragtime in this show symbolizes novelty, literal and figurative—­for
societal progress and its attendant surprises. But in this song the sense of
“progress” is ironic. Given the segregated nature of early modern baseball,
this number is one of the only ones in the show without Black characters—­
the origin of ragtime in Black musical spaces is removed. Robinson (2009)
describes the entanglement of assimilation and minstrel show–­ like
appropriation that ragtime dancing signified in immigrant communities
through the early twentieth century; in this scene, there is no dancing,
and yet the rag form and style sharpen the ethnic and class divides in the
stands. In the number’s final chorus, the use of a device associated with
musical theater to satisfy the formal conventions of a rag reflects the song’s
meaning for Father: even his dependable diversions face change.
In my second example, “The Wizard and I” from Stephen Schwartz
and Winnie Holzman’s Wicked (2003), the modulation back to tonic is not
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 15

at a dramatized formal juncture. Instead, it is in the song’s thrilling final

measures. At its surface, this is a textbook “I Want” song. Elphaba, the
future Wicked Witch of the West, expresses her desire to meet the Wiz-
ard, whom she expects will not only ask her to work with him, but will
also “degreenify” her. Elphaba’s anticipation boils over, and I will compare
three passages in the song that reflect this.
First is Elphaba’s moment of epiphany: “Unlimited, my future is
unlimited.” This passage is a striking “detour,” as Brian Jarvis and John
Peterson describe it (2020), in G ♭ major—­a tritone away from the starting
key of C. Elphaba stops herself from completing the eponymous refrain,
which we have already heard close an earlier chorus with a plagal cadence.
As outlined in Example 1.2, there is no pivot chord; instead, the cutoff ends
on IV in C major, immediately followed by what we eventually register
as a I7 chord (with a major seventh) in the new key above a subdominant
pedal—­for which F, a tritone above the new bass and the seventh of the
new tonic harmony, is the only common tone. When Elphaba resumes
singing, Schwartz uses an oblique quotation: Wicked devotees know well
that the first seven notes of the “Unlimited” melody come from “(Some-
where) Over the Rainbow.”
This key change corresponds with Elphaba’s prediction of her personal
and moral triumph, and it initiates a much more gradual instrumental
and vocal buildup—­t he preparation of some new key, in bright neon lights.
The specific key, though, is a surprise. Twice in a row, Schwartz sets up a
resolution only to defy it. The last line of the interlude (“that’s all to do
with me”) first modulates to E ♭ major, reaching a half cadence on the final
word. Elphaba’s B ♭ is then reharmonized: first by a Gm7 chord, then by
C7—­creating a new half cadence in F. The C in the bass descends to B ♮ , and

…stand there with the Wiz - ard…

107 109 110 111

Example 1.2. “The Wizard and I”: “Unlimited” interlude into thematic return
in B major.
 16 / here for the hearing

Elphaba’s sustained B ♭ becomes the leading tone to the new tonic on the
line: “And I’ll stand there with the Wizard . . .”
This arrival in B major is the point of thematic return. And dramati-
cally, this is the climax of the song, when all of Elphaba’s intentions are
summed up: she is describing her awaited triumph as she imagines that
she and the Wizard will work together to do good throughout Oz. What
could top this dramatic summation?
The last key change is a relatively simple “I–­I juxtaposition”: B major
up to C, via tonic chords in each key. Earlier, at the epiphany, we heard a
radical modulation by tritone; the subsequent interlude blossomed into
the B-­major climax. By contrast, this stepwise modulation happens across
two of three rhyming lines right before the song ends. We hear the start of
the refrain on the lyrics “Held in such high esteem,” but do not yet hear the
title line. Instead, the modulation repeats this refrain a half-­step higher on
new, rhyming lyrics. Elphaba holds fast to this key as she rhymes yet again,
finally reaching the song’s title on this third attempt.
Nearly every solo song in Stephen Schwartz’s best-­k nown shows,
including Godspell (1970) and Pippin (1972), begins and ends on the same
key. In the world of musical theater—­especially within the past fifty
years—­this is far from a given. But “The Wizard and I” is only one of two
examples in Schwartz’s output that modulates up by step to return to
tonic; the other example, briefly discussed below, is in the same musical.
The expansiveness of “The Wizard and I” does make it difficult to hear the
half-­step modulation as a tonic return, and it is unlikely that this modula-
tion solely satisfies a compositional pattern. Were that the case, we could
reimagine this song with a simpler key structure: modulating up by tri-
tone and then, at the climax, modulating right back.
There are two consequences of the last-­second tonic return as written,
in addition to hearing it as a moment of intensification. The first is vocal:
this modulation allows the singer to hold off on the top of her belt range
until the last possible moment. In the B-­major section, Elphaba sings D ♯ ,
3, three times; once the song modulates up again to C major, she only sings
the corresponding high E once. For a soprano at the top of her belt range,
this half-­step difference is significant, and “The Wizard and I” shows how
sensitive Schwartz is to this fact.9
There is also a dramatic consequence, which relates to Elphaba’s lyric,
“Unlimited.” The modulation from C major to G ♭ major occurs right at
Elphaba’s epiphany, but both the number of steps and the amount of time
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 17

it takes to convincingly return to the original key demonstrate just how

remote this first key change was.10 I interpret this departure and return as
mirroring Elphaba’s determination to overcome her obstacles and solve
her problems—­or more accurately, to find the person who will solve them
for her. And this tonal overcoming, the rhyme with “esteem,” happens on
the line with the heaviest foreshadowing in the song: “When people see
me,” Elphaba correctly predicts, “they will scream.”
As with “Game” and “Wizard,” “So Much Better,” the act 1 finale of
Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s Legally Blonde (2006), returns to
tonic through stepwise modulation—­but in this song, the stepwise mod-
ulations keep going, ending in a higher key than where the first chorus
began. The musical’s plot hews to the movie on which it is based: after
surprising everyone in her life by getting into Harvard Law, Elle Woods
learns— ­to her own surprise—­t hat she has won a coveted internship only
earned by a select group of students in her class. “So Much Better” is
all about Elle’s excitement, which is reflected through the frequency of
stepwise modulations throughout this song—­each chorus alone has at
least one.11
The pop-­rock form of the song, and the distant tonal relationships
between verse (G major) and chorus (E major), are not out of the ordi-
nary. Indeed, they provide a major-­mode example of what Doll (2011) calls
the “Breakout Chorus”: a convention of rock in which a more contempla-
tive verse blossoms into an emotionally bright chorus, punctuated by an
“expressive” modulation. The “pump-­up” modulation happens during the
chorus, from E to F major, as Elle answers her own rhetorical questions in
the first phrase (the first chorus begins: “Is that my name up on that list?
Does someone know that I exist?”; in the next phrase she answers: “That
is my name in black and white! Looks like I’m doing something right.”).
This seemingly cheesy modulation, though, does not cadence in F at the
end of the phrase. Instead, on Elle’s closing hook (“I am so much better
than before”), O’Keefe writes what Frank Lehman describes as a “caden-
tial switch” (2013, 5.2). First, Elle’s final three notes hint at a cadence on
the relative minor, landing on 6 in F. Next, the orchestra pivots to D major
through a fanfare-­like ♭VI–­♭VII–­I.12 After this switch, Elle’s next verse
begins where she left off—­now reinterpreting D as 5 of G major, the same
key as the opening.
As with “Wizard,” the transition out of the bridge—­returning to the
main theme—­is again the song’s first major highlight. Elle leaps up to a
 18 / here for the hearing

high E ♭ at the start of the chorus, a small change that makes the line much
more demanding to sing. The first chorus opens with a leap up to B on 5,
appropriately matching the lyric “Is that my name up on that list”; this is
four half steps lower than the E ♭ at the top of “I’m too busy lovin’ my name
up on that list” at the start of the post-­bridge chorus. By comparison, when
Elle modulates up to E major (returning us to the key that opens the first
chorus), “Look at my name” lands inconspicuously on 5, now back to B.
But this chorus is cut short. The E-­major hook cuts off at “I am so much
better—­” and immediately pumps up to F—­now with a stepwise modula-
tion across two different choruses. And since this line is the start of another
chorus, yet another stepwise modulation is inevitable; the song ends a
whole step higher than where the first chorus began.
Unlike Elphaba, Elle has already overcome a major obstacle in “So
Much Better.” Toward the end of her song, Elle’s mind is racing from one
task to the next (“Oo, wait, where’s my cell? . . . I’ll be there on Monday
nine o’clock . . . No, no, I can’t wait, I will be there at eight . . .”), and so
going just too far past that tonic return, when the song could have ended
earlier in the home key, reflects her unbounded excitement.13 Stepwise
modulation is considerably more common throughout the songs in
Legally Blonde than in Wicked. While many other pump-­up modulations
in the show are conventional, the tonic return in “So Much Better” turns
this device on its head. In a song where Elle’s transformation finally
yields the results that propel the plot of act 2, the pump-­up modulation
plays a fundamental role.

II. The Arranger’s Role: Underscore, Dance Breaks,

and Longer Numbers

All of the examples above are sung-­t hrough, without extended breaks of
any kind. Therefore, a majority of the melodic, harmonic, and tonal mate-
rial most likely originated with the composers. But songs with intensify-
ing direct modulations provide an opportunity for interpretive elements
that often lie beyond the purview of composers—­such as instrumentation
and specific accompanimental textures. For instance, in creating Wicked,
Schwartz collaborated with orchestrator William Brohn and arrangers
Alex Lacamoire and Stephen Oremus. An orchestrator’s job is often clear,
but an arranger’s function is more ambiguous. In personal correspondence,
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 19

Lacamoire discussed how the choice of keys in the sung-­t hrough numbers
belonged to Schwartz—­it was “part of the composition.” Lacamoire and
Oremus set the “groove,” essentially defining the musical material that
would go to each member of the orchestra’s rhythm section.14 Listening
through “Wizard” illustrates the potency of this collaboration. At the
“Unlimited” passage, the instrumentation changes radically—­including
the groove-­generating rhythm section, which drops out. By contrast, at the
B-­major arrival, the drums shift from heavy tom fills and cymbal crashes
to a steady pop-­rock groove that continues past the stepwise modulation,
right up to the final refrains in C. The only instrumental intensification at
the final key change—­a sixteenth-­note scalar run in the violins—­is left out
of the published piano-­vocal score.
Through the lens of the collaboration between composers, orchestra-
tors, and arrangers, we can see Brohn, Lacamoire, and Oremus reflecting
and amplifying Schwartz’s compositional and lyrical material. In musical
theater, “who did what?” is inevitably a blurry question.15
Orchestrators, arrangers, and choreographers all influence the music
that we play, or see on the page, or hear in a performance or on a record-
ing. In the following examples, I will discuss passages where these collab-
orators probably had a significant role in melodic, harmonic, and formal
decisions.
“’Til Him,” from Mel Brooks’s The Producers (2001), provides such an
example where alterations between versions of a number can affect our
hearing of key relationships. The first and final choruses are both in F
major; the middle, in E. The modulation back up after the middle chorus is
a “V–­V handover”—­t he orchestra swells to prepare a grand finale—­before
the nervous and aloof Max Bialystock cuts them off and begins the sing-
ing with unexpected tenderness. The first modulation is more drawn out,
as shown in Example 1.3. Max’s partner, Leo Bloom, ends his chorus on
a deceptive cadence, and the underscoring continues in D ♭ major. Even
before Max begins singing the second chorus, the orchestra modulates
to E, anticipating his entrance by six measures. In the soundtrack to the
film musical, not shown in the example, the passage that includes both
instrumental interludes is left out entirely—­and so the track can be heard
as resolving directly down and back up again.
Returning to “Show Off,” Janet’s not-­quite-­retirement number from
The Drowsy Chaperone, we see a conspicuous case of stepwise return to tonic
at the end of the dance break, well before the final key change. Following
 20 / here for the hearing

Example 1.3. “’Til Him”: modulations across choruses, via underscoring in

D ♭ major.

an extravagant authentic cadence in G ♭ major, with the entire ensemble

singing, a common-­tone pivot strongly implies a dominant (cadential) 64
in A major. The next four measures build excitement to the expected res-
olution with a rallentando and crescendo—­but the harmony resolves to
the dominant seventh chord a half step higher. At the intervening fermata,
Janet cartwheels from one corner of the stage to another before she finally
resumes singing (“Please! No more attention . . .”). Janet is resuming the
bridge, which begins on IV before resolving to tonic; as a result, while Jan-
et’s arrival is on E ♭ major, this is as a large-­scale modulation to B ♭ —­a step
above the grand buildup at the end of the dance break, and also the return
of the starting key. With all of this before Janet’s final chorus, her line “I
don’t wanna change keys no more” resonates with the entire number,
rather than the singular moment she is lampooning.
The opening number to Legally Blonde, “Omigod You Guys,” contains
another stepwise return to tonic in the middle of the song. Elle’s sorority
sisters open the show celebrating her expected engagement to her boy-
friend. The number includes a break in the musical action, when the sis-
ters realize they cannot find Elle at their house; a change of setting, from
the sorority house to the mall; and a musical interlude, when Elle outma-
neuvers a subpar sales clerk to find her dream dress. Most of this nearly
six-­minute number utilizes a single verse-­chorus module. The first two
verses are in E major; the first two choruses, in C. While the verses stay
in E major throughout, each C-­major chorus suddenly modulates up to E ♭
major at the cadence, before veering in yet another direction. When we are
finally introduced to Elle at the mall, she sings a solo verse-­chorus pair that
maintains the opening tonal relationship. She begins a half step lower, in
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 21

E ♭ major; and her chorus begins in B. The second phrase of the chorus,
though, modulates up to C—­a tonic return following contrasting sections
in distant keys as the sisters set out to find her.
This tonic return, though, is far from the end of the song. The last
verse-­chorus pair continues and expands on the internal modulation in
Elle’s chorus. The verse shifts up from E ♭ to E major after only four mea-
sures; the chorus, starting in C major, lifts up by minor third—­so that the
entire final chorus is in E ♭ major, the same key that the first two choruses
attempted at their cadences but failed to maintain.
For this number, stepwise modulations come in gradually, after another
key relationship is thwarted in early choruses. But eventually, pump-­up
modulations saturate the song, helping to reach the triumphant final key
change. Similarly to “So Much Better,” “Omigod You Guys” does rise by
step to reach the starting key, and once again, that is not entirely the point.
In the act 1 finale, tonic return occurs close to the end of the song; in the
musical’s opening number, a larger process is just getting started.

III. Not-­So-­Direct: Descending and Ascending by Step

Almost every Broadway song I know of that uses this device as simply
as possible—­down by step, then right back up—­modulates strangely.
The one song I know of that uses direct modulations exclusively is
“Colored Lights,” the opening of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s The Rink
(1984). The verses, primarily in A major, use V–­I and I–­V juxtapositions
into and out of (respectively) choruses in G major. These modulations
are subtle, contrasting a key change across the final two choruses, in
which an instrumental reverie uses the same pair of progressions to
descend briefly by another half step.16 It is the last time we hear the
protagonist Anna list the colors that have entranced her. In previous
choruses, the list ends conventionally with 2–­1; here, the final color
in the list ascends, but only by half step to ♭ 3 (“. . . and pink, and yel-
low, and green”). The entire song waxes nostalgic, but Anna is ambiv-
alent and forgetful. This visceral key change is over almost as soon
as it starts—­just two phrases in a fast-­paced waltz—­a nd so the earlier,
smoother shifts immediately become a distant memory.
By contrast, “Maybe,” from Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin’s
Annie (1977), uses an array of chromatic techniques across a classic AABA
 22 / here for the hearing

form. It begins in A major, descends to A ♭ major for the bridge, and ascends
back to A at the return of the main tune. This formal/tonal outline seems
simple, reflecting the innocence of what the orphan Annie imagines her
parents might be like.
In A′, Strouse disrupts a descending-­fifths sequence to modulate down-
ward. First, a briefly tonicized vi (F ♯ minor) progresses to V/V (B major)—­
the start of the sequence. But instead of progressing to V, as Strouse does
in A, he reinterprets the root, B ♮ , as a common tone with G major (“She’s
sitting playing pi-­a-­no, / He’s sitting paying . . .”). He then reiterates this
process: G major descends by fifth to C major, and then C becomes the
common tone to A ♭ (“. . . [a] bill. / Betcha they’re young . . .”). At first, G
major functions as an applied dominant to a chromatic harmony; in ret-
rospect, it’s the upward steppingstone between a fleeting local tonic and
reinterpreting ♭ 3 in a new key.
In B, Strouse again starts the modulating passage with vi, and ends
with a reinterpretation of ♭ 3—­only now, of course, a half step lower. The
bridge ends with Annie repeating 1 (A ♭) as the third above F minor (“Their
one mistake . . .”). Strouse eventually reinterprets this pitch as the leading
tone (G ♯) back to the original key, but only in retrospect: first, Annie moves
to A ♭ : ♭ 3 above iv7 (“. . . was giving up me”); then this harmony serves as a
pivot chord, reinterpreted as iii7 in A, which progresses to the dominant
and arrives back on tonic for A″.
This song is split between refrains of “Maybe” in each A and “Betcha”
in each B. The more definitive lyric lives in a key right below the more
uncertain one’s, and Annie only needs a single altered scale degree to
switch between them—­but the accompaniment complicates the relation-
ship these two worlds, placing them at odds with each other in spite of
their proximity.
In each version of the score to “Maybe” I have seen, the key signature
never changes in the bridge; instead, it is replete with accidentals.17 The
same is true of “A Little Bit in Love,” from Wonderful Town (1953), which
descends from F major to E major in the bridge and returns to F at the
arrival of A′′. In this song, Leonard Bernstein uses each modulation to
show that the protagonist, Eileen, is just beginning to acknowledge her
feelings of affection for Frank, the manager whose store she has visited
daily since moving from Ohio.
Eileen’s melody in the opening A section ends with a descent from C
to B ♭ , landing on 4 at a half cadence. In the next phrase, Eileen’s melody
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 23

moves up from F to B ♮ , tracing the three whole steps of the spanning tri-
tone. This B ♮ is the root of a dominant seventh chord, which resolves to E
major at the start of B. A direct descent from C to B ♮ in A′ would highlight
the downward shift from F to E major, and B ♮ would be immediately recog-
nizable as a lowered 5. Instead, Eileen’s ♯ 4 grates against the dominant sev-
enth underneath.
The return to A flips this melodic/harmonic clash: Eileen’s melody
directly confirms the shift from one key to another. She ascends from 3 to
5 in E major, and then reaches a half step further to 5+ (following Buchler)
in F major. As expected, the top note of this melody is supported by a C7
harmony. Yet the three sonorities before it are surprising: rather than,
for instance, IV 7–­ii7–­V 7 beneath the diatonic ascent in E major, Bernstein
planes chromatic seventh chords that cloud the tonal certainty offered by
Eileen’s melody.
Throughout the entire song, Eileen muses over her confusion—­not
concerned or worried, but intrigued. Her first lyric sets up her amusement,
humming at first and then singing, “Mm, I’m a little bit in love.”18 In B,
she repeats a steady chromatic cluster that reflects her newfound attrac-
tion: “[everything’s hazy] and all out of focus . . . a strange hocus pocus.”
The modulations between phrases heighten this sensation. At the end of
A′ Eileen sings about feeling “perhaps a little bit more,” and her melody
emphasizes the scale degree just a “little bit” past where she had ended the
first half of the section. At the end of B she gives up on trying to articulate
her feelings: “I don’t know / But I know / If it’s love / Then it’s lovely.”
The last line provides certainty, aligned with a C7 harmony that resolves
at the start of A″ to F major. These modulations almost encourage Eileen’s
ambivalence: on the one hand, the complex interactions of melody and
harmony reflect the anxieties of being in love; on the other, the ultimately
simple structure reflects her untroubled whimsy.
“Unworthy of Your Love,” from Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins
(1991/2004), follows the same general path as “A Little Bit in Love”—­down
by step, and back up again—­but it occurs over the scope of the entire num-
ber, rather than within a single chorus (Example 1.4). “Unworthy” is a love
duet in which neither singer addresses the other. It alternates between
two would-­be assassins, singing to the (absent) people with whom they
are (were) obsessed. John Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate Ronald
Reagan, sings to Jodie Foster; Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, who attempted
to assassinate Gerald Ford, sings to Charles Manson. The duet is set in a
 24 / here for the hearing

Example 1.4. “Unworthy of Your Love”: modulation up by whole step, from the
end of the bridge to the duet chorus (home key marked with asterisks).

folk-­rock style, which provides a darkly humorous backdrop to Hinck-

ley and Fromme’s lyrics. Even the form is conventional: Hinckley sings
a verse-­chorus pair, followed by Fromme, and they sing together for the
bridge and final chorus.
Sondheim sets up a strictly utilitarian tonal relationship between
verse-­chorus pairs, with Hinckley singing B major and Fromme singing
in A. Such key changes account most commonly for singers’ ranges, free
of dramatic subtext. In this case, though, the lack of intensification in
this passage heightens the duet’s irony. This song is preceded by a scene
between the two characters: Fromme mocks Hinckley for stalking Jodie
Foster and leaves the stage, calling Hinckley a “fruit.” Hinckley, alone,
writes yet another letter to his “dearest Jodie” before picking up his gui-
tar and beginning the song. Until Fromme sings, the song sounds like
Hinckley’s intimate solo. And although the modulation is utilitarian, the
descent of key by whole step allows Fromme’s verse to pick up on the same
pitch where Hinckley left off: C ♯ as 2 on a half cadence becomes 3 on tonic
in the new key. The smoothness of this segue, combined with its unex-
pectedness, forges a connection that the pair seems to resist in the preced-
ing scene. Fromme’s verse even begins with the same words as Hinckley’s,
but she twists his somewhat kind opening line: “I am / Nothing / You are /
Wind and water and sky” becomes “. . . Wind and Devil and God.”
As with “A Little Bit in Love,” the return to tonic in “Unworthy” is
circuitous. The bridge cuts off Fromme’s chorus before she reaches the
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 25

expected half cadence. Instead, Hinckley begins a call-­and-­response on

ii in A major. In the final measures of the bridge, shown in Example 1.4,
Hinckley and Fromme are singing a high B while the bass descends from
F ♯ to F ♮ ; the vocal B holds over as the bass descends one more half step,
arriving on an E-­major harmony.
This may seem to be the arrival of the dominant harmony that was
missing from the end of Fromme’s solo in A major, but instead, it begins
a brand-­new chorus as IV in B. Whereas the transition from Hinckley to
Fromme proceeds through a “V–­I juxtaposition,” the transition from the
bridge to the duet chorus denies the arrival of the expected dominant har-
mony at all.19
The modulations in this duet—­t he utilitarian transition from Hinck-
ley’s solo to Fromme’s, and the dramatic upward shift for the final chorus—­
are fairly typical musical devices in the style that Sondheim evokes for
“Unworthy.” The melodic smoothness at each seam, though, is rare. The
two assassins in this scene view their individual emotions as more import-
ant than anything else in the world, and the alternation between their
lyrics shows them in a kind of competition with each other. But the unex-
pected musical connections through the song show that as they reject
their commonalities, in doing so, they are lying to themselves.

IV. Stepwise Modulation to Tonic at

Other Formal Junctures

In all the above examples, the stepwise return to tonic coincides with
the arrival of a chorus or A section (in the case of songs that don’t have
distinct verse-­chorus pairs)—­or it occurs within this section, such as in
“The Wizard and I,” “So Much Better,” and “Omigod You Guys.” But other
songs use this highly charged modulation at unexpected formal junctures.
“Defying Gravity,” the end to act 1 of Wicked, provides a straightforward
example into a verse: Elphaba’s final solo in the number (“So if you care to
find me . . .”) confirms a modulation from B major to D ♭ , the opening key;
unlike “The Wizard and I,” where the showstopping key change precedes
the tonic return, these events coincide in the first-­act finale. The remain-
ing examples similarly consider stepwise modulations back to tonic during
and into formally distinct verses, as well as across longer formal sections
that have internal key changes.
 26 / here for the hearing

“I Can Cook, Too,” from Bernstein’s On the Town (1944), is structured

similarly to “A Little Bit in Love”: two refrains bookend a contrasting
section one step lower. But in “Cook,” the modulation back to tonic hap-
pens during the verse. Each key change in the song reflects a lyrical shift
from boastful to modest—­and back again. “I Can Cook, Too” is Hildy (the
New York cabbie)’s song of seduction, which she sings to Chip (the visit-
ing sailor) in her apartment. Amid a twenty-­four-­hour shore leave in the
city, Chip begins the scene distracted: he is trying to help his fellow sailor,
Gabey, find “Miss Turnstiles,” a pageant winner whose poster they spotted
earlier on the subway. In “I Can Cook, Too,” Hildy convinces Chip to turn
his attention to her.
At the start of the verse—­t he downward shift in key—­t he song’s fast-­
swinging texture relaxes amid a conventional “V–­ V transformation.”
Hildy introspectively—­at first—­compares herself to “some girls,” who
“make magazine covers” and “keep house on a dime.” The second half of
the verse, though, is the punchline: She’s one of those girls. Meanwhile,
the song shifts back up to the starting key, and a long crescendo builds to
the return of the refrain eight measures later.
Example 1.5 shows the surprisingly gradual modulation that accompa-
nies this setup-­punchline frame. The melody begins identically in each
phrase, differentiated only by the stepwise relationship and new lyrics.
The melodic repetition suggests a full return to G major, but the first
harmony is the subdominant, not tonic. This passage is closely related to a
standard “V–­I” ascending modulation: when the two keys are a whole step
apart, the pivoting V chord is reinterpreted in hindsight as IV in the new
key. But Bernstein delays the arrival of the expected V in F major: rather
than appearing at the end of the first phrase, it begins the second, when
Hildy has already arrived melodically at the next key. Bernstein finally
confirms the supporting tonic two measures later, when Hildy sings her
second affirmation (“I do keep house on a dime”). Hildy is connecting the
dots for Chip: he may be preoccupied by a mythically perfect woman he
has yet to meet, but he is already in the same room as a woman who is the
complete package.
In “Intermission Song,” the opening number of Michael R. Jackson’s
Pulitzer Prize and Tony ­w inning musical A Strange Loop (Off Broadway
2019, Broadway 2022), these tonal relationships are less subtle; they also
have intertextual connections beyond the show. A Strange Loop is about a
Black queer playwright named Usher, who hates his day job as an usher;
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 27

Example 1.5. “I Can Cook, Too,” verse: beginning (left); modulation up by whole
step in second phrase (right).

he is trying to write a musical about a Black queer playwright who hates

his day job—­hence, its name. The musical opens with Usher’s “Thoughts,”
personified by six additional Black queer performers, pelting him with
questions about his project during an intermission of The Lion King. Ush-
er’s goal aligns with Jackson’s: to create a “Big, Black, and queer-­ass Amer-
ican Broadway show.”
Jackson has frequently noted the structural and stylistic references of
his musical to Sondheim’s Company (1970), which cemented Sondheim’s
and producer-­director Hal Prince’s reputations as Broadway mavericks.
Instead of Usher and his Thoughts, the perennially single Robert celebrates
his thirty-­fifth birthday in nonlinear scenes with his friends—­five mar-
ried (or soon-­to-­be-­married) couples. His friends are calling him through
the opening number, with affectionate nicknames: “Bobby, Bobby baby,
Bobby bubby, Robert darling, Rob-­o . . .” This contrasts with the Thoughts
folding over Usher’s name in repetitious counterpoint—­hearkening back
to Jackson’s own experience as an usher, when he was summoned by his
job title by older, white theatergoers feigning respectability.
Figure 1.1 does not show the key change back to tonic; instead, it notes
the similarities in tonal relationships between the first sections of “Com-
pany” and “Intermission Song.” Both songs’ verses are a half-­step higher
than their respective choruses, which are in turn prepared by similar ele-
vations: In “Company,” from Verse B to the pre-­chorus, Sondheim ascends
by three whole steps on extended tertian sonorities to the dominant of the
 28 / here for the hearing

Figure 1.1. Comparisons between form and key through the first halves of
“Company” (chorus leads to a verse in a new key) and of “A Strange Loop” (chorus
leads to a verse without modulation); note that these charts do not show
modulations back to the home keys.

Figure 1.1a. Chart for “Company.”

Figure 1.1b. Chart for “A Strange Loop.”

new key; in “Intermission Song,” from the pre-­chorus to the chorus, Jack-
son runs through a series of pump-­up modulations until suddenly drop-
ping down to the new tonic by tritone.20
But the last column in each diagram is where the songs diverge.
Sondheim modulates at the end of the chorus by minor third, and so the
second verse begins a whole step higher than the first; Jackson does not
change keys, and stays a half step down. Eventually, “Company” follows
the same tonal path it did in the first half of the song—­w ith similarly rich
counterpoint through the entire second verse—­ultimately closing a half
step higher than where it began. By contrast, “Intermission Song” has an
abbreviated second verse, returning to the introductory calls, and—­w ith
the Thoughts singing in unison, not counterpoint—­shifts back up to the
opening key.
The thematic return heralded by tonal return is emotionally wrought.
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 29

Each attempt at a verse is interrupted by a snippet of the chorus trying to

break through, and it finally does only when Usher’s Thoughts are at their
most toxic: “Lacking both in craft and rigor / Cause you’re just a fucking—­/
Big, Black, and queer-­ass American Broadway . . .”
A Strange Loop confronts Broadway’s structural whiteness. In “Inter-
mission Song” Jackson does not use “Company” as a mold as much as a
springboard. By the end of the song we finally hear “Usher, Usher” in lyric
counterpoint—­a cappella, as the protagonist, wavering between writer’s
block and identity crisis, repeats “Oh my God, oh my God.”
A duet from Sondheim’s Follies (1971) takes these blurred modula-
tions further. “Too Many Mornings” is between two would-­be lovers, Ben
and Sally, both of whom married the other’s best friend. The couples are
attending the thirty-­year reunion of the fictionalized “Weisman Follies,”
during which nearly everyone on stage is haunted by their younger self
(played by a corresponding younger actor). Ben and Sally confess their
feelings for each other in the duet—­but the romance is imbalanced, as Ben
sings first to Young Sally before her present-­day counterpart says, “If you
don’t kiss me, Ben, I’m going to die.” By the end of the duet Ben and Sally
are embracing and singing together—­but this harmonious ending precipi-
tates a collective emotional collapse.
Each of the three verses—­Ben’s and Sally’s, and their duet—­ends a tri-
tone away from where it began. Ben’s verse starts in B ♭ major and promises
a cadence in E major, but ends on a deceptive cadence, landing on ♭VI. This
cadence elides with the start of the next verse, now in C major, a step above
where Ben’s verse began.
Sally’s verse does reach an authentic cadence, in the now-­expected F ♯
major, through a new closing melody. The duet rises by step twice more,
eventually reaching the starting key again. First, Ben repeats Sally’s clos-
ing melody an enharmonic step higher, in A ♭ major; he answers her ques-
tion “Was it ever real?” with “It was always real.” Next, the interlude before
the final verse—­during which the lovers sing together—­r ises to B ♭ major;
unlike Ben’s opening solo, the duet reaches an authentic cadence, and con-
cludes in E major.
Based strictly on this overview, the return to the starting key is fairly
direct. The modulations themselves are far from dramatic “intensifica-
tions,” though—­indeed, as shown in Example 1.6, the orchestral texture
is sparse throughout. The exact moment marking each key change is also
unclear. In m. 71, right at the cadence in F ♯ major, the harp begins playing
 30 / here for the hearing

Example 1.6. “Too Many Mornings”: Stepwise modulations from Sally’s solo (F♯
major) to duet (B ♭ major).

C ♮ ; when Ben’s melody comes in on the same pitch, it sounds at first like
a chromatic lower neighbor of 5 and is only retroactively confirmed as 3
in A ♭ major. During the instrumental interlude, the harp oscillates on the
same pitches above a bass line that simply shifts up from A ♭ to B ♭ , con-
founding the arrival of B ♭ major until the lovers finally sing 3 together.
The three stepwise modulations in this song are not equivalent in form.
The first, which precedes Example 1.6, is from Ben’s solo to Sally’s (B ♭ to
C), a larger-­scale connection between verses; the second is an immediate
repetition of a phrase (F ♯ to A ♭); the third links the end of a verse to the
start of another. The last of these, direct as it is at the surface, is in fact the
most questionable. If the repeated closing melody reaches a cadence in A ♭
major, and the corresponding passage in the duet verse reaches a cadence
in E major, is it accurate to call the transition a “stepwise ascent”? This
large-­scale descending major-­third relationship lurks beneath the surface-­
level stepwise modulation. Like Ben loving Sally for who she was, or Sally
expecting a kiss to fulfill what she’s missed, the stepwise ascent is illusory,
masking the fall to where the song began.

Conclusion

A corpus study would probably reveal more examples of this paradoxi-

cal tonal relationship, at least in the arrangements and orchestrations of
extended numbers such as the opening of Legally Blonde or “Show Off” in
The Drowsy Chaperone—­where the composer is not the only person writing
the notes of a song or number, and it is up to a collaborator to decide how
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 31

to bridge a gap between two different parts of a single song. This is a tricky
avenue to pursue: cast recordings are almost always abridged, and when
mounting revivals, part of the production process often includes writing
new orchestrations and arrangements, which often feature modulations
to different keys. Despite these obstacles, such an undertaking might not
only yield more examples; it may also open further avenues to understand
how specific key relationships can relate to dramatic circumstances, shed-
ding new light on the sentimentality and affective excess of a musical phe-
nomenon that has swept up so many of us.

Notes
1. This chapter furthers the research of a paper I presented at the 2015 Soci-
ety for Music Theory Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO. My thanks to William
Marvin, Bret McCandles, and Patrick McLaughlin, who introduced me to “A Little
Bit in Love,” “’Til Him,” and “Colored Lights,” respectively; and to Judah Cohen,
under whose mentorship I began this project.
2. Unless otherwise noted, dates of musicals correspond to their Broadway
openings.
3. The duet has actually modulated to G major, but a musically accurate lyric
would force a clumsy neologism (“but as everyone can gueff . . .”).
4. Though they abounded in film long before: as submitted on the wiki All-
TheTropes, two examples include “Everybody Wants to be a Cat,” from The Aris-
tocats (1970)—­“Let’s take it to another key / Modulate, and wait for me”; and the
title song from High Anxiety (1977)—­“Key change!” shouted by Mel Brooks, before
the final chorus, which is recalled in “Haben Sie gehört das deutsche Band” from
Brooks’s The Producers (2001). Stephen Farrow, via the Facebook group CAST
RECORDINGS, notes an example from The Hunting of the Snark (1987); other group
members, including Kenneth Brock, note the word painting in the Credo of Bern-
stein’s Mass (1971).
5. See also Robert Komaniecki’s analysis of the number in this volume.
6. Ricci’s (2017) overview of pop-­rock pump-­up modulations includes a table
of ten different names given this compositional device by songwriters, critics,
musicologists, and music theorists, including Josefs’s “Arranger’s Modulation”
and McCreless’s “Barry Manilow Tonality.” In this paper I use a number of the
(less loaded) terms rather interchangeably to indicate ascending stepwise mod-
ulation, including “shift,” “direct stepwise modulation,” and “pump-­up,” unless
otherwise noted.
7. Griffiths chooses the term “elevating” for its functionality: “recall that the
elevator . . . goes down as well as up” (28).
8. The four “types” that each author discusses support the directness of the
 32 / here for the hearing

direct stepwise modulation. The Roman numeral on the left of each en dash is
in the original key; the Roman numeral on the right, in the new key. In addition
to I–­V described in text, there is also I–­I, V–­V, and V–­I (which Griffiths refers to
respectively as “juxtaposition,” “handover,” and again “juxtaposition”).
9. In a 2006 concert at the Kennedy Center billed “An Evening with Stephen
Schwartz,” the composer/lyricist described this delay of the highest note in “The
Wizard and I” in light of the performance capabilities of Idina Menzel, who orig-
inated the role of Elphaba on Broadway: “Here’s what we know about Idina Men-
zel: we know that she’s going to come out and belt, ’cause that’s what Idina does.
So what if . . . I make them wait a really, really long time for her to belt?”
10. I am indebted to Sue Swaney for this dramatic interpretation of key struc-
ture in “The Wizard and I.”
11. YouTuber Hilmi Jaidin has juxtaposed all of the song’s key changes in the
original Broadway cast recording (OBCR)—­including from verse to chorus—­into
one thirteen-­second clip. https://youtu.be/m7GtS8QFZ28 (accessed March 28,
2022).
12. In this paragraph, Lehman notes a similarly kaleidoscopic progression at
the end of the film Key Largo, for which Max Steiner’s score concludes with a fan-
fare that switches from E ♭ major to C via a “Picardy-­aeolian cadence (♭VI–­♭VII–­I ).”
13. In a video recording of a 2010 event that offered a preview of Seattle’s 5th
Avenue Theatre production, with O’Keefe at the piano and Annaleigh Ashford
singing, the ascent between the last two choruses is omitted—­and so the final
chorus begins in E major, key at the start of Chorus 1, yet still shifts up to F major
at the internal modulation; as a result, the song in this performance ends a half
step higher, rather than a whole step. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKqm​
ylM4R-Q (accessed March 28, 2022).
14. Alex Lacamoire, email message to author, October 23, 2015.
15. Suskin (2009) describes anecdotal examples in golden-­age musical the-
ater songs where an arranger or orchestrator’s work has a significant melodic or
harmonic effect on the number as most commonly performed; McHugh (2015)
investigates composers such as Rodgers, Loesser, and Porter and their working
relationships with their musical collaborators.
16. In the original production, the penultimate chorus starts a dance break in
F major, a whole step lower than the first two choruses; this is where the song ulti-
mately ends. In the Kander and Ebb revue And the World Goes Round (Off Broadway
1991), every chorus except the reverie is in the same key.
17. The harmony occasionally changes, too: in the vocal selections, “was giving
up me” is all supported by V of the original key, without the intermediary pivot
chord.
18. In the Leonard Bernstein Collection at the Library of Congress, an early
sketch of this song is in fact called “MM.”
19. It is also viable to interpret the chord at the end of the bridge as an applied
 “Was It Ever Real?” / 33

dominant of the subsequent E major chord, rewritten as a tritone substitution.

The arrival of IV in B major, then, functions as a resolution—­t hough one without
an applied leading tone, which would introduce D ♯ before the modulation at the
beginning of Chorus 3.
20. In the earliest version of “Intermission Song,” available on Jackson’s You-
Tube channel, the sequence from A to D major was originally set to a series of
names beginning with the letters A, B, C, and D during each respective key: par-
ents calling for their children to behave or be patient at the theater. https://www​
.youtube.com/watch?v=ItA7w8aA6o4 (accessed March 28, 2022).

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Jaidin, Hilmi. “Ruining Musicals, ep. 1: Laurence O’Keefe with no key changes.”
Hilmi Jaidin, June 23, 2019, YouTube video, 5:22. https://www.youtube.com/wat​
ch?v=m7GtS8QFZ28
Jarvis, Brian Edward, and John Peterson. 2020. “Detour or Bridge? Contrasting Sec-
tions and Storytelling in Musical Theater.” SMT-­V 6 (2).
 34 / here for the hearing

Lehman, Frank. 2013. “Hollywood Cadences: Music and the Structure of Cinematic
Expectation.” Music Theory Online 19 (4).
McHugh, Dominic. 2015. “‘I’ll Never Know Exactly Who Did What’: Broadway Com-
posers as Musical Collaborators.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 68
(3): 605–­52.
Neal, Jocelyn R. 2007. “Narrative Paradigms, Musical Signifiers, and Form as Func-
tion in Country Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 29 (1): 41–­72.
Ricci, Adam. 2017. “The Pump-­Up in Pop Music of the 1970s and 1980s.” Music Anal-
ysis 36 (1): 94–­115.
Robinson, Danielle. 2009. “Performing American: Ragtime Dancing as Participatory
Minstrelsy.” Dance Chronicle 32 (1): 89–­126.
Shelley, Braxton D. 2019. “Analyzing Gospel.” Journal of the American Musicological
Society 72 (1): 181–­243.
Suskin, Stephen. 2009. The Sound of Broadway Music. New York: Oxford University
Press.
2 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality
Drew Nobile

Introduction: Sondheim as Composer

In October 2017, T Magazine ran a feature on Stephen Sondheim with

the headline “Stephen Sondheim, Theater’s Greatest Lyricist” (Miranda
2017). Though that headline was certainly meant as a sign of deference—­
after all, many might bestow that title on the article’s author, Lin-­Manuel
Miranda—­the compliment could be seen as a bit backhanded. Sondheim,
of course, is not merely a lyricist, but a composer-­lyricist; as Stephen Ban-
field has noted, the effusive praise of Sondheim’s skills as a wordsmith
often implies reservations about his musical contributions (Banfield 1993,
1). Though Sondheim is far from unappreciated in that regard, the bulk
of the criticism lodged against him targets his music. Sondheim got so
tired of others claiming he couldn’t compose a memorable melody that he
worked that criticism into his 1981 show Merrily We Roll Along: the main
characters’ big-­talking producer complains that “there’s not a tune you
can hum,” followed by a not-­so-­subtle reference to South Pacific’s “Some
Enchanted Evening” (“Opening Doors,” No. 16, mm. 122–­170).1 If the
composer felt pressure to write more like Richard Rodgers, it is probably
because many viewed Sondheim as the only one capable of carrying on
Broadway’s golden-­age legacy through the second half of the twentieth
century (see Sternfeld and Wollman 2011, 122). Indeed, Rodgers and Sond-
heim are often paired as the composers responsible for Broadway’s two

/ 35 /
 36 / here for the hearing

sweeping style shifts in the twentieth century: first, Rodgers and Ham-
merstein’s 1943 Oklahoma! ushered in the “integrated” musical—­where
songs reflect and reinforce the dramatic narrative instead of serving as
plot-­adjacent song-­and-­dance numbers—­and next, Sondheim’s 1970 Com-
pany pivoted theater toward the “concept” musical, where all elements
of the show—­book, lyrics, music, scenery, staging, etc.—­act in service of
some central dramatic idea (see, e.g., Block 2011).
Sondheim’s association with the concept musical has led critics and
analysts to concentrate largely on his ability to coordinate words and music
in service of the drama. The small number of Sondheim studies that can
be considered music-­analytical in nature—­foremost among them Stephen
Banfield’s 1993 monograph Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals, plus a handful of
more recent dissertations (Purin 2011; Hudlow 2013; Blustein 2020)—­focus
especially on his strategic use of Wagnerian leitmotifs and stylistic pastiche.2
Both are central aspects of Sondheim’s compositional style; his manuscript
sketches show elaborately conceived motivic schemes (see, e.g., Horowitz
2010, 82–­83), and Sondheim’s own comments reveal that he consciously
emulates specific composers and styles, referring to this or that moment
as the “Chopin thing” or “Stravinsky motif” (Horowitz 2010, 21, 128).3 But
what is also clear, and what I would like to focus on in this essay, is that
Sondheim considers harmony to be the most important aspect of musical
composition. “Harmony is what makes music,” he says; “Rhythm and mel-
ody? That’s secondary. Harmony is what it’s about, as far as I’m concerned”
(Swayne 1999, 345; see also Horowitz 2010, 198). Sondheim’s harmonic lan-
guage grows out of a unique approach to tonality, one rooted in tradition but
adapted to fit both the postmodern aesthetic of the late twentieth century
and the demands of commercialized musical theater.
In this essay, I offer some preliminary steps toward a theory of Sond-
heimian tonality. While each of Sondheim’s shows establishes its own
harmonic sound world, I aim to demonstrate that in Sondheim’s mature
output—­defined as his Broadway shows from 1970 onward—­t hose show-­
specific idioms are all built on a consistent tonal foundation basic to his
idiosyncratic style.4 In particular, Sondheim’s compositional framework
allows striking dissonance to pervade the harmonic layer without obscur-
ing listeners’ sense of key; as the composer himself puts it, “they don’t
feel Schoenberged into anything” (Horowitz 2010, 159). My discussion of
Sondheim’s tonality further aims to put his music in dialogue with trends
in twentieth-­century tonal music outside the Broadway sphere. Steve
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 37

Swayne has cataloged Sondheim’s extensive classical (small c) influences,

and so it seems natural to consider him alongside not only Lloyd Webber
and Schwartz but also Britten, Vaughan Williams, and Hindemith (Swayne
2005). To this end, I will make use of concepts from Daniel Harrison’s the-
oretical investigation of the contemporary tonal repertoire in his recent
book Pieces of Tradition (2016). Harrison does not mention Sondheim in his
book, and Broadway examples make only occasional appearances, but his
target repertoire of “backwards-­compatible” music that inherited and sup-
plemented common-­practice tonality perfectly describes Sondheim, who
lists his classical roots as “Brahms through 1930s Stravinsky” (see Swayne
2005, 44). Through applying Harrison’s theory to Sondheim, I suggest that
his relationship to classical tonality is not only one of influence, but rather
mirrors the stylistic developments across twentieth-­century art music.
I first lay some theoretical groundwork aimed toward an understand-
ing of Sondheim’s basic harmonic vocabulary. I show that Sondheim’s dis-
sonant sonorities derive from a small number of fundamental chords that
are “colored” (as Harrison puts it) with additional, often chromatic tones.
Following the theoretical portion, I turn to two larger analyses showing
how Sondheim deploys his tonal system for dramatic effect. I begin with
Sunday in the Park with George, whose cacophonous cluster dissonances
eventually give way to serene diatonicism as the painter distills chaos into
an artistic magnum opus. I conclude with Into the Woods, which refuses
to resolve 4 to 3 until the characters abandon their selfish pursuits for the
greater good. These two analyses demonstrate that Sondheim’s musical-
ization of drama is not only a matter of explicit signifiers such as leitmotifs
and strategic pastiche, but also infuses the deepest levels of his composi-
tional idiom. Sondheim’s tonal system forms a distinctive blend of func-
tional tonality and modernist techniques devised to maximize the poten-
tial for dramatic expression while remaining accessible (and marketable)
to musical-­theater audiences and critics.5

Note on Examples and Editions

As is the case with most Broadway composers, Sondheim does not orches-
trate his own shows, so the final document he prepares himself is a piano-­
vocal score. The subsequently orchestrated version results in a piano-­
conductor score used in performance; rarely does a full orchestral score
 38 / here for the hearing

exist. For many of Sondheim’s shows, the first published vocal score was
a reduction of this piano-­conductor score rather than Sondheim’s own
piano-­vocal score. In 2010–­2012, Rilting Music, in consultation with
Sondheim, published revised editions of most of Sondheim’s shows pre-
pared instead from the composer’s original scores. (Those that were not
revised for this set—­Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Company,
and Follies—­had previously been published based on Sondheim’s scores.)
All musical examples in this essay, including song and measure numbers,
refer to the revised editions. Full publication information for the editions
used appears in the bibliography. For clarity (and to comply with copyright
restrictions), this essay’s examples are presented in reduced form, rhyth-
mically simplified and often using “octave-­dropped” treble and bass clefs
to avoid excessive ledger lines. Readers are encouraged to consult the pub-
lished scores whenever possible, especially in regard to the longer analyses
in the final section.

Zones

It will prove helpful to think of Sondheim’s music in terms of three com-

positional zones: the bass zone, the chordal zone, and the melodic zone.
The first two together constitute the accompaniment—­t he piano part in
Sondheim’s vocal scores—­and the third resides in the voice parts. Bass and
chordal zones differentiate themselves by occupying distinct registers,
which correspond to Daniel Harrison’s “root space” (below C3, which is
an octave below middle C) and “chord space” (C3 through C6) (Harrison
2016, 104–­5). Sondheim typically fills his bass zone with slow-­moving
lines, which may be doubled at the octave (as in example 2.13) or fifth
(as in example 2.1), or expanded through Broadway’s favorite “oom-­pah”
figure (as in example 2.14). The chordal zone generally consists of what
we think of as “chords”—­vertical sonorities of three or more notes, often
texturized through repetition (example 2.2) or arpeggiation (example
2.8)—­but sometimes contains inner melodies in counterpoint with the
melodic zone (example 2.3c). The melodic zone is, of course, the vocal mel-
ody, which sometimes involves sophisticated polyphony (Sweeney Todd’s
“God, That’s Good,” for example) and/or multivoice harmonies forming
a chordal profile of their own. The melodic zone tends to be diatonic and
anchored to the bass line in counterpoint, though it does not always follow
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 39

the bass’s implied harmonies. The three zones operate with various levels
of coordination, sometimes working in sync but at other times seeming
entirely independent, often clashing in harsh dissonance.
In this essay, I focus mainly on the bass and chordal zones, the latter
being the primary agent of dramatic dissonance. I consider the two accom-
paniment zones individually, showing how the bass projects harmonic
function and the chordal zone colors the basic chord functions in various
ways depending on the dramatic situation.

Bass Zone

“Musical harmony, as you know, moves by bass line. That is the motive
that changes things.” So says Sondheim (quoted in Horowitz 2010, 17), and
despite his reputation for dissonance and hard-­to-­hum melodies, his bass
lines are firmly grounded in standard tonal practice, generally centering
on 1, 4, and 5 with various levels of embellishment. In fact, the simplicity
of the bass is what allows him to incorporate so much dissonance. Sond-
heim’s above statement continues with “And it doesn’t matter how you
screw around with the notes on top; if the bass remains solidly consistent,
it’s going to sound that way throughout.” In other words, harmonic func-
tion is essentially determined by the bass alone. Sondheim’s bass notes
act as what Daniel Harrison (following Hindemith) calls “root represen-
tatives”: bass notes that are sufficiently emphasized to act as functional
chord roots even in the absence of a third or fifth above them (Harrison
2016, 111–­1 2).
Thus, 1 planted firmly in the bass zone will project tonic function no
matter what other notes sound on top. Similarly, 4 projects subdominant
function and 5 projects dominant. Other bass notes will likewise act as
roots: 6 will usually indicate VI and 2 will usually indicate II (or, in certain
contexts, V/V).6 A few examples are in order. Example 2.1 gives a reduced
version of the accompaniment to “Being Alive” from Company. Despite
chord structures combining tertian and quartal stacks with the occa-
sional chromatic embellishment, the bass settles into a clear and standard
I–­V I–­I V–­II–­V progression. Example 2.2 shows the middle section of the
“Johanna” sequence from act 2 of Sweeney Todd. Here, the bass persists on
a tonic pedal (embellished through an oom-­pah texture) while the chordal
zone becomes increasingly dissonant, its highest voice following the mel-
 40 / here for the hearing

Example 2.1. “Being Alive” (Company): chordal reduction of first vocal phrase
(mm. 3–­11).

Example 2.2. “Johanna (Todd)” (Sweeney Todd, No. 20): chordal reduction of “City
on Fire” section, mm. 57–­86.

ody through an octatonic scale over whole-­tone-­flavored clusters in its

lower three notes. The disconnect between chords and bass reflects the
disconnect between Sweeney’s peace with his new purpose (killing every-
one) and the chaos it sows in the outside world. Despite the dissonance, we
never lose the sense of tonic function.
Tonic pedals such as this are common in Sondheim’s songs. Sondheim
has talked a lot about his use of pedal tones, the gist being that he sees
them as a way to free up the chordal zone without losing the tonal ground-
ing (for the sake of both the composer and the audience).7 In addition,
pedal tones generate a significant amount of anticipation of the moment
the pedal will break. Sondheim refers to the “wonderful tension that
occurs . . . in pedal points—­t he waiting for the release” (Horowitz 2010,
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 41

158). Sondheim’s tonic pedals tend to break by moving to IV, often accom-
panying a melodic apex, a formal shift, and/or an important lyric (Sond-
heim: “you change chords . . . when you’re changing thoughts” [Horow-
itz 2010, 199]). Typical examples include Into the Woods’s “Agony” (as the
prince cries “Agony!”), Sunday in the Park with George’s “We Do Not Belong
Together” (on the title line), Merrily We Roll Along’s “Old Friends” (on “are
we or are we unique?”), Sweeney Todd’s “Wait” (on “I’ve been thinking flow-
ers”), Pacific Overtures’s “The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the
Sea” (on “kings are burning”), Assassins’ “Another National Anthem” (on
“it says listen”), and many others.

Chordal zone

With the bass zone providing the tonal grounding and the melodic zone
reflecting the expression of the characters’ agency, the chordal zone
becomes the primary carrier of dramatic significance. Sondheim’s chords
comment on the drama by inserting sharp dissonances into otherwise dia-
tonic frameworks, as we saw in example 2.2. But not all dissonance has
dramatic meaning. Sondheim’s basic harmonic palette does not consist of
the pure triads and seventh chords of classical-­era tonality, nor is it the
extended tertian stacks characteristic of Tin Pan Alley and jazz. Instead,
Sondheim builds from fundamental, dissonant chord types involving cer-
tain combinations of stacked fifths and thirds, which differ based on the
harmonic function involved. The autonomy and power of the bass allows
these dissonant chords to sound stable, reflecting what Harrison calls “rel-
ativized” consonance (2016, 97).
Sondheim’s fundamental tonic sonority is what many would call an
“added-­ninth” chord, combining 1, 2, 3, and 5. But the added ninth is not
really “added,” in the sense that Sondheim does not treat this chord as a
triad with an extra note. I find it more appropriate to consider it a combina-
tion of two fifths and two thirds stacked above the tonic. We have already
seen this chord in action in the first and last measures of example 2.2, and
it will appear again in examples 2.9, 2.12, 2.16, and 2.17. The first chord
in example 2.1 enlarges this basic tonic chord by adding another note to
the fifth stack, resulting in the sonority 1–­2–­3 –­5 –­6. (This five-­note tonic
seems to be the default in Company, also appearing in “Company,” “The
Ladies Who Lunch,” and “Sorry-­Grateful,” among others.) Example 2.1
 42 / here for the hearing

further demonstrates one of Sondheim’s hallmark accompaniment pat-

terns: an expansion of tonic through an alternation of a chord with 3 and
a chord with 4. The former acts as a state of repose and the latter acts as a
state of quiet tension, the oscillation creating a sense of motion over the
static bass pedal. The chord with 4 is still a tonic chord even if it begins to
resemble IV or V 7 in its pitch collection; the oscillation is a voice-­leading
phenomenon, and with the bass firmly planted on tonic it is less a chord
progression than motion within a single chord.
Sondheim uses oscillations between 3 and 4 over a tonic pedal through-
out his output. It seems to be his way of indicating the launch of a song. With
Sondheim’s stylistic blurring of the book/number boundary through sung
dialogue and instrumental underscore, the tonic 3–­4 oscillation acts as a
signal that we are entering “lyric time,” stepping out of the plot-­advancing
“book time” for a reflective number (see McMillin 2006, chapter 2). Example
2.3 shows some representative examples, with accompaniments presented
in reduction to better show the chordal structure. Follies’s “In Buddy’s Eyes,”
Sally’s not-­so-­convincing description of her perfect life with Buddy (exam-
ple 2.3a), contains what we can consider the basic form of the oscillation: a
tonic added-­ninth chord exchanging its 3 for 4, resulting in the four-­note
sonority 1–­2–­4 –­5 in the second measure. (This same progression underlies
the main portion of Sweeney Todd’s “Johanna” sequence [No. 20, mm. 25ff.],
which precedes the dissonances we saw in example 2.2; here the lyric time
of Sweeney’s inner reflection is set to a montage of him slitting Londoners’
throats.) The basic chord forms often acquire additional tones: in example
2.3b, the first chord becomes a pentachord through the addition of Compa-
ny’s characteristic 6, and in example 2.3c, a melodic line sways between 7
and 6 over the basic chords. Conversely, the chords are sometimes reduced
to trichords: in example 2.3d, the first chord is a simple tonic triad, and we
will later see the second chord reduced to just 1–­4 –­5 in example 2.12 and
example 2.16. Example 2.3e lists one additional example of a prominent 3–­4
oscillation from each of Sondheim’s Broadway shows from Company (1970)
through Passion (1994).
Like tonic chords, dominant chords rarely appear in pure triadic form
outside of Sondheim’s pastiche numbers. Sondheim does not rely on
cadential closure as regularly as some of his classical forebears, but unlike
the pop and rock music of his day, his music is still based on a fundamental
polarity between tonic and dominant (see Nobile 2020). That said, Sond-
heim’s dominant chords very frequently avoid what others consider the
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 43

fundamental expression of dominant function: the leading tone.8 Steve

Swayne traces Sondheim’s use of the “suspended dominant” to the com-
poser’s interest in twentieth-­century tonal composers, especially Paul
Hindemith and Maurice Ravel (Swayne 2005, 31–­3 2). Suspended domi-
nants are often some variant of a “7sus4” sonority containing 5–­1–­2–­4, as
in the C–­F –­G –­B ♭ chord sustained from measures 13–­66 of Pacific Overtures’
“Someone in a Tree” (No. 8, at “I was younger then . . .”). The V chord we
saw in example 2.1 added a ninth to this suspended dominant, allowing
Sondheim to voice it as an open fifth in the left hand with a major triad in
the right hand, a type of chord Sondheim has referred to as his “favorite.”9

Colored Chords and the (0148) Set

According to Daniel Harrison, a characteristic of twentieth-­century tonal

music is the “colored triad”: a consonant triad combined with one or more
extra notes that act as appendages, adding “color” without affecting the
chord’s basic consonant structure (Harrison 2016, 107–­9). The use of col-
ored triads in Harrison’s examples from Ravel and Prokofiev—­t wo com-
posers Swayne identifies as major influences on Sondheim—­can be com-
pared with Sondheim’s own use of chromatically dissonant sonorities.
The chords that Sondheim colors are not necessarily triads but often one
of the fundamental harmonies described above, namely the tonic added-­
ninth chord or the dominant 7sus4. What Harrison calls the “hue” and
“intensity” of a coloring agent depends on both the harshness of the inter-
vals it forms (e.g., semitones are harsher than whole tones) and its degree
of chromaticism. Many of Sondheim’s dissonant sonorities can be under-
stood as diatonic structures with one or more coloring agents. Here, I focus
on two related sonorities that Sondheim returns to throughout his work to
portray unsettled tension: a major triad with appended minor sixth (e.g.,
C–­E –­G –­A ♭) and a minor triad with appended major seventh (e.g., C–­E ♭-­
G–­B ♮). Unlike Sondheim’s fundamental dissonant chords, these colored
chords are non-­diatonic, the coloring agent injecting harsh chromaticism
into a pure triad. Readers familiar with musical set theory will notice
that these two chords are pitch-­class inversions of one another, and more
specifically that they are both members of set-­class (0148)—­notice, for
instance, that both contain an augmented triad plus a fourth note a semi-
tone away from a member of that augmented triad. I will use the (0148)
 44 / here for the hearing

Example 2.3. Instances of –­oscillation over a tonic pedal.

a) “In Buddy’s Eyes” (Follies), mm. 45–­48.

b) “Sorry-­Grateful” (Company), mm. 3–­4.

c) “Agony” (Into the Woods, No. 10), mm. 2–­5.

nomenclature to highlight this relationship (see also Harrison 1994, 108–­

9, for a discussion of [0148] in tonal contexts).
Sondheim’s most famous use of the (0148) sonority is in Sweeney Todd.
Sondheim himself has referred to its instantiation as a third-­inversion
minor-­major seventh chord as the “Sweeney” chord (Horowitz 2010,
127–­2 8), though it does not seem to relate exclusively to Sweeney (the
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 45

d) “Merrily We Roll Along” (Merrily We Roll Along, No. 2), mm. 6–­7.

e) Some other examples of – oscillation from Company (1970) to Passion (1994).

clearest example is in the Judge’s confessional [No. 11, mm. 1–­2]). Craig
McGill traces the use of (0148) throughout the Sweeney score, arguing that
it underscores moments of “unease” (McGill 2012).10 This sonority’s asso-
ciation with unease extends beyond this show, however. In the opening
sequence of Into the Woods, the eerie entrance of the witch involves a sub-
tle switch from the suspended dominant that has so far dominated the
score to an (0148) sonority (example 2.4a); later, the characters’ chaotic
quarreling in “Your Fault” receives an inverted form of the set (example
2.4b). The central gang of criminal misfits in Assassins laments their mar-
ginalized social status in “Another National Anthem,” whose 3–­4 oscilla-
tion begins with an (0148) sonority—­a tonic E-­major chord colored with
a C ♮ , reminding us that the rosy stories we tell about the American dream
are stained with the dissonant realities of social exclusion and oppression
(example 2.5).
Passion exhibits many (0148) sonorities across the through-­composed
score. The opening sequence begins with the (0148) set G ♭ –­B ♭ –­D –­F fur-
 46 / here for the hearing

Example 2.4. (0148) in Into the Woods.

a) “Opening (Part III)” (Into the Woods, No. 1C).

b) “Your Fault” (Into the Woods, No. 22), opening vamp.

Example 2.5. (0148) at the beginning of “Another National Anthem” (Assassins, No.
8, mm. 83–­85).

ther colored by an A ♭ , making an (02458) pentachord (example 2.6). As

the music settles on a vamp (m. 11), the chord acquires a D ♭ as the tonality
coalesces around G ♭ major. The resulting hexachord G ♭ –­A ♭ –­B ♭ –­D ♭ –­D ♮ –­F
can be thought of as a tonic added-­ninth chord colored by both D ♮ and F.
However, the way Sondheim distributes the voices suggests hearing this
sonority as the combination of a G ♭ added-­ninth chord and a B ♭-­major
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 47

triad—­i.e., a polychord. (There is also a D ♭-­major triad subset, though Sond-

heim hides it within the texture; one could ascribe some significance to
this chord’s construction as major triads built from each note of the tonic
triad—­G ♭ , B ♭ , and D ♭ . Note as well that the polychord has two (0148) sub-
sets: G ♭ –­B ♭ –­D ♭ –­D ♮ and B ♭ –­D ♮ –­F –­G ♭ .) During the vamped polychord, the
scene opens up to a postcoital moment in which the characters Giorgio
and Clara declare their utmost “Happiness” with one another. The unease
that accompanied Sondheim’s other uses of (0148) does not seem pres-
ent in this case. However, perhaps the accompaniment knows something
the characters do not: that Giorgio and Clara are not destined to end up
together. The harmonic combination of two tonally incompatible chords
might reflect the two characters’ ultimate incompatibility. Looking for-
ward to the show’s conclusion, we see that (0148) underscores most of
the “Farewell Letter” ending Giorgio’s and Clara’s relationship (example
2.7), but as Giorgio realizes that he reciprocates Fosca’s love for him (“No
One Has Ever Loved Me”), the music settles on a diatonic version of the
opening vamp (example 2.8). The large-­scale resolution of dissonance to
consonance over the course of Passion parallels Giorgio’s break from Clara
and union with Fosca; in Gary Konas’s reading, Fosca’s spirit is transferred
to Giorgio upon her death (“your love will live in me,” etc.), reflecting the
fusion of the two triads into a single diatonic structure (Konas 1997).

Analyses

The combination of functionally grounded bass, diatonic melody, and col-

ored chords forms the basic frame of Sondheimian tonality. In many ways,
this tonal system is merely the foundation on which Sondheim erects his
musical-­dramatic structure. But a show’s specific implementation of the
tonal foundation can itself carry dramatic significance. We saw a bit of this
in the above examples. In the remainder of my essay, I take a broader look
at Sondheim’s deployment of his dissonant tonality across two shows:
Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods. Both shows are frequent
targets of motivic analyses, as they each build on an intricate web of Wag-
nerian leitmotifs. My analyses will show that their motivic features sit on
the surface of a deeper interweaving of music and drama.
Example 2.6. Opening of “Happiness (Part I)” (Passion, No. 1).

Example 2.7. “Farewell Letter” (Passion, No. 16, titled “Scene 13” in the vocal
score): (0148) and polychord at beginning and end.

Example 2.8. End of “No One Has Ever Loved Me” (Passion, No. 17, mm. 39–­43,
titled “Scene 14” in the vocal score).
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 49

Sunday in the Park with George

The first act of Sunday in the Park with George follows George Seurat’s
struggle to distill the chaos of bourgeois life into an ordered work of art.
The show’s first few minutes portray the fundamental conflict between
George and the outside world. Later on, George will describe this divide
as a “window” filtering his perception of reality in “Finishing the Hat.”
In his mind, he controls everything, from the placement of every tree to
the number of boats on the water; as Joanne Gordon puts it, “Anything
is possible. Worlds can materialize and vanish” (Gordon 1990, 268). In
noisy reality, his mistress Dot is uncomfortable in the heat, snooty critics
deride his work, and societal demands interfere with his obsessive pursuit
of order.
The show opens with a brief soliloquy as George lays out his vision of
“bring[ing] order to the whole.” Under George’s speech, we hear a series of
flourishes opening into an arrival on E-­flat major. The silhouette of a mel-
ody emerges—­on the French horn in Michael Starobin’s original orches-
tration, though Sondheim imagined it on trumpet (Horowitz 2010, 102)—­
one that will ultimately achieve full realization as the “Sunday” theme in
the finales of both acts. A scene coalesces into the titular park, where Dot
poses—­reluctantly—­as George sketches her.
The musical shift from George’s soliloquy to Dot’s inner thoughts
(example 2.9) is abrupt and introduces a tonal juxtaposition that under-
pins much of the first act. The flourishes that accompany George’s manip-
ulations of the canvas, as well as the inchoate “Sunday” theme, are entirely
diatonic, in E-­flat major in Nos. 1–­2 and then briefly in F-­sharp major
opening No. 3. The final flourish gives us the same chord (in the same key,
spelled enharmonically) that later accompanies George’s description of
the “window” (see the second half of m. 2 in example 2.9 and m. 41 in
“Finishing the Hat” [No. 15]). After the last flourish, the music snaps to
the other side of the window (example 2.9, m. 3). Over the bass’s F ♯ , the
chordal zone gives us E ♯ –­F ♯ –­A , which we can understand as an F ♯ -­minor
triad colored with an E ♯ . (The missing C ♯ is not difficult to interpolate as an
overtonal fifth above the bass note; indeed, the repeat of this passage in m.
9, now a semitone higher and with a different bass note, includes the full
triad.) This chord is Sondheim’s signature (0148) sonority. Diatonicism
has given way to chromatic dissonance, as George’s vision of order collides
with the noisiness of real life.
 50 / here for the hearing

Example 2.9. Transition from opening flourishes into “Sunday in the Park with
George” (Sunday in the Park with George, No. 3, mm. 1–­3).

The ensuing number—­ Dot’s “Sunday in the Park with George”—­

expands on example 2.9’s chromatically colored triad. Example 2.10 gives
a harmonic reduction of the number’s first section, showing an overall
outline of II–­V–­I in E major followed by V–­I in F major. Over these tonal
progressions, projected largely by the bass line, the chordal zone engages
in various chromatically colored triads. In the example, the triads are given
in open noteheads with the coloring elements in solid noteheads. Over the
F ♯ bass note, the first three chords are F ♯ -­minor, G ♯ -­major, and A-­major tri-
ads colored with E ♯ , E ♮ , and D ♯ respectively. (Notice the contrary motion
of rising triads and descending coloring notes.) Next, we get a polychord
completing the B bass note with both E-­major and B-­major triads (I and
V). The resolution to tonic gives us D-­and E-­major triads, hinting at a
suspension-­resolution relationship supporting the melody’s A–­G ♯ (a nod
to a 4–­3 oscillation and an important pitch motive in this number). The
addition of C ♮ , however, turns the resolution chord into another dissonant
(0148) set (further colored by an F ♯ , suggesting a basis in an added-­ninth
chord), negating a satisfying tonic arrival.
The whole passage then repeats a semitone higher, this time skipping
the first bass note so that V underlies the first four chords and adding more
coloristic elements so that most chords contain five notes. A develop-
mental section ensues, outlining the three bass notes A, F ♯ , and B. Each
bass note gives rise to a dominant-­functioning chord, based largely on
the “7sus4” sonorities A–­D –­E –­G, F ♯ –­B –­E , and B–­E –­A . The first of these,
spanning mm. 18–­23, includes heavy figuration, but one can reduce this
passage to a static A–­E –­G with an alternation of D and C ♯ , again recalling
Sondheim’s 4–­3 oscillation but in a dominant rather than tonic context.
The F ♯ and B sonorities act as V/V and V respectively, sending us back to
the original key of E major and the return of the opening material in m. 36.
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 51

Example 2.10. Reduction of “Sunday in the Park with George.”

If, as Stephen Banfield suggests, the show’s first act traces the resolu-
tion of pervasive chromaticism into “radiant diatonicism” (1993, 335–­36),
then we might interpret the (0148) colored triads to reflect the cacopho-
nous reality that George ultimately filters into his artwork. Instances of
(0148) recur throughout the first act, especially in “The Day Off” (example
2.11), in which, as in “Sunday in the Park with George,” George sketches a
scene in the park. Act 1 also has several moments of pure diatonicism, as
in the opening flourishes discussed above as well as most of “Finishing the
Hat.” These passages tend to associate with George’s inner thoughts, as he
contemplates the artist’s work and life.
 52 / here for the hearing

Example 2.11. (0148) sets in “The Day Off” (Sunday in the Park with George, No. 12,
mm. 55–­56).

Since the act concludes with the completion of the artwork, a natu-
ral musical correlate might be for the finale to remove all hints of chro-
maticism and sink into the calmest of diatonic frameworks. This, for the
most part, occurs: the flourishes that opened the show return, with the
ensuing “Sunday” theme now fully worked out, as shown in example 2.12.
As Joanne Gordon puts it, George “takes the chaos of sound, motion, and
emotion and recomposes it into a balanced composition” (1990, 285). The
theme is set to an unadorned expression of Sondheim’s fundamental har-
monies: a 3–­4 oscillation complete with a tonic added-­ninth chord. But
the finale is not devoid of chromaticism; a C ♯ creeps in in m. 29, followed
by an E ♭ in m. 32 and an F ♮ in m. 38. As the number approaches a climax,
the E ♭ returns in both bass and melody, now combining with the chordal
zone’s G-­major triad to form an (0148) sonority, which we thought we
were done with (example 2.13). As the characters sing “forever” from their
eternal resting places within George’s painting, the E ♭ resolves to D in the
outer voices, climactically absorbing the act’s signature chromaticism into
a diatonic context. In the end, George hasn’t erased the dissonance of real
life, but rather captured it within his ordered work of art.

Into the Woods

As a fairy-­t ale parody, Into the Woods naturally has an overabundance of

morals. The plot revolves around a baker and his wife who, in their desire to
conceive a child, must “go in and screw up everybody else’s fairy story,” as
Sondheim describes it. The fairy-­t ale characters—­Little Red Ridinghood,
Jack (of beanstalk fame), and Cinderella—­have wishes of their own, and
Example 2.12. Flourishes leading into “Sunday” (Sunday in the Park with George,
No. 24, mm. 9–­26).

Example 2.13. The return and resolution of (0148) in “Sunday” (mm. 41–­45).
 54 / here for the hearing

the first act tracks all of them as they chase their desires into the woods.
By the end of the act, every wish is fulfilled, and in typical fairy-­t ale fash-
ion, each character has learned something through the process. But the
show is not over. The second act shows that the characters’ selfish pursuits
of their personal wishes have consequences. As Sondheim explains, “in
order to get what they wanted, they each had to cheat a little, or lie a little,
or huckster a little,” and the second act becomes a story of “how the char-
acters have to band together and make amends for what they did.” The
individual lessons learned in the first act give way to a broader moral of
“community responsibility.”11
The harmonic content of the first act—­especially the “lesson” songs—­
contains a subtle hint that not all is right. Specifically, tonic chords tend
to omit their chordal third. The thirdless tonic first arrives with signifi-
cant emphasis in the “into the woods” theme (example 2.14). This pas-
sage evokes Sondheim’s classic 3–­4 alternation, but here 4 (A ♭) stubbornly
persists in the chordal zone’s highest voice. This accompaniment recurs
as a sort of “promenade” throughout the first act, where at each stroke of
midnight the characters step out of the plot to recite various clichéd mor-
als relevant to their respective situations (“no knot unties itself,” “slotted
spoons don’t hold much soup,” etc.).12 The only harmonic activity is a
“thumb line” (the lowest voice of the piano’s right hand) rising stepwise
from 5 to 7; the basic harmonic structure of the accompaniment figure
involves a static 1–­2–­4 and tonic pedal framing this moving tenor line.13
The association of the thirdless tonic with moralizing continues with
the three fairy-­t ale characters’ solo numbers describing the lessons they
learned while pursuing their goals. Three numbers—­“I Know Things
Now” (Little Red Ridinghood, No. 6), “Giants in the Sky” (Jack, No. 9),

Example 2.14. Tonic with persistent 4 in the “Into the Woods” theme (Into the
Woods, No. 1A, mm. 1–­2).
Example 2.15. Accompaniments to the three “lesson” songs from Into the Woods.

a) “I Know Things Now” (No. 6, mm. 9–­10).

b) “Giants in the Sky” (No. 9, mm. 7–­8).

c) “On the Steps of the Palace” (No. 13, mm. 23A–­25).

 56 / here for the hearing

and “On the Steps of the Palace” (Cinderella, No. 13)—­are built on the
same accompaniment structure and all begin with 3–­4 –­5 in the mel-
ody, as shown in example 2.15. (The accompaniment returns in act 2’s
“Moments in the Woods,” sung by the baker’s wife, though it takes on a
different form as that song has a somewhat different dramatic purpose;
see Stoddart 2000, 216–­17, for more on this song’s role.) Linking the three
songs in this way not only brings out their similar roles but also musically
intertwines the characters’ largely separate plotlines; as Stephen Banfield
puts it, “here Sondheim’s main purpose is not just to exhibit structural
replication but to move toward an understanding of the characters’ moral
interdependence” (1993, 385). These songs’ accompanimental vamps
derive from the “into the woods” theme seen above but without 4 so that
the basic tonic chord is simply 1-­2-­5 along with the thumb line. That the
accompaniment decidedly omits 3 while the melody makes regular use of
it suggests a disconnect between the characters’ perception and reality;
the characters declare themselves enlightened (“I know things now”) but
the omniscient accompaniment knows they have more to learn.14
Tonics without thirds might just be a motivic feature of the score, a
characteristic of the show’s “sound world” with no inherent significance.
In the context of Sondheim’s harmonic language, these chords are not
especially dissonant, so it is not necessarily the case that we will perceive
them as needing eventual resolution. However, the dramatic way in which
Sondheim brings thirds back into tonic chords suggests a deeper signifi-
cance. Sondheim lays out his stated theme of community responsibility
at the end of the show in three moral-­of-­t he-­story numbers: “No More,” in
which the baker realizes that abandoning his baby son is the same thing
his father did to him as a child; “No One Is Alone,” in which the survivors
band together to rebuild their community; and “Children Will Listen,” in
which the characters understand that their actions affect other people. In
“No More,” the previously stubborn 4 is domesticated into a 3–­4 oscilla-
tion (example 2.16), with the same fundamental chords seen in “Sunday”
above. “No One Is Alone” expands the oscillation to an alternation of I
and IV chords, both of which prominently display 3 in the highest voice of
the chordal zone. Especially notable is the gesture on the title lyric, which
leads to an arrival on 4 rather than the expected 3, highlighting the word
“alone,” followed by an emphatic 3 beginning the next phrase (example
2.17). We are now getting the idea that these moralizing songs are settling a
central musical question. “Children Will Listen” extends the family meta-
Example 2.16. “No More” (Into the Woods, No. 23, mm. 69–­70): appearance of 3
within a tonic 3–4 oscillation.

Example 2.17. “No One Is Alone” (Into the Woods, No. 25, mm. 1–­12): prominent 3.

Example 2.18. “Children Will Listen” (Into the Woods, No. 26B, mm. 80–­84, titled
“Finale (Part III)” in the vocal score): resolution of 1–2–4–5 to 1–­2–3–5 in final
section.
 58 / here for the hearing

phor to the characters’ actions (“wishes are children”), succinctly summing

up the show’s main message in the line “wishes come true, not free.” The
final word of this phrase extends for four measures, holding the 1–­2–­4 – 5
chord from the “into the woods” theme but this time following it up with a
prominent 3 to kick off the final section of the number (example 2.18).
Of course, the show does not end there; we proceed with a reprise of
the “into the woods” theme, along with its persistent 4, and the show ends
with a last “I wish” from Cinderella as the curtain descends. We realize
here that wishing is “a perennial human state,” as Ben Francis argues:
“somebody has only to have their wish granted for them to want some-
thing else” (Francis 2014, 352). At the opening, we might have expected
the typical fairy-­t ale narrative of characters pursuing goals and learning
something from the process. But in the end, the message is that fulfill-
ment does not come from getting your wish but in mediating your per-
sonal wishes within a concern for the communal good.

Conclusion

Sondheim is a musical-­theater category of his own. Combining deep

knowledge of nineteenth-­century classical tonality, golden-­age Broadway,
and twentieth-­century art music, he forged a new compositional language
embracing avant-­garde trends while remaining in dialogue with his tonal
roots (see Swayne 2005). Sondheim has already been lauded for his leit-
motivic prowess, intertwining recurrent musical themes in coordination
with each show’s narrative themes. More generally, Sondheim himself
has explained how he seeks to create a new sound world in each show,
one specifically tailored to that show’s dramatic content. Indeed, it would
be hard for an experienced Sondheim listener to mistake, say, a Sweeney
Todd excerpt for something from Into the Woods, even if the listener did
not immediately recognize that specific material. That said, there is also
something that ties all of Sondheim’s (non-­pastiche) output as recogniz-
ably Sondheimian, despite his inter-­show distinction. This personal style,
I have argued, arises largely from an idiosyncratic tonal framework built
on dissonant diatonicism, chromatic coloration in the chordal zone, and
firmly grounded bass lines. The musical elements I have discussed in this
essay merely scratch the surface, though, and I believe a more comprehen-
sive theoretical investigation of Sondheim’s compositional practice would
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 59

be both rewarding and important in giving musical theater a more central

position in academic music theory. But what is already clear is that Ste-
phen Sondheim’s tonal contributions place him as a groundbreaking his-
torical figure not only in musical theater but in twentieth-­century music
writ large.

Notes
1. On the criticisms and Sondheim’s response, see Swain 2002, 349–­50, and
Zadan 1986, 155–­56.
2. On Sondheim’s use of pastiche, see Smith 1998 and Knapp 2005, 162–­7 8.
See also Gordon 1990 and Swayne 2005.
3. Sondheim’s breadth of musical influence is remarkable; few others are
as conversant in the languages of nineteenth-­century art music (Chopin, Wag-
ner, Strauss), twentieth-­century tonal music (Ravel, Rachmaninov, Hindemith,
Satie), golden-­age Broadway (Kern, Berlin, Rodgers, Arlen), and classic film scores
(Herrmann, Steiner, Waxman), while also claiming personal mentorship from a
Broadway legend (Oscar Hammerstein II) and a modernist icon (Milton Babbitt)
as well as a collaboration with a top American composer and conductor (Leon-
ard Bernstein). Steve Swayne has expertly excavated Sondheim’s musical influ-
ences in his book How Sondheim Found His Sound (2005), showing that Sondheim
not only was acquainted with the aforementioned composers’ styles, but wove
together elements of all of them throughout his own compositions.
4. The shows considered in this essay include, in chronological order, Com-
pany (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1974), The
Frogs (1974; revised for Broadway in 2004), Sweeney Todd (1979), Merrily We Roll
Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Into the Woods (1987), Assassins
(1991), and Passion (1994). I do not include Road Show (2008, a revision of Bounce
[2003]) because, besides the show’s never having appeared on Broadway, no pub-
lished score exists.
5. In identifying Sondheim’s idiosyncratic style, I should specify that I am
excluding the large portion of Sondheim’s output that falls under the category
of pastiche. In most shows, Sondheim includes one or more numbers written in
a specific, non-­Sondheimian style, often that of the Tin Pan Alley songbook. See
Smith 1998; Knapp 2005, 162–­7 8; Swayne 2005, chapter 2; and Banfield 1993, esp.
196–­2 01.
6. Because Sondheim’s sonorities often have an ambiguous modal character,
I will use exclusively capital Roman numerals. These should not be taken to imply
major chords.
7. Two quotes from Horowitz 2010: “That’s fear that it’s going to fall apart
unless I keep a pedal tone going. . . . Quite often I will put a pedal tone underneath
 60 / here for the hearing

so that I still get the coloristic changes but I don’t run the risk of its going off the
rails as far as the audience is concerned” (199); “A pedal tone is like an anchor—­
you’re always there, tethered, like a goat tethered to a pole. The goat can wander
around, but always, in the center, is this immovable tonic chord. . . . You can get
away with a lot of murder when you’re over a pedal tone. You can put in a lot of
dissonance because the audience’s ear—­t he listener’s ear—­is firmly anchored in
that basic first step of the scale, so they don’t feel lost” (159).
8. Ratner 1962 calls dominant function “7” in reference to the leading tone;
Harrison 1994 considers 7 the “agent” of dominant function.
9. See Horowitz 2010, 29–­30. Mark Spicer has referred to this type of V chord
as the “soul dominant” (Spicer 2017). Harrison 1994 also discusses this and similar
chords in reference to late-­nineteenth-­century music (esp. 41–­4 2 and 48–­49).
10. McGill, going off of Sondheim’s own statements, calls (0148) the “Herr-
mann” chord after film composer Bernard Herrmann, who scored (among others)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
11. The Sondheim quotes in this paragraph are from Zadan 1986, 355–­56.
12. Sondheim had previously mulled over a promenade idea in Sunday in the
Park with George but largely abandoned it in the final version. See Banfield 1993,
358–­64. A similar idea—­w ith another 3–­4 oscillation—­arises in the “Transition”
numbers from Merrily We Roll Along.
13. Sondheim has famously used the phrase “thumb line” in reference to his
contribution to “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story—­namely the syn-
copated and chromatic cello line heard in the number’s opening measures. See
Secrest 1998, 119, and Swayne 2005, 91–­9 2.
14. Sondheim at one point had the idea of naming all four songs “I Know
Things Now,” and a variant of that phrase occurs in each (“you know things now”
in “Giants in the Sky,” “and you’ve learned something too” in “On the Steps of the
Palace,” and “now I understand” in “Moments in the Woods”). See Banfield 1993,
385.

Works Cited
Banfield, Stephen. 1993. Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Block, Geoffrey. 2011. “Integration.” In The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical,
edited by Raymond Knapp, Mitchell Morris, and Stacy Wolf, 97–­110. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Blustein, Nathan Beary. 2020. “Through Arrangements of Shadows: Experiences of
Reprise in Stephen Sondheim’s Leitmotivic Musicals.” PhD diss., Indiana Uni-
versity.
Francis, Ben. 2014. “‘Careful the Spell You Cast’: Into the Woods and the Uses of Dis-
enchantment.” In The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies, edited by Robert
Gordon, 350–­64. New York: Oxford University Press.
 Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality / 61

Gordon, Joanne. 1990. Art Isn’t Easy: The Achievement of Stephen Sondheim. Carbon-
dale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Harrison, Daniel. 1994. Harmonic Function in Chromatic Music. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Harrison, Daniel. 2016. Pieces of Tradition: An Analysis of Contemporary Tonal Music.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Horowitz, Mark Eden. 2010. Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions,
2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Hudlow, Adam. 2013. “Harmony, Voice Leading, and Drama in Three Sondheim
Musicals.” PhD diss., Louisiana State University.
Knapp, Raymond. 2005. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Konas, Gary. 1997. “Passion: Not Just Another Simple Love Story.” In Stephen Sond-
heim: A Casebook, edited by Joanne Gordon, 203–­22. New York: Garland.
McGill, Craig. 2012. “Sondheim’s Use of the ‘Herrmann Chord’ in Sweeney Todd.”
Studies in Musical Theater 6 (3): 291–­312.
McMillin, Scott. 2006. The Musical as Drama. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Miranda, Lin-­Manuel. 2017. “Stephen Sondheim, Theater’s Greatest Lyricist.” T Mag-
azine, October 16, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/t-magazine/lin​
-manuel-miranda-stephen-sondheim.html
Nobile, Drew. 2020. Form as Harmony in Rock Music. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Purin, Peter. 2011. “‘I’ve a Voice, I’ve a Voice’: Determining Stephen Sondheim’s
Compositional Style through a Music-­Theoretic Analysis of His Theater Works.”
PhD diss., University of Kansas.
Ratner, Leonard. 1962. Harmony: Structure and Style. New York: McGraw-­Hill.
Secrest, Meryle. 1998. Stephen Sondheim: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Smith, Helen. 1998. “The Art of Glorification: A History of Pastiche, and Its Use
within Sondheim’s Follies.” British Postgraduate Musicology 2: 24–­31.
Sondheim, Stephen. 1983. The Complete Company Collection. Author’s edition. Mil-
waukee: Hal Leonard.
Sondheim, Stephen. 1987. Sunday in the Park with George. Vocal score. New York: Rilt-
ing Music.
Sondheim, Stephen. 1989. Into the Woods. Vocal score. New York: Rilting Music.
Sondheim, Stephen. 2006. The Complete Follies Collection. Author’s edition. Milwau-
kee: Hal Leonard.
Sondheim, Stephen. 2010a. A Little Night Music. Vocal score. Revised edition. New
York: Rilting Music.
Sondheim, Stephen. 2010b. Merrily We Roll Along. Vocal score. Revised edition. New
York: Rilting Music.
Sondheim, Stephen. 2010c. Sweeney Todd. Vocal score. Revised edition. New York:
Rilting Music.
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Sondheim, Stephen. 2011a. Assassins. Vocal score. Revised edition. New York: Rilting
Music.
Sondheim, Stephen. 2011b. Passion. Vocal score. Revised edition. New York: Rilting
Music.
Sondheim, Stephen. 2011c. The Frogs. Vocal score. New York: Rilting Music.
Sondheim, Stephen. 2012. Pacific Overtures. Vocal score. Revised edition. New York:
Rilting Music.
Spicer, Mark. 2017. “Fragile, Emergent, and Absent Tonics in Pop and Rock Music.”
Music Theory Online 23 (2).
Sternfeld, Jessica, and Elizabeth L. Wollman. 2011. “After the ‘Golden Age.’” In The
Oxford Handbook of the American Musical, edited by Raymond Knapp, Mitchell
Morris, and Stacy Wolf, 111–­26. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stoddart, Scott F. 2000. “‘Happily . . . Ever . . .’ NEVER: The Antithetical Romance of
Into the Woods.” In Reading Stephen Sondheim: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited
by Sandor Goodhart, 209–­20. New York: Garland.
Swain, Joseph. 2002. The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey, 2nded. Lan-
ham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Swayne, Steve. 1999. “Hearing Sondheim’s Voices.” PhD diss., University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley.
Swayne, Steve. 2005. How Sondheim Found His Sound. Ann Arbor: University of Mich-
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Zadan, Craig. 1986. Sondheim & Co., 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Row.
3 Topical Interpretive Strategies
in American Musical Theater
Three Brief Case Studies

Gregory J. Decker

Can musical topics be at work in a Broadway show?1 This question

might seem strange at first: why invoke a principal semiotic strategy of
eighteenth-­century music in interpreting American musical theater? But
there are parallels between the semiotic systems at work in both reper-
toires. Danuta Mirka explains that the hermeneutic potential of eighteenth-­
century music—­f rom operas to symphonies to string quartets—­was fre-
quently predicated on the use of referential and disparate musical styles,
genres, and gestures that were “taken out of their proper context and used
in another one” (2014, 2). Mirka demonstrates that topical signification in
these works is a two-­step process—­topics are first an iconic sign for other
styles and genres through similar configurations of musical characteris-
tics. The identified style or genre then signifies sociocultural associations
and affects indexically (2014, 31; see figure 3.1).2
Similarly, although the Broadway musical is commonly identified with
a generalized “sound,” it has often been a site for mixing musical styles
and genres, many of which originate outside the Broadway theater (Laird

/ 63 /
 64 / here for the hearing

Figure 3.1. Mirka’s semiotics of topical signification (modified).

2011, 33).3 The use of different musical styles within one work is indeed
at the heart of the musical’s semiotics. For example, Todd Decker (2013)
has shown that the differences between stereotypically “Black music” and
“white music” are markers for race, privilege, class, and especially voice in
Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat (1927). And Bernstein and Sondheim’s
West Side Story (1957) mixes Afro-­Caribbean styles with midcentury jazz
and lyrical, operatic writing (Laird 2011, 36–­38). If these different styles
and genres used in a show have brought external social, functional, or
affective associations to bear on our interpretations, then they might fairly
be thought of as topics. They would signify in ways similar to topics in
eighteenth-­century music.
But while signification occurs along the same semiotic path in
eighteenth-­century music and the Broadway musical, interpretive results
are not always similar. Topics in the eighteenth century are often under-
stood as suggesting specific dramatic interpretation, either through musi-
cal combination (e.g., troping, see Hatten 1994) or when considered in
combination with other domains, such as the libretto and plot of an opera.
Wye Jamison Allanbrook’s analyses of Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni
(1983) are well-­k nown examples of this latter type of interpretation: in “Se
vuol ballare,” for instance, Allanbrook sees Figaro’s use of the polite min-
uet as an ironic cloaking of his anger toward the Count. Associations with
the minuet in general combine with lyric and plot to suggest both how
Figaro is feeling and what he is thinking. A topic used this way might be
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 65

said to particularize, providing subtext to a character’s words or context for

surrounding music.4 In these kinds of analyses, meaningful oppositions
are usually found within one number or otherwise in close proximity: the
differences among characters’ explicit statements, their dramatic situa-
tion, and associations with immediate musical topics help a listener cre-
ate subtext, draw conclusions about motivations, and ultimately build an
understanding of a character. The use of topics in Broadway shows often
differs from classical music. Topical oppositions in Broadway, where they
exist, are frequently only musical. That is, the affective or sociocultural
associations with a given number’s musical topic may not have much
friction with the lyrics, dramatic situation, or character singing, but the
accrued use of topics throughout the work may create musical oppositions
on a larger scale. Instead of particularizing, then, in many cases topics in
musicals imbue the work with atmosphere, providing generalizations about
time, place, and characterization. Thus, these stylistic references, while
similar in semiotic structure to eighteenth-­century topics, are not always
analogous in hermeneutic spirit.
A brief example will help illustrate generalization in a musical and
will serve as a reference point for a topic that appears frequently in this
chapter—­the waltz (see figure 3.2).5 The song “You Are Love” from Show
Boat is a love duet between the two principal characters, Magnolia and
Ravenal. The fact that the number is also a waltz is appropriate to these
characters and the plot: they sing “You Are Love” toward the end of the
first act, just after they have gotten engaged to be married (see Laird 2011,
33; Puccio and Stoddart 2000, 124–­26). The waltz has no sociocultural or
affective dissonance with this situation. It supports the drama via its phys-
ical associations: it is an intimate, close-­position couple’s dance in which
a dizzying spiral floor pattern focuses the dancers’ gazes on one another,
blurring their vision of the rest of the room (McKee 2012, 91–­92). Mag-
nolia and Ravenal’s words echo the dancing position with conventional
references to being close (“in my arms”) and never separating again.
That these two characters are white and privileged makes the choice
of the waltz especially appropriate. Prior to this scene, secondary charac-
ters Julie and Steve undergo an embarrassing public spectacle in which
Steve narrowly escapes arrest for miscegenation (he is white, but Julie is
mixed race). They are subsequently fired from the show boat’s production
and must leave. Magnolia and Ravenal have no such prohibition to their
engagement, which the waltz’s air of social acceptability communicates
 66 / here for the hearing

Figure 3.2. Common associations with the waltz.

clearly (see Giordano 2007; McKee 2012). Black characters in the show
do not have access to this kind of “white music.” They generally sing in a
more popular idiom influenced by blues and gospel music. Likewise, white
characters in the show do not have ready access to Black music. Musical
oppositions separate characters into broad groups across the work, and
topics support these generalizations.6
In the remainder of this chapter, I advance topical readings of three
musicals to demonstrate how the strategies of generalization and partic-
ularization contribute to broader readings of the works. Two of the shows
engage almost exclusively in one or the other of these topical interpretive
strategies, and the third presents a situation in which these two strate-
gies are used in combination. In Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman’s The
Secret Garden (1991), oppositional sets of musical topics generalize about
the principal characters, and in doing so help to support a kind of meta-
narrative surrounding the story’s metaphor. By contrast, topics in Stephen
Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (1979) support characters’ motivations and dra-
matic subtexts on individual bases, and so they particularize. The primary
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 67

topical strategy in Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones’s The Fantasticks (1960)
is generalization, but the waltz topic interacts with text and plot to cre-
ate some particularizing interpretations. Admittedly, these are three very
different shows. But because their uses of topics are so distinctive, I find
it useful to view them as a set to foreground and explore these different
strategies.

Social Class, Metaphor, and Generalization in

The Secret Garden

In The Secret Garden, topics and other referential musical devices are used
to generalize about characters, primarily their social class. The show fol-
lows the plot of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel fairly closely; how-
ever, there is additional focus on the adults in the story, and their rela-
tionships are altered to heighten the drama. Dickon’s age is advanced so
that he, too, is an adult. The additional lower-­class adult character helps
to underscore the difference in social class between him, his sister Martha
(Mary Lennox’s chambermaid), and Mary’s family (Archibald, Lily, and
Neville Craven). Overall, the work has a cohesive, lyrical, contemporary-­
Broadway sound that by itself might not be heard as conveying strong top-
ical associations, but it becomes the indicator of Mary’s and her uncles’
high social standing along with reinforcement from some elevated topics.
Music for these upper-­class characters is juxtaposed with folk and chil-
dren’s songs, folk-­rock, contredanse, and modally inflected pitch-­class
collections. These topics and sounds belong to the world of servants Mar-
tha and Dickon. Topics in the show generalize about characters’ social
standing through the musical oppositions present across the work. Rele-
vant numbers from the show, their characters, and their topics/styles are
summarized in figure 3.3.
What supporting interpretations do the topics in use suggest? The
strongest associations come from topics used by lower-­class characters.
Modern audiences are likely to group folk songs, children’s songs, and
contredanses together, primarily because many children’s songs and tra-
ditional tunes still sung today are contredanses that began as popular
songs in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (see Tawa 1980;
Scott 2001; Giordano 2007; and especially Gregory 2010). Good exam-
ples of this kind of song still popular today are “Yankee Doodle” (c. 1852?
 68 / here for the hearing

Figure 3.3. Summary of numbers, characters, musical characteristics, and social-­

class divisions.

[1755?]) and “Billy Boy” (c. 1776?).7 These tunes demonstrate typical con-
tredanse characteristics—­smooth, constant rhythm with a light duple
feel, often similar to a march or bourrée (see Allanbrook 1983, 55–­60; Bur-
ford and Daye, Grove Music Online, s.v. “Contredanse”). By the mid to late
nineteenth century, these contredanses and other folk tunes were out of
fashion with the urban middle and upper classes but remained popular
in rural areas into the first decades of the twentieth century (see Burford
and Daye, Grove Music Online, s.v. “Contredanse”; Giordano 2007, 267–­86;
McKee 2012, 91). Thus, they have lower-­class, country associations and
might also call up feelings of nostalgia for simpler times. Modally tinged
folk tunes are associated in the United States with Appalachian Mountain
culture and an almost mythical understanding of country life in the Brit-
ish Isles. The use of these topics for servants in The Secret Garden is not
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 69

Figure 3.4. Semiotic representations of folk associations in The Secret Garden.

surprising. They characterize most of Martha’s and Dickon’s music. The

semiotic path of signification is represented in figure 3.4.
For instance, Martha’s first number in the show, “A Fine White Horse,”

of the usual  time have been grouped together into  .8 Further, the melody
is a clear contredanse in melody and rhythmic character, though two bars

is fairly simple and repetitive, immediately repeating the implied open-

ing scale-­degree sequence 1–­2–­7–­1 (“had a fine white horse”) up a third to
3–­4 –­2–­3 (“take you for a ride today”). The harmonization is straightfor-

character of the number in example 3.1 by re-­barring the music in  time.
ward and uses only the I, IV, and V(7) chords. I highlight the contredanse

Dickon’s two solo numbers take modal elements of folk music and
spritely rhythms of fiddle music and transfer them into contemporary
folk-­rock. In the opening of “Winter’s on the Wing” (example 3.2), note
the A Dorian melody with special emphasis on 7 and 6 and the open per-
fect consonances in the accompaniment, often associated with folk har-
mony and fiddle playing.9
These topics mark Martha and Dickon as local country people, and
along with lyrics that reference the natural world and fantastic situations,
they further suggest that the pair have some knowledge hidden from
upper-­class society—­a common trope of urban/rural dichotomies. But this
music does not offer oppositions to plot or motivations that provide spe-
cific subtextual insight into these characters. In terms of characterization,
their music serves to generalize about them, group them together, and
 70 / here for the hearing

Example 3.1. Melody of “A Fine White Horse,” mm. 1–­4, re-­barred.

The Secret Garden. Lyrics by Marsha Norman. Music by Lucy Simon. © 1991, 1992 ABCDE
Publishing Ltd. and Calougie Music. All rights administered by WC Music Corp. All rights
reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Music.

Example 3.2. Melodic reduction of “Winter’s on the Wing,” mm. 5–­6.

separate them from the “upstairs” characters. The topics in use coordinate
with these characters.
The upper-­class characters, especially brothers Archie and Neville Cra-
ven, mostly sing in what might be called a contemporary lyrical Broadway
style—­there’s no pervasive modal inflection, and most tonal and rhythmic
structures are conventional by the standards of twentieth-­century main-
stream popular music, with occasional mode mixture. These upper-­class
characters are instead identified through large-­scale musical oppositions
with lowered topics and styles. The link between their overarching, gen-
eralized musical style is thus primarily indirect, since there is little in this
musical language alone that would suggest a high social station. There are,
however, a few elevated topics that help foster associations with the upper
classes, the urban, and related social-­physical spaces (see figure 3.5).
Two numbers in the show are connected to opera, noble characters,
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 71

Figure 3.5. Elevated topics assist musical class oppositions.

and classical music in general through the use of topics stemming directly
from the seventeenth century.10 In “I Heard Someone Crying,” sung by
Archie Craven, the ghost of his deceased wife Lily, and Mary Lennox, a
modified lament bass is repeated throughout and forms the harmonic and
hypermetric basis of the number (in D minor: i–­V II–­iiø 43 –­V ). The topic
makes clear reference to the crying the characters hear and to their respec-
tive emotional states, but it also carries implications of the high-­style reg-
ister. Archie’s final solo number, “Where in the World,” makes reference to
the stile concitato through fiery repetition.
Additionally, the waltz topic makes an appearance in Archie and Lily’s
duet “A Girl in the Valley.” The waltz certainly refers to the couple’s love for
one another through its physical gesture—­an intimate, whirling couple’s
dance in close position—­and through its use as a love duet topic in oper-
etta and earlier musical theater works. But it also calls forth associations of
mid-­and late-­nineteenth-­century urban high society; it was the preferred
social dance of its era (along with the polka), overtaking and relegating to
rural areas the contredanse and its successors by midcentury (Burford and
Daye, Grove Music Online, s.v. “Contredanse”). As the action of the show is
supposed to take place in the first years of the twentieth century, we can
imagine that Archie and Lily would have danced the waltz together. These
elevated topics support reading upper-­class characters’ entire musical lan-
guage in opposition to that of lower-­class characters.
Topics and other musical structures suggest a separation of characters
into groups by social class, but this hermeneutic generalization also pen-
 72 / here for the hearing

Figure 3.6. Musical associations with physical space in The Secret Garden.

etrates the work a bit more deeply. Central to the show (and the novel) is
the symbol of the secret garden itself; its rediscovery and revitalization
are metaphors for the Craven family. Characters who are able to physically
enter and tend to the secret garden are marked as emotionally open, as
desiring change, growth, and love; characters who have built emotional
walls either do not know about or refuse to enter the garden and are not
seen outdoors in general. The characters’ emotional states directly corre-
spond to the social-­class dichotomy—­Martha and Dickon know about and
enter the garden, whereas Neville, Archie, and his son Collin cannot or
will not enter. Therefore musical topics associated with these two groups
divide them by emotional status as well.
Musical generalization draws together these disparate character attri-
butes and gives them concrete connection through topical associations
with class and, by extension, the assumed physical spaces of those classes
(that is, indoor and urban versus outdoor and rural—­see figure 3.6).
Topics connect these assumed physical spaces of their sociocultural
contexts to the secret garden itself. These interactions between musical
generalization and plot forge an overarching commentary or a kind of a
metanarrative that suggests being both physically and emotionally closed
off is stifling, but openness to love and to the natural world is freeing and
healing. This metanarrative is further supported by the fact that Mary and
Lily are revealed to have access to both of these spaces and, accordingly, to
both sets of musical topics (refer again to figure 3.3). Mary’s songs “I Heard
Someone Crying,” “The Girl I Mean to Be,” and “The Letter Song” fit com-
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 73

fortably in the lyrical, conventional Broadway style of Archie and Neville,

but the rest of her music is more similar to that of Martha and Dickon.
She sings a children’s song in “It’s a Maze,” and uses folk tunes and folk
rock in “Show Me the Key,” “Wick,” and “Come Spirit, Come Charm.” Lily
also accesses both sets of topics and physical spaces—­t he secret garden was
hers to tend before she died, and while she joins in the waltz topic with
Archie, she also bookends the show with a children’s song about the gar-
den. Together, Lily and Mary serve as musical models for Archie and Col-
lin, eventually leading them into marked healing musical, physical, and
emotional spaces. Mary’s music is especially revealing in this regard—­it
discloses to us that she has the power and capacity to mend the broken
Craven family even before she realizes this herself.11

Waltzes, Subtexts, and Particularization in

Sweeney Todd

One might argue that my analysis of musical topics in The Secret Garden
particularizes the characters, but this end result is a product of topical gen-
eralization and the metanarrative it underpins, as opposed to the product
of cross-­domain oppositions in a particular number. This number-­specific
strategy is the usual situation in which a topic particularizes, and is the
case for most of the music in Sweeney Todd. In contrast to The Secret Garden,
Sweeney Todd uses musical topics in strategic ways for individual situations
and characters. True, many of the topics used locate the show within the
world of the nineteenth century—­t here are polkas, waltzes, songs from
the music hall and the parlor—­but these topical elements do not combine
to generalize about a group of characters. Instead, their associations con-
tribute to interpretation of specific characters’ thoughts and motivations.
Much of Mrs. Lovett’s music, for instance, seems to particularize her
instead of generalizing about her. When she uses the waltz in “The Worst
Pies in London,” the topic does not identify her class or immediate sur-
roundings. Mrs. Lovett is lower class, or perhaps as a business and property
owner, at the bottom of the middle-­class spectrum, and despite its origins
in folk culture, the waltz was quickly gentrified in the nineteenth cen-
tury (Giordano 2007, 101–­6). Neither does its traditional affect suggesting
love or amorous accord seem to apply here. Though it is later revealed that
Lovett is in love with Sweeney Todd, there’s no hint that she yet knows
 74 / here for the hearing

who Todd is—­that discovery is usually played out during the following
number (“Poor Thing”). All of this is to say that unlike the congruent use
of low-­register topics for servants Martha and Dickon in The Secret Garden,
the waltz does not match obvious aspects of Lovett’s character or the cur-
rent dramatic action in its most prominent associations. The use of the
waltz during Lovett’s description of her unpalatable meatless meat pies
suggests instead a psychological reading: the somewhat elevated ballroom
topic lends a genteel sheen of self-­effacement to this number, while it
simultaneously betrays Lovett’s social ambition that comes to light later in
the first act. Here, the social context of the waltz interacts with character
and plot to communicate subtext. The topic’s associations stand in oppo-
sition to the character and her words, and a potential subtextual reading is
created through that difference.
Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd make use of another kind of waltz at
the end of act 1 in “A Little Priest.” Todd has narrowly missed his opportu-
nity to exact revenge on Judge Turpin (who banished Todd on a baseless
charge, raped his wife, and took Todd’s daughter Johanna as his ward).
Todd then decides that, as a substitute, he will slit the throat of almost any
man who comes into his shop for a shave because, he reasons, all men are
guilty of or complicit in evil. Mrs. Lovett, in turn, offers to use the corpses
of the slain to fill her meat pies, thereby proposing a symbiotic relationship
for the pair. “A Little Priest” follows their decision and is a comic number
in which Todd and Lovett joke about what kind of pie all different man-
ner of men will make (e.g., the priest is “too good at least,” and the green
pie must have been a grocer). The song stands outside the dramatic action
of the show, and the accompanying topic is the Bowery waltz. Different
from a romantic waltz meant for dancing, the Bowery waltz was quicker
with vamp-­like accompaniments and was often used in early Broadway
show, vaudeville, and British music-­hall numbers of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries (Bennett 1986, 19; Gottfried 1993, 138; see
example 3.3).12
Thus, “A Little Priest” becomes a music-­hall performance that serves
the broader work in a number of ways, not least of which is to put the
audience more at ease with the murder and cannibalism about to be put
on display in act 2. The number and the Bowery waltz in particular also
contribute to the characterization of Todd and Lovett, though. Authors
Puccio and Stoddart (2000) have posited that the waltz in this number
“brings the protagonists together” in “a kind of romance” (124–­26), but
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 75

Example 3.3. Accompaniment figure for “A Little Priest,” mm. 93–­96, piano
reduction.
“A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd. Words and music by Stephen Sondheim.
© 1978 Rilting Music, Inc. All rights administered by WC Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used
by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

this assumes a solely romantic reading of the topic. I argue that the Bow-
ery waltz brings the pair together not just as a couple, but also as a comic
team and is appropriate to the vulgar subject matter: music halls such as
the type this song would have been appropriate for were lower-­and lower-­
middle-­class entertainments and were spaces set apart for alternatives to
Victorian values and morals (Kift 1996, 2). For Todd, the number is clearly
an expression of his anger toward the politically and economically power-
ful, and it softens the reality of his solution to his own lack of power.13 Mrs.
Lovett’s participation is not quite as straightforward. She is, after all, an
aspiring social climber and does not seem to harbor the same deep-­seated
anger toward those of a higher social station. She uses the Bowery waltz
as a vehicle for satire but simultaneously wishes to raise her own station.
As such, she is a more conventional music-­hall participant (and member
of civilized society) than Todd; she uses the topical space to make herself
indispensable to him, ensuring, she hopes, her own economic, social, and
romantic security. The topic, then, allows appropriate space for Lovett’s
and Todd’s conflicting motivations.
The waltz topic is used again later by the show’s villain (if we’re sym-
pathetic to Sweeney Todd), Judge Turpin, who sings a waltz rhythmically
similar to “The Worst Pies in London” in his song “Johanna.” Both have a
characteristic emphasis on beat two, which, though it seems to contradict
the usual emphasis on beat one, was fairly typical of midcentury ballroom
waltzes. But the topic does not seem to group Turpin and Lovett together
in their characterization. Lovett’s waltzes are comic, and although they
betray her social ambition and desensitization to violence, they are
not wicked or depraved (her scheme with Todd notwithstanding). In
 76 / here for the hearing

Example 3.4. “Johanna,” piano-­vocal reduction, mm. 25–­30.

“Johanna (Judge’s Version)” from Sweeney Todd. Words and music by Stephen Sondheim.
©1978 Rilting Music, Inc. All rights administered by WC Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used
by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

“Johanna,” the Judge sings about his beautiful young ward. He secretly
watches her through a keyhole, as he rationalizes marrying her and flag-
ellates himself to sexual climax.14 This waltz is made musically more sin-
ister via troping with the ombra topic. The music matches many of Clive
McClelland’s topical indicators for ombra (2014, 282), including restless,
repetitive accompaniment, moderate tempo, flat minor key, fragmented
melody, sudden structural and dynamic contrasts, and low tessitura (see
example 3.4).
“Johanna,” indeed, embodies the darker side of the waltz; its
nineteenth-­century detractors saw the dance as scandalous and dangerous
in its intoxicating fixation on (or even obsession with) whirling repetitive
floor patterns and the dancing partner’s eyes and body (McMillan 2006,
11–­1 2; Giordano 2007, 103–­6). Turpin thus turns the waltz on its head: yes,
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 77

it perhaps signals his amorous motivations, and he is certainly the charac-

ter with the highest social standing in the show. But the waltz topic is also
associated with polite society, with social acceptability, and with partner-
ship. Here it is perhaps a commentary on his place in society: Although,
external to the plot of the show, Turpin embodies the typical associations
of the waltz, he is revealed to secretly use his position of power selfishly
and maliciously. The waltz highlights the dissonance between his actual
character and the perception of his character by members of his own social
class. The troping of music topics combined with the dramatic situation
might even be described as grotesque. As Esti Sheinberg has explained,
the grotesque is born from a “contradictory semantic pair,” usually the
ludicrous and the horrifying in modern aesthetics (2000, 207–­10). The use
of the waltz to accompany Turpin’s inappropriate lust might by itself be
ludicrous, but its pairing with his sexualized self-­v iolence could be further
read as horrifying and thus grotesque.15 Turpin is thus read as grotesquely
duplicitous, wanting to satisfy his social position and his lust in a mon-
strous way.
Judge Turpin later shares a more contextually appropriate topic with
his civic companion, Beadle Bamford. Both characters sing the same met-
rically off-­k ilter contredanse toward the end of the first act in the num-

mostly in  time, a recomposition in  makes clear the contredanse charac-
bers “Pretty Women, Part 1” and “Ladies in Their Sensitivities.” Although

teristics (see examples 3.5a–­b).

The contredanse’s affect is happy with, according to Allanbrook, an air
of “civilized comedy” (1983, 59). It was also considered to be democratic,

Example 3.5a. “Ladies in Their Sensitivities,” melody, mm. 5–­8.

“Ladies in Their Sensitivities” from Sweeney Todd. Words and music by Stephen Sondheim.
© 1978 Rilting Music, Inc. All rights administered by WC Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used
by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

Example 3.5b. Recomposition in  meter reveals conventional contredanse.

 78 / here for the hearing

egalitarian, or bourgeois (depending on the listener’s political and social

inclinations), because it was a group dance that was easy to learn com-
pared to the earlier eighteenth-­century danse noble repertoire (Clark 1995;
McKee 2012, 91). Turpin’s contredanse clearly indicates his happiness and
self-­satisfaction in announcing his impending marriage to Johanna. In the
Beadle’s version, he suggests to Judge Turpin that perhaps Johanna isn’t
excited about their marriage because the Judge has let his appearance go.
The Beadle has no obvious reason to feel joyous except for perhaps being
happy for the Judge’s marriage announcement. Keeping in mind the light-
hearted affect of the contredanse, I interpret the Beadle’s use of it as a
means of saying something the Judge may not want to hear—­t he Beadle
is softening the news. The contredanse provides a natural space in which
the Beadle can meet the Judge as an equal, as long as the Judge is willing to
participate. The contredanse here also gives the audience insight into how
the Beadle handles the Judge. One could easily assume him to be nothing
but a sycophant from his characterization earlier in the show. But in this
number, it’s revealed that he has a strategy for manipulating the Judge. A
“bourgeois joke” may have a part to play here as well—­t he Beadle suggests
that with a shave and some cologne, Johanna will “bow to [Turpin’s] every
will.” But the topical context might imply that the Beadle realizes this is an
unlikely scenario, while the Judge, it seems, is not “in” on the joke.

Nostalgia, the Waltz, and Blended Strategies

in The Fantasticks

Similar to The Secret Garden, topics in The Fantasticks tend to generalize

about characters—­styles and topics separate the principal characters into
two sets of groups. Instead of sorting by class, though, they are separated
by age and otherness. The young lovers, Luisa and Matt, sing mostly in
a modern idiom with extended chords, quartal/quintal harmonies, and
surprising, chromatic chord progressions. Their music sounds somewhat
Bernstein-­esque and less like that of traditional musical comedies. In the
following excerpt from Matt’s number “I Can See It” (example 3.6), per-
vasive extended chords that create both additional perfect intervals and
dissonant seconds are used in linear succession in a large-­scale, nonfunc-
tional motion from the tonic C major down a sixth to E major. In mm. 104–­
108, each bar’s principal harmony is decorated through oscillation with its
dominant.
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 79

Example 3.6. “I Can See It,” harmonic reduction, mm. 96–­108.

Example 3.7. “Plant a Radish,” end of introduction, mm. 9–­10a.

Matt and Luisa’s fathers, Bellomy and Hucklebee (“Bell” and “Huck”),
on the other hand, predominantly use topics derived from vaudeville,
operetta, and traditional musical comedy.16 “Never Say No” uses tango
and polka rhythms and almost sounds as if it would be at home in Victor

rhythmic cell  𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝄿 𝅘𝅥𝅯 ♫ .17

Herbert’s operettas. “Plant a Radish” is a clear polka, using the principal

The latter song is in a moderate to quick duple meter with a reversed

typical surface rhythm (often in polkas, the uneven figure comes on beat
two; see Bennett 1986, 10). The song’s introduction further signals vaude-
ville and the early twentieth century by leading the voice in with a popular
stock progression from the time (example 3.7).
In comparison to the lovers’ music, the fathers’ topics mark them as
older, from a different generation, and perhaps as comic. The polka, perva-
sive in their numbers together, was very popular in the mid and late nine-
teenth century, but it had mostly disappeared from American ballrooms
by about 1906 (Giordano 2007, 173). Polka rhythms were used in popular
songs, too, but again, this practice had mostly ended by the early twenti-
eth century, after which polkas were primarily found in operetta (McMil-
lin 2006, 11). Further, Bell and Huck’s duets and topics—­like Todd and
Lovett’s in “A Little Priest”—­work together to define the pair as a comic
 80 / here for the hearing

vaudeville team. They are thus set apart from Matt and Luisa as older by
being out of fashion and almost as rightly belonging to a different type
of show. The lovers’ music, on the other hand, sounds newer and fresher
and is clearly meant to convey their energy and their longing for new
experiences.
El Gallo, who doubles as the show’s narrator, has mostly “exotic” or
“othered” topics throughout the show—­w ith the exception of “Try to
Remember”—­including the bossa nova (“It Depends on What You Pay”),
the blues (“I Can See It”), and a Bowery waltz (“Round and Round”). El
Gallo’s topics mark him as an outsider, perhaps in an unpalatable way for
present-­day audiences, but acceptable at the time the show was written.
Topics across the show thus separate the characters into broad groups. As
was true in The Secret Garden, these topics present no immediate cross-­
domain oppositions—­t heir groupings might simply be thought of as oppo-
sitional to one another.
Despite the overarching use of topical generalization in the show,
some particularization is at work through the waltz topic. The waltz is
used in three different numbers and therefore lends itself to comparison
with their respective dramatic and musical contexts. Thereby, the topic
creates oppositions across the work and interacts meaningfully among dif-
ferent domains within these numbers; thus, the topical-­interpretive strat-
egy blends generalization and particularization.
The waltz frames the show in that it is the first and last topic we hear
(excluding the overture and bows/exit music). In the show’s most famous
song, “Try to Remember,” lyrics and topic work together to set up a strong
appeal to nostalgia—­to a time when the listener was young and perhaps
experiencing love for the first time. But the dreamy lyrics refer to a time
that never really existed: when was “life so tender that no one wept except
the willow?” Youth is only viewed this way through memory. The waltz
does double duty here in supporting these lyrics by referring both to the
past and to love. By combining both of these associations together, along
with the lyrics, the waltz serves as a signal for nostalgia. Musical construc-
tion is a sonic analogue for the waltz here as well (see Zbikowski 2008).
The main four-­bar harmonic progression I|I6|IV5—­-­6|V 7 elides over and over
again into its next iteration, with some phrases providing contrast via the
descending fifths sequence (iii|vi|ii|V|I|IV6—­-­5| ♭VII|V), which also tends to
sound circular. The constant elision negates any sense of goal directed-
ness and reminds the listener of the constant, dizzying spiral motion of
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 81

the waltz as danced. The connection to this physical aspect of the dance
creates a sense of haziness surrounding our memories, further supporting
the feeling of nostalgia.
Triple meter is in fact not used again in the show at all until the sec-
ond act’s “Round and Round.” This waltz is distinctly different from “Try
to Remember” in that it has a “Bowery” or “carnival” feel to it. Pairing
this more comic version of the topic with El Gallo’s “courting” of Luisa is
entertaining, energetic, and potentially nostalgic, but there is little asso-
ciation with love. The lyrics mention carousels, nonstop dancing, and
romance, but nothing approaching a meaningful relationship between
the two characters—­for example: “We’ll kick up our heels to music and
dance! Until my head reels with music. Just like a lovely real romance.
All we’ll do is daily dance.” Of course, Luisa soon learns this way of liv-
ing is unsustainable. The waltz here has been, as in Sweeney Todd, turned
on its head and made almost grotesque through the implication that the
waltz compels dancers never to stop, leading to exhaustion.18 By the end
of the number, character and audience are left to question if the love and
youthful nostalgia promised in the opening number are really possible
outcomes for the show.
The last appearance of a waltz is in “They Were You,” the final new
number heard in the show (the last two numbers are reprises). In this song,
the waltz returns to the style of the opening number, but now recast as a
love duet. To be sure, the waltz topic is conventional for this setting, but
“They Were You” is musically simple, not at all like the sweeping, operatic
“You Are Love” from Show Boat or even like much of the rest of Matt and
Luisa’s music. In further contrast to the opening number, the musical ana-
logue for the physical circular gestures is gone. Its emotional effect comes
from the pairing of the pleasant, almost prototypical waltz with the lyrics:
“Ev’ry secret prayer, ev’ry fancy free / Ev’rything I dared both for you and
me / All my wildest dreams multiplied by two / They were you, they were
you, they were you.” Matt and Luisa both acknowledge that they were
looking for more—­excitement, adventure, and romance—­but have come
to realize that what each was really searching for could be found in the
other. Thus, a sort of nostalgic or naïve understanding of love or of a part-
ner is not necessarily a detriment—­it can remind us of why we fell in love
in the first place. “They Were You” interacts specifically with lyrics and
drama at this moment in the work to support Matt and Luisa’s true love
through its associations with a couple’s physical intimacy and amorous
 82 / here for the hearing

accord, but also with its other in-­show uses, which contextualize it. The
waltz as a topic, then, takes center stage in The Fantasticks both generically
as a kind of theme for the show against which other music is measured,
and also strategically in each of its iterations, suggesting specific dramatic
interpretations.

Conclusion

In sum, The Secret Garden and Sweeney Todd serve as poles on a continuum
of topical-­interpretive strategies in musical theater works. Musical topics
in Sweeney Todd lead me to interpretations of character, subtext, and moti-
vations, whereas in The Secret Garden, they act more as broad markers for
characters and the metaphoric plot in which they participate. The Fantas-
ticks falls somewhere on a continuum of particularization and generaliza-
tion by blending the two strategies together. My sense is that when top-
ics are identifiable, both generalization and particularization might be at
work at different moments in a given show, although generalization seems
to be the dominant strategy.19 In other words, shows might, in general,
be more similar to The Fantasticks in that they use a combination of these
two strategies. Generalization, as I have tried to show, depends on topical
associations that correlate closely with characters, lyrics, and dramatic sit-
uations, usually only providing oppositions to other kinds of music used
in a work. But the readings I have proposed in this chapter demonstrate
that generalization can provide fascinating insights into a work as a whole
and into its broader sociocultural contexts.
Additionally, there are a lot of unexplored questions regarding the
use of topics in musical theater: Can music commonly associated with
Broadway, such as the foxtrot or soft-­shoe, be used as a topic, or are these
styles too standard in the repertoire to carry external sociocultural mean-
ing? Do the “golden-­era” Broadway musicals—­t hose from about 1930 to
1960—­have potential topical readings, or are these perhaps the origins of
meaning for later shows? Have generalizing strategies in musicals contrib-
uted to broadly recognized cultural associations between certain kinds
of music and characters or dramatic situations? How might the music of
shows using rock and other ­popular styles signify? I am certain, though,
that just as accumulated musical experiences translated into meaningful
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 83

dramatic references for eighteenth-­century opera audiences, so too do

topics orient our understanding of the Broadway musical.

Notes
1. I presented a version of this paper at several conferences in the spring of
2017, and I am grateful for the input and insights from many colleagues, especially
Vasili Byros, Yayoi Uno Everett, Lawrence Zbikowski, J. Daniel Jenkins, and Paul
Sherrill. I have incorporated their suggestions throughout this chapter.
2. In Peircean semiotics, signs create meaning in three basic ways: icons,
indexes, and symbols. Iconic signs refer to their signified through similarity or
resemblance; indexical signs signify via a direct connection to the signified; and
symbols signify through conventional or arbitrary association. Classic examples
include portraits as icons, smoke indexing fire, and words themselves as symbols
(see Chandler 2007, 36–­37). Mirka’s description of the topical semiotic process is
somewhat different from that of Raymond Monelle (2000, 2006) because Mirka
limits her examination of topics, for the purposes of her volume, to their point
of musical origin. Monelle’s project involved delving into the musical depiction
of literary ideas and natural sounds, and so the creation of meaning is somewhat
more complex. Given that topics in musical theater are generally also musical in
origin, Mirka’s explanation of the way topics signify serves well.
3. Laird (2011) explicitly recognizes and enumerates many different musical
styles and dance types that have been used in Broadway shows, and he associates
the “classic Broadway sound” with Tin Pan Alley (38). This mixing of styles also
occurred in the Broadway show’s immediate predecessors: vaudeville, music hall,
and operetta. Indeed, in some ways, the American musical itself is an amalgama-
tion of elements from these precursors (see, for instance, Grant 2004, 119; Preston
2008, 27–­2 8).
4. I have elsewhere made similar claims about the role musical topics play in
creating characterization in Handel’s Italian-­language operas (see G. Decker 2011,
2013, 2020).
5. The waltz was indeed a very common rhythmic characteristic in songs for
musical theater and its immediate predecessors (see Bennett 1986, 10–­2 2; Grant
2004, 124–­2 6; McMillan 2006, 11–­1 2; Laird 2011, 33–­4 1). One may wonder if such
a ubiquitous song type might be topical, as it could be perceived as part of the
unmarked, typical flow of a Broadway score. While this may be the case, espe-
cially for earlier shows, I contend that its frequent use would only enhance its gen-
eralizing characteristics. Further, its potential for particularization would have
increased after its period of most intense conventional social usage.
6. Show Boat presents numerous problems surrounding race and the show’s
construction, plot, and production, not the least of which is its stereotypical
depiction of Black people. For a recent discussion in addition to T. Decker 2013,
 84 / here for the hearing

see Bradley Rogers’s examination of the exploitation of Black bodies in the show
and the problematic ways the show tries to absolve itself of racism (2020, chapter
4). For related discussions (focusing especially on the 1936 film), see Smith 2005,
10–­2 4, and Stanfield 2000, who takes a critical look at the problematic ways in
which blackface and its subsequent abandonment are used as markers for white
social progress in the show.
7. The origins of the tune, lyrics, and meaning of various sets of lyrics for
“Yankee Doodle” have stirred much debate (see Lemay 1976; Murray 1999; Abe-
love 2008). Several sources place the origin of the tune much earlier than the
1750s, but the lyrics with which many are familiar today (“Yankee Doodle went
to town . . .”) were apparently first published in 1852 (Murray 1999, 207). Murray
guesses, though, that these lyrics originated in some form in the eighteenth cen-
tury, especially because of the reference to “macaroni” (1999, 207–­8). The other
set of commonly known lyrics (“Father and I went down to camp . . .”) were cer-
tainly written in the mid-­eighteenth century. As for “Billy Boy” (“Oh, where have
you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy . . .”), 1776 is the earliest date given for this family of
lyrics in Waltz and Engle 2016 (s.v. “Billy Boy”).
8. “A Fine White Horse” also uses horn fifths and some traditional musical
galloping gestures as a kind of leitmotif to refer to the horse Martha describes.
This kind of direct, almost pictorial musical association can be found at other
points throughout the show, but since it is not the focus of this chapter, I do not
delve into this issue further.
9. Dorian—­along with Ionian, Mixolydian, and Aeolian—­is a typical diatonic
mode for English folk songs (Karpeles 1973, 32), although I would argue that any
modal or obviously pentatonic melody would signal folk music for today’s audi-
ences.
10. The lament and the stile concitato were used in seventeenth-­and eighteenth-­
century opera almost exclusively for noble characters, and so they continue to
carry associations with an elevated register. But I think for most present-­day lis-
teners, they may also be understood more generally as compositional techniques
from classical music; I conjecture that this more general association also implies
an elevated register with audiences today.
11. The musical dichotomy I have posited also suggests, then, that Martha and
Dickon see Mary as a catalyst for change in the Craven family—­potentially part of
their “secret knowledge” not available to upper-­c lass characters.
12. For reference, commonly known Bowery waltzes include “Take Me Out to
the Ball Game” and “In the Good Old Summertime,” as Mark Grant has pointed
out (2004, 124).
13. Music-­hall songs often functioned to help the lower classes laugh at their
own plight, while sometimes concurrently offering solutions to these problems
(Kift 1996, 37). “A Little Priest” serves both purposes for Todd, albeit in a gro-
tesque way (see below).
 Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theater / 85

14. The scene is uncomfortable to watch and was cut from the original Broad-
way production ostensibly for time, but Sondheim later implied that perhaps
director Harold Prince thought it too perverse for audiences (Horowitz 2003, 136–­
37).
15. There also is a physical opposition between the staging of Mrs. Lovett’s
waltz and Judge Turpin’s that contributes to the grotesque reading: in “The Worst
Pies in London,” Lovett is usually bustling about the stage while she tries to con-
vince Todd to try one of her pies. In “Johanna,” Turpin makes the waltz more gro-
tesque through a lack of movement—­he hunches over and gets down on his knees,
with most of his physical movement coming from self-­flagellation. Indeed, much
of the content and structure of the entire show might be described as grotesque,
according to Sheinberg’s definition.
16. The use of music truly at home in musical comedy or precursors to the
musical does, at first glance, seem to contradict Mirka’s understanding of topics
as “taken out of their proper context” (2014, 2). How can the use of this music in
a Broadway show be topical? My argument for a topical reading is twofold: First,
many of the styles used in early musical comedies originate outside the Broad-
way theater (e.g., the polka or the foxtrot), so in one sense, they have already been
placed into new contexts. Second, by the time The Fantasticks premiered in 1960,
the traditional musical comedy was one subgenre on a spectrum of structural pos-
sibilities for musical theater works, and so the kinds of music used in a given show
were no longer standardized.
17. Assigning novelty or otherwise stylistically incongruous songs to second-
ary or featured characters is a long-­standing device in musical theater.
18. Sheinberg has posited that triple meter lends itself to becoming grotesque
through the feeling of “whirling, uncontrollable motion” (2000, 221).
19. This kind of reading, I submit, might also be useful to those eighteenth-­
century operas whose topics have traditionally been understood as correlating
with characters and dramatic moments exactly, providing exactly the kind of fac-
ile reading musicologists and literary theorists usually wish to ignore.

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4 A Phenomenological Approach
to Music Theater Rhyme
Richard Plotkin

Introduction

The cornerstone of contemporary musical theater is the tight-­k nit pro-

cess of book-­w riting, lyric-­w riting, and music composition. While a sin-
gle author occasionally assumes all roles (e.g., Jason Robert Brown’s The
Last Five Years or Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop), more often than not
two or three collaborators are involved in creating a work (Marsha Nor-
man, for instance, wrote the book and lyrics for The Secret Garden with
Lucy Simon’s music, and Stephen Sondheim collaborated with a variety
of book writers when he took charge of both music and lyrics in his later
works). The fact that musical theater songs are often the result of a col-
laborative process runs counter to typical analytical approaches to them,
which do not often account deeply enough for the enormous influence
every creator and every sound has on the other parts. Instead, analysis of
song often disassembles the collaborative: lyrics are analyzed as compo-
nents of a larger plot (the book), and the story of the lyrics serves to feed
back into the final analysis of the song, supported by additional thoughts
on harmony and musical form. There is nothing inherently wrong with
this approach—­many impactful and insightful analyses are framed in this

/ 88 /
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 89

manner—­but treating the relationship of lyrics and composition as much

more intimately intertwined can lead to fruitful new insights.1
Lyrics are not poems—­not even when the lyric was a poem in its first
incarnation. They always take place in song and cannot successfully be ana-
lyzed like poetry. To meaningfully confront this problem, I propose here
a method to address the musical aspects of the words. I draw heavily from
William Caplin’s work on musical form (1998) and make extensive use of his
terminology regarding sentences, periods, and hybrid themes; basic ideas,
contrasting ideas, and continuations; and thematic functionality and larger
formal units. If Caplin’s work is entirely unfamiliar to the reader, some of
this material will certainly be obscured behind that terminology.2 I also
acknowledge the problematic overlap of terminology: “sentence” means
one thing in the analysis of musical form and another in the identification of
a grammatical unit, and there are similar problems with the terms “meter”
and “form.” Where it could be unclear which I’m referring to, I will use
explicit (albeit cumbersome) language to reduce ambiguity.
Caplin’s conception of musical form and phrase structure, which
incorporates the language of functional harmony, can be seen as a means
of conveying musical expectation—­a dominant expects a tonic, a half-­
cadence projects an authentic cadence, and a presentation promises a
continuation. This conception can be expanded for song. I suggest that
lyrics—­not words but words-­with-­music—­are themselves musical phenom-
ena, integrated parts of a complete Klang. In this chapter, I primarily con-
sider where and how lyric rhyme propels musical expectations.
As an introduction, consider the music in example 4.1a, taken from
the opening of a reprise to “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” from Rodgers
and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music (1959). Formally, this is a typical
sentence, with a basic idea (b.i.) repeated to form a presentation, and an
authentic cadence at the end of the continuation.3 The basic ideas from the
presentation are rhymed—­“ring it” and “sing it”—­and the continuation
and cadential functions are rhymed—­“stay” and “away.” In example 4.1b, I
have altered the lyrics to implement a different pattern of rhyme: the first
b.i. rhymes with the continuation—­“rings” with “wings”—­and the second
b.i. rhymes with the end of the phrase—­“play” with “away.”
Example 4.1b is a nontrivial change because our expectations for
the resolution of the theme are substantially altered. In 4.1a, “ring it” is
rhymed when the b.i. is repeated, and once that rhyme succeeds, we have
no further need for “ring it” to be rhymed. When we hear “stay” in the
 90 / here for the hearing

Example 4.1a. “Reprise: Sixteen Going On Seventeen,” The Sound of Music by

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Example 4.1b. Modified lyrics.

continuation, it is positioned as far from the start of the continuation as

“ring it” was from the start of the presentation, it is rhymed in a similarly
balanced manner, and when the continuation ends, we have no further
need for “stay” to be rhymed. In 4.1b, the need for “rings” to be rhymed is
not resolved until the end of the continuation function. And during this
longer wait for a rhyme, we are also asked to begin waiting for a rhyme
to “play.” Consider the quantitative difference in our expectations—­our
needs—­for rhyme to occur: at the middle of m. 5 in 4.1a (indicated by a
star), we have no need for resolution coming from unanswered rhyme; at
the star in 4.1b, we simultaneously have two unfulfilled needs for rhyme.
Although the harmonic and form-­functional components of the theme
are the same, 4.1b presents an altered musical experience. In both ver-
sions, the end of the presentation is a moment of anticipation for continu-
ation; but whereas in 4.1a the anticipatory potential is limited to form and
harmony, in 4.1b the presence of two unfulfilled rhymes gives the contin-
uation an uncomfortable kinetic surge, imbuing an intensity to the under-
lying harmonic and formal structure of the passage not present in 4.1a.4
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 91

What I want to draw from this simple example is that rhyme creates
expectations for resolution. The way those expectations are created, and the
myriad ways in which they are satisfied, denied, and often toyed with,
influences not just the poetic experience of the words, but also the overall
musical experience.5
There are, of course, less trivial examples, and exploring those requires
a more robust technical foundation. The text that follows incrementally
establishes analytical terminology and notation, and applies the newly
established tooling to musical examples. The material is organized to
first present common lyric-­musical patterns, then terminology based on
those common patterns, and then analytical examples making use of the
technical foundation. The examples include applications of the theory
to a fully conventional excerpt and a less-conventional excerpt, and con-
clude with an example that more deeply explores the implications of how
expectations for lyric rhyme grow and adjust dynamically with the musi-
cal experience.

Lyrical Rhyme

Proper Rhyme and Well-­Crafted Song

Well-­crafted song exhibits narrative clarity, and one key aspect of narra-
tive clarity is good prosody. In the context of a song, prosody refers to how
music supports (or undermines) the natural sound of the lyrics. An exam-
ple of a challenging exercise in prosody: try setting the words of the Lord’s
Prayer to the tune of the Beatles’ “Let It Be.”6 It is a tall order to lightly
modify the lyrics so that the rhythm in the words becomes naturally sup-
ported by the music, and if done incorrectly, the lyrics become unintelli-
gible. Narrative clarity through rhyme—­which itself is an aspect of proso-
dy—­is an essential component of a lyricist’s skill set. A lyricist uses rhyme
to help a listener parse the story of the song, and rhyme influences the
larger poetic structure. Most importantly, lyricists are taught that rhyme
sets powerful aural expectations for the listener.
Within the scope of music theater, well-­crafted songs use proper
rhymes extensively. A proper rhyme is any pair of words or phrases that
share all sounds and stress patterns from a stressed vowel through to the
end of a sequence of syllables. Pairs of sounds that match in this way but
 92 / here for the hearing

share an identical starting consonant (or lack of consonant) are not proper
rhymes, they are repetitions or identities. A homeoteuleton, also called a
“near rhyme” or “slant rhyme,” is close to a rhyme but deficient in some
manner (for instance, time and mine are in the category of homeoteuleton
since they do not share the same final consonant). William Harmon’s deep
study on the taxonomy of rhyme says that “[proper] rhyme occurs in a
range between mere repetition and mere homeoteleuton” (1987, 369). Ste-
phen Sondheim says, “using near-­rhymes is like juggling clumsily” (2010,
XXVII)7 and in no uncertain or equivocating terms calls out as lazy all
songwriters who don’t execute proper rhyme (2010, XXV–­X XVI). That’s
not to say that everything in a song must rhyme. In the musical examples
that follow, there are fabulous uses of deliberate repetition and moments
that intentionally substitute non-­rhymes to create a specific effect. Not-
withstanding deliberate exceptions, the regular practice of proper rhyme,
and the regular criticism of deficient rhyme, creates an unambiguous
framework for the discussion that follows. There is no room to quibble
about sort-­of-­rhymes; either words rhyme, or they do not. This level of cer-
tainty gives us the ability to lay a strong analytical foundation; we should
treat the primacy of proper rhyme as axiomatic.8

Rhymed Words in Small Themes

The union of formal types and rhyme types is essential to my analysis.

Here, I want to familiarize the reader with some patterns common to
small thematic musical units. What follows is certainly not an exhaustive
list of possibilities, but an enumeration of some relatively standard rhyme
progressions occurring in small and symmetric sentences, periods, and
hybrid themes (see example 4.2).
Primarily two types of rhyme are common to small themes:9 end
rhymes and interior rhymes. An end-­rhymed theme has a rhyme that is
completed at the very end of a theme; in a typical thematic structure of
4-­measure phrase + 4-­measure phrase (4+4), the words at the end of each
phrase would rhyme. The following represent standard end-­ rhymed
themes: a period in which a four-­measure antecedent rhymes with its con-
sequent (“It All Fades Away,” 4.2a) and a sentence in which a four-­measure
presentation rhymes with its continuation phrase (“I Get to Show You the
Ocean,” 4.2b). Another typical end-­rhymed theme is a sentence in which
the second phrase contains a rhyme between the continuation and caden-
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 93

tial functions (“One Hand, One Heart,” 4.2c). Note that 4.2c is considered
end-­rhymed because the rhymed word occurs at the end of the full theme;
“end-­rhymed” does not require a 4+4 subdivision as exemplified by 4.2a
and 4.2b. Hybrid themes also follow these common patterns, such as a
rhymed antecedent with a non-­consequent conclusion (“Cabaret,” 4.2d).
An interior-­rhymed theme has a rhyme that is completed prior to the end
of the theme. This often involves a 2+2 subdivision of a phrase with intro-
ductory or medial placement. Sometimes, an interior rhyme is within the
melodic-­motivic repetition of a presentation (“My Favorite Things,” 4.2e);
at other times, there is a rhyme between the two ideas of the antecedent
(“Some Other Time,” 4.2f). Themes that only have an interior rhyme often
use the word at the end of the theme for an inter-­theme rhyme or rep-
etition; in the case of “Some Other Time,” the song’s title is repeated at
the end of each stanza. Of the examples given, 4.2a and 4.2e are interior-­
rhymed and end-­rhymed, though they represent distinct combinations of
formal types and rhyme types. Example 4.2e is a sentence with a rhymed
presentation, followed by a separately rhymed continuation (like 4.2c).
Finally, “Something’s Coming” (4.2g) is an exceptional instance of two
interior rhymes, along with a different, and repeated, end rhyme. The pre-
sentation is rhymed (like “My Favorite Things”) and is followed by an inter-
polation that enlarges the first half of the theme by four measures, ending
on “shows.” The fragments of the continuation are also rhymed with each
other, where the second fragment is a two-­measure expansion that creates
space for the second interior rhyme. The end of the continuation rhymes
“rose” with the interpolation that closes the presentation phrase, mim-
icking the broad structure of many other end-­rhymed themes (4.2a, 4.2b,
and 4.2d). Yet this rhyme does not feel completed until “rose” is followed
by “knows.” The incomplete feeling of “rose” is brought about by a metric
hemiola that compresses the continuation and places the rhyme five beats
out of alignment with the placement of “shows.” Later in this chapter, I give
other examples of how such misalignments affect our sense of musical reso-
lution, even when the misalignment is largely one of rhyme.
In each of the excerpts, essential formal components are bracketed and
labeled. The rhyme most relevant to the style being showcased is wrapped
in a dashed box, and other rhymes are underlined. If there are multiple
basic ideas (b.i.) or contrasting ideas (c.i.) in a passage, a subscript numeral
is added to the description of the rhyme for clarity; the subscript numerals
do not imply a separate idea or functional role.
Example 4.2a. Period with rhymed antecedent/consequent (c.i.1/c.i.2): “It All Fades
Away,” The Bridges of Madison County, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown.

Example 4.2b. Sentence with rhymed presentation/continuation phrase (b.i.2/

cadential): “I Get to Show You the Ocean,” by Georgia Stitt.

Example 4.2c. Sentence with rhymed continuation/cadential: “One Hand, One

Heart,” West Side Story, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim.

Example 4.2d. Hybrid theme (antecedent + continuation): “Cabaret,” Cabaret,

music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.
Example 4.2e. Sentence: “My Favorite Things,” The Sound of Music, music by
Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.

Example 4.2f. Caption: Hybrid theme (antecedent + cadential): “Some Other

Time,” On the Town, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Betty Comden and
Adolph Green.

Example 4.2g. Deviant, symmetrical theme (sentence with interpolation,

expanded continuation): “Something’s Coming,” West Side Story, music by
Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
 96 / here for the hearing

A Hypothesis on Preferences for Rhyme

Example 4.3 shows a compound period with “away” at the end of the
antecedent rhymed by “say” at the end of the consequent. Were we to
simply mark the moment that “say” appears as the moment that “away” is
rhymed, we would be neglecting something more powerful that happened
during this musical phrase: “away” promised that it would be rhymed, and
“say” convincingly provided a manner of closure—­linguistic and musi-
cal—­to that promise. Why do we expect that “away” should rhyme, and
why do we portend its resolution to the end of the subsequent phrase?
I think the answer lies in our learned preferences for a musical style. I
propose, then, a subjective set of rules about our preferences (Preference
Rules, or “PRs”), informed by my experience with musical theater songs,
that describe different situations in which we either expect or prefer to
hear rhyme.10 I name each rule for the convenience and efficiency of refer-
ring back to it later. These preference rules will probably be most mean-
ingful in the realm of musical theater, or in similar music in which there
exists an expectation for proper rhyme. They are as follows:

● PR-­GRAM: Prefer rhymes at the terminus of a GRAMmatical unit. A

rhymed word is expected to occur at the end of a grammatical unit (the
end of a sentence, the end of a subclause, the end of a prepositional
phrase, etc.). This applies to both the word to be rhymed and the word
that rhymes the former. Both Harmon (1987) and Tsur (1996) take

Example 4.3. Compound period: “Balcony Song,” West Side Story, music by
Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Note: In this example, EVT-­n
designates events that will be discussed further into the chapter.
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 97

rhyme at an ending as part of its essential nature, and both argue for an
even more intense accounting of rhyme based on parts of speech; in
lyrics, although not all rhymes are at the end of grammatical units, we
should still treat this as a strong preference.
● PR-­FEET: Prefer rhymes after similar counts of poetic FEET. All
things being equal, a rhymed word is likely to occur with the same
(poetic-­)metric placement as the word being rhymed. Consider
Shakespearean rhymed verse, usually found as rhymed couplets in
iambic pentameter: there are exactly five feet in each line, and the
rhymed words each occupy the last of those feet. A technique such as
substitution (exchanging one or more feet for different feet, often in
different quantity) will influence our acceptance of rhymes that violate
this rule, and the temporal (PR-­DUR) and accentual (PR-­GROUP)
manifestations of musical rhythm and accent will also exert an influence
on our acceptance of nonmatching counts of stresses.
● PR-­GROUP: Prefer rhymes at the terminus of a rhythmic GROUP.
This is the musical counterpart to PR-­GRAM. Rhythmic groups
can be of many sizes; a range from four notes (like the fragments in
“Something’s Coming” [4.2g]) up to the size of a phrase is a reasonable
expectation.
● PR-­DUR: Prefer rhymes after similar DURations. This is the musical
counterpart to PR-­FEET. Often there are similar numbers of feet over
a similar number of measures, but sometimes very different quantities
of feet are worked out over the same number of measures, where the
change is usually tied to the emotion of the character or the meaning of
the song.
● PR-­MEL: Prefer rhymes in similar MELodic-­motivic material. All
things being equal, rhyming arrival often occurs within a similar
melodic-­motivic setting. PR-­GROUP is implicit in this rule; we
expect the rhyme to be at the end of this melodic-­motivic material.
The strongest example would be a rhymed pair of basic ideas in a
presentation, and the next best example would be a rhymed pair of
contrasting ideas in a period, where the music of the latter c.i. is mostly
like the first c.i. A counterexample would be when a rhyme pairs a c.i.
with a b.i. in a period, which usually confirms PR-­FEET but denies PR-­
MEL.
● PR-­FORM: Prefer rhymes in similar FORM-­functional material.
All things being equal, rhyming often occurs within similar form-­
functional material. PR-­GROUP is implicit in this rule; we expect the
 98 / here for the hearing

rhyme to be at the end of this form-­functional material. In concert

with PR-­MEL, the strongest example would be a rhymed pair of basic
ideas in a presentation, and the next best example would be a rhymed
pair of contrasting ideas in a period. Unlike PR-­MEL, PR-­FORM does
not need the music to be similar in a rhymed pair of contrasting ideas.
Finally, as far as this particular PR is concerned, it’s useful to consider
continuation function and cadential function situated in a fairly equal
formal manner, and similarly to consider the phrases of a thematic unit
as roughly equivalent. In other words, we would find this preference
satisfied by rhyming the end of two measures of continuation function
with the end of the subsequent two measures of cadential function,
and we would find this preference satisfied by rhyming the end of a
presentation and the end of the subsequent continuation.
● PR-­SIM: Prefer SIMilar rhyme patterns in similar musical settings of
stanzas. Internal to a song, we expect similar music to achieve rhyme in
similar ways. If a song has an AABA refrain, and the first A section is an
end-­rhymed period, then the expectation is that the second and third
instances of A will also be end-­rhymed periods.

A Phenomenology of Rhyme

Having now established some language for expressing hypothetical rhym-

ing preferences, I can turn to an exploration of our experience of those
preferences being satisfied or denied. Indeed, to better comprehend lyr-
ical rhyme, we must understand the architecture of the system in which
it is experienced. The core experience of rhyme is tripartite: (1) initially,
you hear a word (or combination of words) that should be rhymed; (2)
music and lyrics pass, leading you to a moment in which you expect the
appearance of a rhyme to the initiating word; (3) finally, you (probably)
hear a rhyme to the initial word. It’s usually straightforward to identify the
instant in which a word has been rhymed, but it is less straightforward to
determine why a word marks a point of initiation for rhyme-­expectation.
Examining musical excerpts using the preference rules helps to elucidate
this murkier undertaking.
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 99

Applying Preference Rules

In the examples that follow, phenomenology is used to express and exam-

ine a listener’s experience of a song over time. The presentation of phe-
nomenological experience follows the approach presented in Lewin 1986.
“Events” are simply things that happen. “Context,” in this set of examples,
is the window of musical measures through which the event should be
viewed—­and in the majority of cases below, the context simply expands
linearly over time, tracking the manner in which a listener would experi-
ence the music (first mm. 1–­4 , then mm. 1–­8, which adds mm. 5–­8 to the
prior context of mm. 1–­4). “Perceptions” are the possible experiences of an
event in a given context, and perceptions can be statements of expecta-
tion, reorientation, and denial (among other possibilities). “Percepts” are
the collections of perceptions for a given event and context.
Returning now to the “Balcony Song” (example 4.3), the theme is a
compound period. A harmonic analysis shows the antecedent moving
to the dominant of ♭ III, and the consequent concluding with a PAC on its
III, which brings the entire phrase to a conclusion on V of the home key
of B ♭ . The grammatical endings occur at each of the moments called out
by a dashed enclosure and are sequentially labeled with EVT-­n. Each of
these moments may create or resolve an opportunity for rhyme (based
on PR-­GRAM) whether or not that opportunity is fulfilled. In the phe-
nomenological chart, table 4.1, I have captured a concrete set of percepts
based on the preference rules from above. Since the events are identified
and labeled in example 4.3, I have not included an additional column for
musical details. Absent from the chart are instances of PR-­GROUP and PR-­
SIM—­the former because it is, in this excerpt, implicit in PR-­M EL and PR-­
FORM, and the latter because this is the start of the refrain, so there is no
similar setting to which this stanza could be reasonably compared.
The first percept, p1, says that we expect “tonight” to be rhymed at the
end of the next grammatical unit, after a similar number of poetic feet and
beats, and after similar melodic-­motivic and form-­functional material.
These expectations point to the possibility of an interior-­rhymed theme
(like examples 4.2e–­4 .2g), where 4.2e is an example that satisfies all of
these at the end of its presentation. In fact, if the last two words of this
antecedent were changed such that the lyric read, “Tonight, tonight, It all
began tonight, I saw you and the world was alight,” p1a, p1b, and p1c would
be satisfied at EVT-­2 .
Table 4.1. Phenomenological chart based on the above preference rules
Percept Event Context Perceptions
p1 EVT-­1 mm. 1–­4 p1a: “tonight” will rhyme the next grammatical
unit [PR-­GRAM]
p1b: “tonight” will be rhymed at the end of
approximately 5 more poetic feet [PR-­F EET]
p1c: “tonight” will be rhymed at the end of
approximately 16 more beats [PR-­DUR]
p1d: “tonight” will be rhymed at the end of a
similar melodic-­motivic unit [PR-­M EL]
p1e: “tonight” will be rhymed at the end of a
similar form-­f unctional unit [PR-­F ORM]
p2 EVT-­2 mm. 1–­8 (p1a modification, reoriented to the next gram-
matical ending)
(p1b modification, reoriented to 5 feet from the
start of the second half)
(p1c modification, reoriented to 16 beats from
the start of the second half)
(p1d, NOT denied, waiting for possible match)
(p1e, NOT denied, waiting for possible match)
p2a: “away” will rhyme the next grammatical
unit [PR-­GRAM]
p2b: “away” will be rhymed after approximately
10 more poetic feet [PR-­F EET]
p2c: “away” will be rhymed at the end of
approximately 32 more beats [PR-­DUR]
p2d: “away” will be rhymed at the end of a simi-
lar melodic-­motivic unit [PR-­M EL]
p2e: “away” will be rhymed at the end of a simi-
lar form-­f unctional unit [PR-­F ORM]
p3 EVT-­3 mm. 1–­1 2 (p1a, strong denial; the next grammatical unit is
already designated to p2a)
(p1b, denial; same word forms an identity, not
a rhyme)
(p1c, denial)
(p1d, denial)
(p1e, denial)
(p2a modification, reoriented to the next gram-
matical ending)
p4 EVT-­4 mm. 1–­16 (p2a, confirmation)
(p2b, confirmation, 10/11 feet)
(p2c, confirmation)
(p2d, denial; not the same melodic-­motivic
material)
(p2e, confirmation)
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 101

The percepts p1d and p1e say that we expect “tonight” might be rhymed
at the end of a matching melodic-­motivic and/or form-­functional unit.
These are expectations that are unique to the musical context of a lyric,
and it’s worthwhile discussing how such expectations might be formed.
At EVT-­1, we have just experienced the compound basic idea (c.b.i.) of a
compound antecedent, and even if we don’t yet know that it’s a compound
antecedent—­indeed, even if the subsequent phrase is not a consequent—­
within this small four-­measure moment we can be certain that we’ve
heard something motivic and something the characteristic length of a musi-
cal idea. With that hearing, our formal experience of this moment implies
both a phrase that has not yet ended and a phrase part that has the possi-
bility of being repeated. These cues lend themselves to an expectation that
there could be a matching unit that is similarly situated as the first half of
a phrase; those cues turn our preferences PR-­M EL and PR-­FORM into the
expectations of p1d and p1e.
By the mere fact that it does not rhyme EVT-­1, EVT-­2 fails to satisfy
the expectations set forth in p1a, p1b, and p1c. The first c.b.i. is in a special
position, such that we might be willing to see p1a, p1b, and/or p1c satis-
fied with the next beginning; with this possibility, the three percepts are
reoriented toward the possibility of being confirmed at EVT-­3 . As far as
p1d and p1e are concerned, we heard neither a matching melodic unit nor
a matching formal unit, so those expectations remain active until such a
match is no longer a possibility. Since it does not rhyme EVT-­1, EVT-­2 also
generates a new set of expectations for “away,” based on its own position
in the antecedent: p2b will wait ten more feet, and p2c thirty-­t wo more
beats, before a match is likely.
To validate that the time span in which we consider PR-­F EET and PR-­
DUR for EVT-­2 is longer than those spans for EVT-­1, I’ve created the fol-
lowing, excessively odd variation of the lyric, in which a rhyme for “away”
occurs at the end of the consequent’s c.b.i., and a rhyme for “tonight”
occurs at the end of the consequent’s close:

Tonight, tonight, It all began tonight, I saw you and the world went
away,
Tonight, tonight, is better than the day, What you are, what you do, is so
bright

This lyric sounds strange not because there are words that don’t rhyme, but
because there are words that don’t rhyme in the right places. Since we are
 102 / here for the hearing

ruining the lyric (or perhaps I should say that we are respecting the original
lyric by showing how it could have been wrong), we might try this one as
well, and note that it seems less bad than the one above:

Tonight, tonight, It all began tonight, I saw you and the world went away,
Tonight, tonight, I hope that you will stay, What you are, what you do, what
you say

The latter lyric, rhyming “away,” “stay,” and “say,” is not less awful at “stay”
(where the prior lyric landed “day”). Instead, it’s made slightly less bad
because “stay” projects another four-­measure expectation to the end of the
consequent, and in this latter lyric, that expectation is satisfied with “say.”
The third percept of table 4.1 is interesting in that its denial of all aspects
of p1 is due not only to the lack of a proper rhyme, but also to the lack of
further anticipated places where any of the expectations in p1 might read-
ily be satisfied. If the music turns out to be structured normatively (as this
music does), then the expectations for rhyme from EVT-­2 already occupy
the space any reorientation of p1 might attempt to shift toward. EVT-­4
confirms the majority of expectations expressed in p2.

The Progression of Expectation

The “Balcony Song” of example 4.3 is a normative musical theater setting,

and I would anticipate similar norm-­conforming music, such as example
4.2a, to exhibit quite similar phenomenological patterns. The next exam-
ple looks at what might happen in music that is nearly normative.
In the opening of Olaf’s “In Summer” lyric from Frozen (example 4.4a),
there is a trio of monosyllabic rhymes (“buzz,” “fuzz,” and “does”) within
the formal structure of a musical sentence. Both “buzz” and “fuzz” occur at
the end of grammatical units, and at the end of each of the sentence’s basic
ideas, such that if we agree that an expectation for rhyme is established at
“buzz,” “fuzz” would successfully resolve that expectation. On the other
hand, “does” presents some analytical problems: it occurs mid-­clause
rather than at the end of a grammatical unit. And it does not occur at the
end of a musical unit: continuation and cadential functions are fused in an
expanded cadential progression, and the only moment of musical closure
is on “summer” at the end of the phrase. The poetic-­metrical placement
of “does” is identical to the placement of “fuzz,” occurring on the stress of
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 103

Example 4.4. “In Summer,” Frozen, by Kristen Anderson-­Lopez and Robert Lopez.
Note: R=½N, meaning that, for the purposes of analyzing form, ½ of a notated
measure in this example is the equivalent of a full measure in normative examples.

Example 4.4a. Trio of monosyllabic rhymes within the musical sentence.

Example 4.4b. Quartet of rhymes.

Example 4.4c. Same music as 4.4b, but with a trio of rhymes.

Example 4.4d. Shifts the rhyme to the end of the thematic unit.

the fourth foot, but the music does not provide enough feet after “does” for
an additional rhyme. Perhaps most problematic when evaluating “does”
is that the expectations of a rhyme for “buzz” are already resolved. What
possible expectations are satisfied or created by “does” when all existing
expectations have seemingly been dealt with?
To understand the possibilities at the moment of “does,” Table 4.2
offers a phenomenological assessment. To get around the thorny issue of
 104 / here for the hearing

expressing expectation based on what actually happens in the music, I’ve

also written a few alternates to the latter half of this thematic unit. Exam-
ple 4.4b creates a quartet of rhymes, rhyming “because” with “does,” and
ending on a half cadence. Example 4.4c adopts the music of 4b, but has
only a trio of rhymes (like the actual song). Example 4.4d shifts the rhyme
to the end of the thematic unit.
Let’s start by assuming EVT-­3 (in examples 4.4a, 4.4b, and 4.4c) cre-
ates some set of expectations for future rhyme (p3). Perhaps this is not
how we would normally process the music of 4.4a, yet p4 B at EVT-4b con-
firms all the expectations that were posited by p3. If these expectations can
be confirmed, then they must exist for 4.4a and 4.4c, even if such expecta-
tions are ultimately denied in those examples.
Once we’ve established the possibility of these perceptions, we can
take a more analytical approach to comparing 4a and 4c, both of which
deny p3 at EVT-­4 and EVT-­4C, respectively. Of course, the actual music
(4a) is thoroughly acceptable, and the latter is intentionally and abomi-
nably bad (4c). Curiously, the distinguishing characteristic between these
two excerpts is not the lack of rhyme, but the lyrical and musical content
leading to the non-­rhyme. This indicates that the expectations of p3 are
not strongly set at the end of m. 3, but instead progressively increase in
intensity from m. 3 to the final moments of m. 4. In 4.4b and 4.4c, as the
music in m. 4 unfolds:

● PR-­MEL is intensified because we are in the process of hearing similar

melodic-­motivic material;
● PR-­FEET is intensified because we are hearing more poetic feet . . .
bringing us ever closer to our expected tally of four feet;
● PR-­DUR is intensified as we get closer to our tally of four more beats;
and
● PR-­GRAM is intensified as we wait in greater suspense for the
grammatical closure promised at the start of m.3.

The unrhymed end of 4.4c, as compared to 4.4a, cannot distinguish

itself as a stronger denial of the rhyme itself—­either there is rhyme, or
there is not. The distinction is that 4.4c is a denial of that rhyme from
much farther along on the path toward a rhyme, where the deprivation of
rhyme is then felt much more deeply.
One last point to consider is how 4.4a succeeds in satisfying us with its
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 105

rhyme. Notably absent from 4.4a is a rhyme at a moment of grammatical

or musical closure, a miss on PR-­GRAM and PR-­GROUP. Those are rather
exceptional misses—­every excerpt from example 4.2 satisfies these pref-
erences. Example 4.4d alters the music to satisfy these preferences, but
in doing so fails to satisfy PR-­M EL, which seems to miss a strong melodic
implication for the rhyme. So 4a satisfies PR-­M EL, and then quickly closes
down the musical unit:

● There is a single poetic foot after “does.”

● There is a trivial beat-­and-­a-­half to the final syllable.
● There is quick grammatical closure.
● There is quick cadential closure to the expanded cadential progression
(e.c.p.).

This quick closure is essential to the success of the passage, because it

shunts the progression of expectations that would otherwise emerge, as in
4c; simultaneously, the rhyme’s lack of alignment with grammatical and
musical closure prevents it from taking part in the closure of the theme.

Expectations Over Time

The prior example described a phenomenon in which the intensity of a

preference or expectation for rhyme can increase over time, where the
change in intensity alters the musical experience. The most notable dif-
ference between example 4.4a (the real music, of superb craft) and exam-
ple 4.4c (an abomination) was the duration from the mid-­continuation
rhyme to the end of the phrase. This final example is a detailed study on
the subject of changing intensity, and it presents a full assessment of what
preferences-­over-­time might look like for every possible rhyme in the music
of “I Get to Show You the Ocean” (example 4.2b).
Example 4.5 illustrates each grammatical ending of example 4.2b con-
nected to the next, no matter how feasible or unreasonable. For each con-
nection, six of the preference rules (omitting PR-­SIM) are evaluated until
the moment at which all six preferences fail to be satisfied (indicated by an
“X”), or until a proper rhyme occurs (which only takes place in 5f). Each
dash in the chart represents one of the thirty-­t wo beats in the excerpt.
Look first at the six-­beat space from “ocean” to “sand.” This is a period with
a note-­for-­note repetition of the b.i.; and until the moment that the rhyme
Table 4.2. Phenomenological chart of “In Summer”
Percept Event Context Perceptions
p1 EVT-­1“buzz” mm. 1 p1a: “buzz” will be rhymed at the end of the
next grammatical unit [PR-­GRAM]
p1b: “buzz” will be rhymed at the end of approx-
imately 2 more poetic feet [PR-­F EET]
p1c: “buzz” will be rhymed at the end of approx-
imately 4 more beats [PR-­DUR]
p1d: “buzz” will be rhymed at the end of a simi-
lar melodic-­motivic unit [PR-­M EL]
p1e: “buzz” will be rhymed at the end of a simi-
lar form-­f unctional unit [PR-­F ORM]
p2 EVT-­2“fuzz” mm. 1–­2 (p1a, confirmation)
(p1b, denial, 4 feet, not 2)
(p1c, confirmation)
(p1d, weak confirmation; altered but similar
melody)
(p1d, confirmation)
p2a: “fuzz” could be rhymed at the end of the
next grammatical unit [PR-­GRAM]
p2b: “fuzz” could be rhymed after approxi-
mately 4 more poetic feet [PR-­F EET]
p2c: “fuzz” could be rhymed at the end of
approximately 4 more beats [PR-­DUR]
p2d: “fuzz” could be rhymed at the end of a
similar melodic-­motivic unit [PR-­M EL]
p2e: “fuzz” could be rhymed after approxi-
mately 6 more poetic feet, taken at the phrase
level [PR-­F EET]
p2f: “fuzz” could be rhymed at the end of
approximately 8 more beats, taken at the
phrase level [PR-­DUR]
[I’ve chosen to account for projections of both
equally sized 1-­measure units (p2c and p2d)
and equally sized 2-­measure units (p2e and
p2f). This is a less commonly fulfilled expec-
tation, though multiple examples certainly
exist (“Surrey with the Fringe on Top” from
Oklahoma! and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”
from My Fair Lady come to mind). It is most
typical, I think, when the music moves rela-
tively quickly (cut time or R=2N) and when
the continuation of a sentence begins with
the melodic-­motivic material of the basic
idea. These examples all happen to be three-­
item lists + reveal, defined as type STL1b in
Callahan 2013.]
p3 EVT-­3“does” mm. 1–­3 (p2a, denial)
(a)“because” (p2b, confirmation)
(b, c)[4d is not (p2c, confirmation)
included here] (p2d, confirmation)
(p2e, unlikely)
(p2f, unlikely)
p3a: “does”/”because” will be rhymed at the end
of this grammatical unit [PR-­GRAM]
p3b: “does”/”because” will be rhymed at the
end of approximately 4 more poetic feet [PR-­
FEET]
p3c: “does”/”because” will be rhymed at the end
of approximately 4 more beats [PR-­DUR]
p3d: “does”/”because” will be rhymed at the end
of a similar melodic-­motivic unit [PR-­M EL]
[No expectation of PR-­F ORM exists because
there’s no normative possibility of a second
continuation. If an evaded cadence were to
lead to a restatement of the continuation, we
might retroactively attain this possibility.]
p4 A EVT-­4“summer” mm. 1–­4 “summer” does not rhyme with “does”
(a) (p3a, denial)
(p3b, denial)
(p3c, denial)
(p3d, denial)
p4 B EVT-­4 B“does” mm. 1–­4 “does” rhymes with “because”
(b) (p3a, confirmation)
(p3b, confirmation)
(p3c, confirmation)
(p3d, confirmation)
p4C EVT-­4C“enjoy mm. 1–­4 “enjoy it” does not rhyme with “because”
it” (c) (p3a, denial)
(p3b, denial)
(p3c, denial)
(p3d, denial)
p4 D EVT-­4 D mm. 1–­4 “does” rhymes with “fuzz”
(p2a, confirmation)
(p2b, denial)
(p2c, denial)
(p2d, denial)
(p2e, confirmation)
(p2f, confirmation)
 108 / here for the hearing

doesn’t land, everything in the music indicates that a rhyme could be made.
Were “sand” to be replaced with a rhyme for “ocean,” like “devotion,” the
rhyme would satisfy a great deal of progressively built-­up preference for
that rhyme. In the instant that such a rhyme does not arrive, at beat 15, 5b
begins building a new expectation toward a rhyme for “ocean.” Unlike the
previous expectations, notice here that PR-­M EL of 5b is cut off at the third
beat of the fifth measure, because at this moment in time we are certain
that this is no longer a melody that fits into our concept of sameness with
the b.i. Similarly, as soon as the fifth measure starts, we receive harmonic
confirmation that this is not a loosely sentential unit with three b.i.’s, and
therefore is not a matching formal unit. The crescendo-­like blocks above
the staff are graphical representations of the number of beats supporting
the preferences indicated: “sand” and “land” rhyme and thus satisfy pref-
erences after a cumulative tally of sixty-­seven beats (divided over sixteen
beats and six preference possibilities).
Despite the numeric values provided in example 4.5, I only intend to
indicate a rough heuristic, and not any sort of formal mathematical frame-
work. Example 4.5 illustrates a method for creating a specific, nuanced
reading of the different preferences as they are confirmed or denied over
time, as it will sometimes be analytically useful, in other excerpts, to cap-
ture when in the music different preferences falter.11 The numeric values
mean little on their own, but offer us some insight when compared: “land”
is a satisfying moment when it rhymes with “sand” (5f), and “ocean” not
being rhymed at that moment is neither dissatisfying nor confusing (5c),
because there is substantially more material suggesting that “land” will
rhyme.
Example 4.6 distills and compresses the possibilities presented in
example 4.5. Lines are shown underneath the music to indicate the cre-
ation of an expectation. The expectation satisfied by proper rhyme, from
“sand” to “land,” is indicated with a line leading to a boxed PR. Connec-
tion A, from “ocean” to “ocean,” invokes two expectations. When “sand”
appears at the end of the presentation, the first expectation is reoriented
toward a new expectation for a rhyme at the end of the continuation func
tion. This line concludes with a boxed ID—­indicating an identity (word
repetition, not a rhyme) that closes down the expectation. In the case of
Connection A, closure is denied through repetition, and in the case of Con-
nection B, closure is satisfied by proper rhyme.
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 109

Example 4.5. Illustration of each grammatical ending of example 4.2b connected

to the next.

Example 4.6. Distillation and compression of the possibilities presented in

example 4.5.

Conclusion

My own collaborative discussions involve a give and take between com-

poser and lyricist as we try to achieve the sound and structure that the lyr-
icist desires in a musically convincing way. Landing jokes comes to mind
as a particularly challenging feat—­timing is everything. The mechanics of
musical form laden the comedic poet with a beat and a harmonic rhythm.
 110 / here for the hearing

If you use a too-­quirky chord to punctuate a joke, you kill the joke. If you
let a rhyme land in the wrong spot, you kill the joke. If the words don’t
come out at a natural rate of speech, you kill the joke. There is never a sep-
aration of words from the music.
The hypothesis presented at the outset of this chapter is that musical
theater song lyrics can be analyzed as part of the music to which they are
set—­that lyrics are an integrated, inseparable part of the music. Expecta-
tions, and their satisfaction or denial, are intrinsic to music, to lyric, and
to our comprehension of both as they come at us together. Treating lyrics
in a phenomenological manner that can be simultaneously applied to, or
looked at alongside, a musical analysis, can allow us to unpack that beau-
tiful marriage of vocal and non-­vocal elements that make songs overflow
with humanity.

Notes
1. Stephen Rodgers has taken a delightful approach to poetic setting and for-
mal design in “Sentences with Words” (2014). Though the approach I take here is
distinct from his, I believe these are compatible studies. One could, for instance,
use the approach that follows to give additional context to Rodgers’s already musi-
cally sensitive analysis of Die schöne Müllerin.
2. For the unfamiliar reader, I highly recommend the first few chapters of
Caplin’s Classical Form (1998) or his even more accessible textbook, Analyzing Clas-
sical Form (2013).
3. The terminology around “continuation” in sentences can be a bit confus-
ing. The “continuation” is the entire latter half of the sentence. This latter half
incorporates both “continuation function” and “cadential function.” In this study,
I consistently refer to the phrase as “continuation,” and explicitly refer to the
function as “continuation function.”
4. The excess potential in 4.1b is also at odds with the musical sentiment. This
results in decreased “emotional prosody,” indicating a misalignment of the nature
of the words with the nature of the music.
5. This work is deeply indebted to the guidance and training I’ve been for-
tunate to receive from Jason Robert Brown, Marsha Norman, Elise Dewsberry,
Scott Guy, John Sparks, Frederick Freyer, Patrick Cook, Adam Mathias, and Sara
Wordsworth.
6. This suggestion is similar to challenges presented to me by Scott Guy in
New Musicals Inc.’s Lyric Lab.
7. In full, Sondheim says “Using near rhymes is like juggling clumsily: it can
be fun to watch and it is juggling, but it’s nowhere near as much pleasure for an
 A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme / 111

audience as seeing all the balls . . . being kept aloft with grace and precision. In the
theater, true rhyme works best on every level . . .”
8. Other styles of music might have different thresholds for sounds that sat-
isfy the expectation for rhyme. That consideration is outside of the corpus used in
this text, and there may still be a lesser effect from not-­quite-­rhyme events, but it
certainly seems appropriate to give a nod to the idea that genre-­specific criteria
could be applied.
9. Caplin uses the term “theme” to express a form-­functionally complete
musical unit like a sentence or period; a conventional theme has two “phrases,”
like a period having an antecedent phrase and a consequent phrase. But other
writers prefer to refer to the period as a “phrase,” and to the antecedent and con-
sequent as “sub-­phrases.” This is confusing! I am choosing Caplin’s terminology
throughout, but if you prefer, you may read my use of “phrase” to mean “sub-­
phrase.”
10. I believe this could be further extended by examining a cross-­domain
mapping between the grammatical domain and the musical domain, where each
domain can provide cognitive reinforcement to the other—­for instance, a rhymed
word landing on a cadence tends to enhance a feeling of closure. To some extent,
I have developed the preference rules from my understanding of the work of Reu-
ven Tsur (cognitive poetics; 1996) and Candace Brower (music cognition; 1993).
11. I not only think it is far from being a metric, it also fails to capture the
impact of a failed rhyme on the next moment. For me, this particularly stands
out when “sand” does not rhyme with “ocean,” for at that moment we reorient
ourselves to expect a possible rhyme at the end of the continuation; I think there is
more pressure created for the rhyme to resolve than example 4.5 is able to indicate.

Works Cited
Brower, Candace. 1993. “Memory and the Perception of Rhythm.” Music Theory Spec-
trum 15(1): 19–­35.
Callahan, Michael. 2013. “Sentential Lyric-­Types in the Great American Songbook.”
Music Theory Online 19(3).
Caplin, William. 1998. Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental
Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. New York: Oxford University Press.
Caplin, William. 2013. Analyzing Classical Form: An Approach for the Classroom. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Harmon, William. 1987. “Rhyme in English Verse: History, Structures, Functions.”
Studies in Philology 84(4): 365–­93.
Lewin, David. 1986. “Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception.”
Music Perception 3(4): 327–­92.
Rodgers, Stephen. 2014. “Sentences with Words: Text and Theme-­Type in Die schöne
Müllerin.” Music Theory Spectrum 36(1): 58–­85.
 112 / here for the hearing

Sondheim, Stephen. 2010. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–­1981) with Atten-
dant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. New York:
Knopf.
Tsur, Reuven. 1996. “Rhyme and Cognitive Poetics.” Poetics Today 17(1): 55–­86.

List of Musical Works

Anderson-­Lopez, Kristen, and Robert Lopez. 2014. “In Summer,” Frozen. New York:
Hal Leonard.
Bernstein, Leonard, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green. 1944. “Some Other Time.”
On the Town. New York: Boosey & Hawkes.
Bernstein, Leonard, and Stephen Sondheim. 1957. “Balcony Scene,” “One Hand, One
Heart,” and “Something’s Coming.” West Side Story. New York: G. Schirmer.
Brown, Jason Robert, and Marsha Norman. 2014. “It All Fades Away.” The Bridges of
Madison County. New York: Hal Leonard.
Kander, John, and Fred Ebb. 1966. “Cabaret.” Cabaret. New York: Times Square Music
Publications Co.
Rodgers, Richard, and Oscar Hammerstein. 1959. “My Favorite Things,” and “Reprise:
Sixteen Going on Seventeen.” The Sound of Music. New York: Williamson Music.
Stitt, Georgia. 2007. “I Get to Show You the Ocean.” This Ordinary Thursday: The Songs
of Georgia Stitt. Geocate Music.
5 The Changing Rhythms
of Bridges and Ends
Rachel Short

Introduction

Musical theater songs are best known for their choruses, which repeat
melodies and motives and breed familiarity. Bridges, by their very name,
connote little more than connecting material, but their function, or musi-
cal and lyrical role, is almost always far more dramatically important than
that. This chapter explores ways that bridges and other contrasting sec-
tions diverge from the more familiar music that surrounds them, with a
particular focus on rhythmic and textual changes that not only provide
much-­needed contrast, but contribute to characterization and narrative
arcs. I focus on ballads, tracing how types and placement of sections with
different rhythms have changed over the ninety years that “bridge” Show
Boat and Hamilton.
The songs I discuss in this chapter all feature sections where melodic
rhythms deviate significantly from those found elsewhere in the song.
In songs from more contemporary musicals, rhythmically contrasting
sections—­ which heretofore had predominantly been bridges—­ often
appear as ending sections. I lay out four different strategies for rhythmi-
cally differentiating sections, highlighting select examples for each strat-
egy. These rhythmic strategies demonstrate that rhythm and lyric are

/ 113 /
 114 / here for the hearing

inextricably linked. Therefore, in these emotionally charged sections,

rhythmic changes support textual changes that create dramatic or rhetor-
ical contrast and character development. The lyrics are the driving force,
and the changing rhythms bring them into relief.
In this study, I focus on ballads because they are sung by, and feature
emotional journeys of, individual characters.1 Narrowing the scope in this
way allows me to compare numbers that tend to serve similar structural-­
dramatic purposes within shows and that use similar formal structures. Of
course, individual performances of a song can differ greatly in their rhyth-
mic interpretations.2 To ensure consistency, I work from published show
scores or sheet music.3

Bridges and Other Contrasting Sections

In Tin Pan Alley tunes and early musical theater songs (c. late 1920s and
after), the standard bridge, also known as the “release” or “middle eight,”
is the B section of an AABA form, often called thirty-­t wo-­bar song form.4
More than just new musical material, a singer’s lyrics often change in style
or focus during a bridge, which functions as the apex of the dramatic arc
within the thirty-­t wo-­bar scope. Charles Hamm (1983) argued that this
standardized form “represent[ed] a final step in a formal evolution that
had taken place over a time span of more than a century.”5
The repetition inherent in this form worked well for audience engage-
ment. Scott McMillin (2006) notes that “music gains meaning through
the accretion of repeated combinations of phrases and rhythms” (31). He
argues that the repetition in AABA forms “would be intolerable in conver-
sation, but it is normal and even enjoyable in a lyric and musical structure,
that celebrates doing things again and again.” The prevalence of AABA
form is in part due to its combination of pleasurable musical repetition and
the contrast in the bridge.
As the structure of Broadway shows shifted, and their constituent
styles of music changed over the years, the formal structure of individual
songs also morphed. After around 1950, a thirty-­t wo-­bar AABA refrain had
become less standard. Composers began playing with this formal expec-
tation, making the eventual achievement of an AABA song form part of
the drama of a song or scene.6 Formal sections with contrasting rhythmic
profiles also began to appear outside of AABA forms as independent, tran-
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 115

sitional sections, often between verse/chorus repetitions. Another option

was for rhythmic cells from the bridge to return at the end of a song, with
final—­not transitional—­f unction. In recent musical theater music, entire
sections with contrasting rhythms are often placed at a song’s end to cre-
ate final emphasis.
Scholars usually describe the contrast that bridges provide in terms of
harmonic characteristics, or discussions of rhythm are subsumed into the
“bigger picture” of prolongational analyses, melodic design, and/or phrase
structure.7 Bridges do differ from their surrounding sections through
a combination of all these means, but much can be lost by glossing over
rhythms. Rhythmic details are important in these songs because they are
so salient, especially when they differ significantly from prior sections.
Rhythmic changes affect the speed, pattern, and accentuation of the way
lyrics are sung, which can highlight dramatic moments. Often, contrast-
ing sections demonstrate changes in a character’s perspective to create a
dramatic arc. The character might change their mind, consider another
viewpoint, voice their challenges another way, or come to a decision.
These perspective changes can affect the lyrics, which generally interre-
late with the rhythms.
In this chapter, I’ll consider four categories to classify the different
ways rhythmic elements can define musical sections: rhythmic density,
phrase beginnings, rhythmic distribution, and syncopation. These four main
attributes interact and overlap with one another and with other rhythmic
elements,8 but I consider them separately for ease of comparison. Rhyth-
mic density measures how many notes occur proportional to each beat;
many quick attacks can subdivide a beat to create dense, complex rhythms,
or longer-­held notes may span multiple beats for a more open effect. The
second category, phrase beginnings, distinguishes between phrases that
begin on the downbeat and those that begin with anacruses, which vary
in length and stress. Less frequently, the vocal line may feature a “loud
rest” on the downbeat, often with great dramatic effect (London 1993).
The third category, rhythmic distribution, describes rhythmic den-
sity across longer musical time spans. Distribution of rhythmic figures
over phrases varies greatly: some rhythms feature relatively even attack
points, yielding mostly equal note durations in a measure or phrase; some
phrases or rhythmic cells are what I call “front-­loaded,” meaning that they
are more dense at the beginning, while others are “back-­loaded,” with lon-
ger notes occurring earlier on and with greater density toward the end.
 116 / here for the hearing

Both types of uneven distribution can affect the quality of transitions:

back-­loaded phrases have a kinetic effect, ramping up energy to lead into
the next section, whereas longer notes tend to sound more final, signaling
rhetorical—­if not harmonic—­closure.9 The fourth category accounts for
the amount and type of rhythmic syncopation. A bridge may differ from
surrounding sections simply in its use of syncopated rhythms (or a change
in their frequency), or the contrast may come in the kinds of syncopation
used (i.e., at the level of the beat, the beat division, the beat subdivision,
or spanning multiple beats). These four types of rhythmic changes create
significant deviations to delineate bridges and other departures, and they
create emotional interest and support the dramatic narrative.

Rhythmic Density

Rhythmic density refers to the number of attacks proportional to each

beat. In a dense passage, frequent beat subdivisions or complex rhythms
fill musical phrases with plentiful movement. In contrast to dense pas-
sages, some sections have longer notes that span multiple beats, creating
a more open sensation. Changes in rhythmic density create rhythmically
and dramatically contrasting bridges in AABA refrains; an early example
of this is “Over the Rainbow” (The Wizard of Oz, Harold Arlen and E. Y. Har-
burg, 1939),10 in which the dense bridge contrasts the more open A sec-
tions. Sometimes, the A sections are more dense than the bridge. “Can’t
Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (Show Boat, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II,
1927) and “On the Street Where You Live” (My Fair Lady, Frederick Loewe
and Alan Jay Lerner, 1957) both feature B sections with open and steady
rhythmic profiles, contrasting denser, more syncopated A sections.11
In “Over the Rainbow,” after rhythmically sparse A sections, the con-
trasting bridge is set apart by quickly moving eighth notes that double
the rhythmic density to provide rhythmic contrast and support the dra-
matic arc (see example 5.1a). In A sections, the character Dorothy wonders
about a place “Some-­where o-­ver the rain-­bow” with large motivic leaps
and long note values that begin the backloaded phrases.12 In the bridge,
she changes perspective, daydreaming of a hopeful future (“some-­day”)
and allows herself to imagine what that place will be like when she gets
there (“where troub-­les melt like lem-­on drops, a-­way a-­bove the chim-­ney
tops”). The B section’s brief anacrusis begins a rocking motion of motivic
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 117

fluttering eighth-­note alterations set to smaller melodic intervals. These

fluctuations return at the end of the song for a final closing “tag” section,
often performed with a deceleration that seems to stretch three down-
beats to six, as the singer focuses again on her longings, echoing the B sec-
tion in lyric perspective and rhythmic content.
Contrarily, the A sections of “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” and “On the
Street Where You Live” are more dense than the open and smooth B sec-
tions.13 In “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” the character Julie is describing—­
through a diegetic song—­how her love will endure “no matter what” her
man does. As shown in example 5.1b, the A section’s greater rhythmic den-
sity comes from its syncopated and front-­loaded phrases. Swung eighth
notes and slight anticipations of beat three create a sense of accelerated
motion (“Fish got to swim—­and birds got to fly—­. I gotta love—­one man
till I die—­” ) before slowing for the declamatory titular hook, which adds
one more anticipatory syncopation: “Can’t help lov-­in’ dat man—­of mine.”
While a seemingly simple diegetic song, it has hidden depth, helped in
part by the rhythmic character. Unusually, the bridge is not the first con-
trasting rhythmic section heard. After singing A1 and A2, dialogue inter-
rupts the song, before Julie begins again to sing the “whole thing.” The
introduction is a twelve-­bar swung section, showing Julie’s ability to sing
the blues (which foreshadows her later “unmasking”).14 Contrasting both
the bluesy introduction and the A section, the rhythms in the B section
are more open. The first two measures of the A sections are nearly twice as
dense as those of the B section. The second half of B is slightly back-­loaded,
helping create forward momentum into A3. While both A and B begin on
the downbeat, the syncopations from A are smoothed out in B into four
straight quarter notes before an upward slur, or scoop (“When he goes
a-­way | Dat’s a rain-­y day.”). Even within the decreased density of the B
section, the embedded anticipatory syncopation helps show Julie’s ability
to portray the hidden depth of the blues, and the consistent quarter notes
draw attention to lyrics that express one of the show’s tragic elements.
Through the “golden age” of musical theater,15 the rhythmic content
of bridges still tended to differ significantly from surrounding A sections;
often these “soaring” bridges featured a more even distribution of rhyth-
mic density with steadier, smoother rhythms and a greater focus on the
downbeat, combining rhythmic and textual changes to support the dra-
matic arc of the song.16 In My Fair Lady, the A sections of Freddy’s ballad
“On the Street Where You Live” are full of front-­loaded motions, with no
Example 5.1a. “Over the Rainbow” (The Wizard of Oz, Harold Arlen and E. Y.
Harburg, 1939).

Example 5.1b. “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (Show Boat, Jerome Kern and Oscar
Hammerstein II, 1927).

Example 5.1c. “On the Street Where You Live” (My Fair Lady, Frederick Loewe and
Alan Jay Lerner, 1957).
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 119

held notes until the middle of the measure (“I have of-­ten walked down this
street be-­fore” (see example 5.1c). The contrasting B sections feature soar-
ing long notes tied into descending triplets, a contrasting density change
and back-­loaded rhythmic distribution that corresponds to a textual one:
Freddy begins by describing how Eliza’s presence charms her location, but
in the bridge, he focuses on how her presence charms him (“And oh, the
tow-­er-­ing feel-­ing just to know some-­how you are near!”).

Phrase Beginnings

A focus on phrase beginnings distinguishes sections where phrases and

internal motives begin on the downbeat and those that begin with an ana-
crusis, or pickup.17 Less frequently, but with striking effect, the vocal line
may feature a “loud rest” on the downbeat. Phrase beginnings, of course,
occur with other rhythmic techniques, but they are the most easily isolated
of the four rhythmic techniques described here. Often, A sections feature
strong downbeat entrances that contrast with the anacruses that begin B
sections, such as in “Younger than Springtime” (South Pacific, Richard Rod-
gers and Oscar Hammerstein II, 1949) and “Being Alive” (Company, Ste-
phen Sondheim, 1970). The opposite can happen: outer framing sections
begin with an anacrusis and central sections with a downbeat entrance,
as in “What More Can I Say” (Falsettos, William Finn and James Lapine,
1990/1992).18 “Someone to Watch Over Me” (Oh, Kay!, George Gershwin
and Ira Gershwin, 1926) provides an example of A phrases that begin with
a conspicuous rest to contrast the anacrusis that begins the B phrase.
The downbeat entrance of the A section in Lieutenant Joe Cable’s AABA
ballad “Younger than Springtime” (example 5.2a) is followed by quick-­
moving rhythms. The front-­loaded phrase is slightly fragmented by down-
beat rests in the second measure as he describes the girl he loves (“Youn-­ger
than spring time _ are you”). In contrast, the lengthy, legato B phrases begin
with a long anacrusis (ana.) that prepares the rest of the phrase to set declar-
ative lyrics evenly distributed on the downbeats as he sings of her attributes
(“And when your youth and joy in-­vade my arms”). The lyrics here transi-
tion from descriptions of Cable’s beloved, Liat, to his action of embracing
her. This textual departure in the bridge causes a change in perspective
in the final A: Joe is now the subject (“Young-­er than spring-­time _am I”)
because he has been transformed through Liat’s embrace.
 120 / here for the hearing

Example 5.2a. “Younger than Springtime” (South Pacific, Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II, 1949).

While still inspired by Golden Era successes from Rogers and Hammer-
stein (R&H) and others, Broadway shows in the 1960s and 1970s began to
transform in theme and organization. The traditional “book” musical gave
way to nonlinear “concept” or “frame” musicals with decreased focus on
romance, exploring more “modernist concerns about alienation and iden-
tity” (Swain 2002, 41). In tandem with these structural, dramatic, and
narrative changes, composers started to incorporate more diverse musi-
cal styles, especially pop-­rock.19 Some composers infused typical Broad-
way forms with syncopations influenced by contemporary popular music,
and standard AABA forms began loosening and expanding. When other
formal layouts were used, they also contained rhythmically contrasting
sections similar in musical and dramatic function to earlier bridges.20
Whether in AABA song form or some variant, the framing sections often
incorporated more complex, dense, and front-­loaded rhythms. Central
sections contrasted this complexity with more open rhythms smoothly
spaced across lengthy phrases to correspond to the dramatic climax in the
center of the song, and phrase beginnings heralded this rhythmic contrast.
In “Being Alive” the rhythmic changes stress Bobby’s developing
search for connection using two main rhythmic motives. Beginning his
impersonal observation in A, the syncopated motive that starts the phrase
on the downbeat is repeated and fragmented (“Some-­one to hold you too
close,” example 5.2b).21 As he is unsure of what he wants, the early musical
phrases are left incomplete and trail off into embedded dialogue: not until
the end of the fourth time he restarts A (“Some-­one to crowd you with
love”) do the things he is missing “add up” to enough emotional weight
that he can complete the phrase—­and the section—­w ith the repeated trip-
let pickup motive “be-­ing a-­live.” The A section ends with this anacrusis
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 121

Example 5.2b. “Being Alive” (Company, Stephen Sondheim, 1970).

motive that is later developed in the bridge. As he has decided he is now

ready for a relationship, the song restarts in a new key with his pleading
request for connection (“Some-­body hold me too close” and “some-­bod-­y
hurt me too deep”). All phrases in A are now complete and end with the
triplet pickup motive (“make me a-­live”). Through Sondheim’s “procliv-
ity toward motivic compression” (Swayne 2005, 103), the triplet motive
also begins B and repeats throughout the majority of the section, paired
with lengthy notes, causing B to be far less rhythmically dense than A.
The switch in dramatic focus is heightened by the triplet pickup (“Make
me con-­fused, mock me with praise”). The end of B features an anacru-
sis without triplets (“But a-­lone; is a-­lone; not a-­live”). The number begins
hesitantly, interrupted by dialogue, with rhythmic and melodic motives
developed and combined into progressively longer phrase lengths that
correspond to Bobby’s emotional growth.22
In the 1980s and 1990s, some smaller and more traditional musicals
continued to feature solo numbers with sections still set apart by rhyth-
mic contrasts. However, the differentiated sections are not always bridges
in a traditional AABA format. Sometimes an AABA form is embedded
within a larger song structure, as in the AABACAA′ of “What More Can I
Say” (example 5.2c), where the C section functions as a traditional bridge,
and the varied phrase beginnings of both B and C contrast the A sections.
The A section phrases begin with an anacrusis that leads to held notes
that accent the downbeat. Interspersed short anacrustic notes create a
feeling of halting stops and starts as the character considers the past (“it’s
been hot, al-­so ver-­y sweet, and I’m not u-­su-­al-­ly in-­dis-­crete”). The end
of A1 elides into the anacrusis beginning of A2 (“What more can I say”).
 122 / here for the hearing

Example 5.2c. “What More Can I Say” (Falsettos, William Finn and James Lapine,
1990/1992).

As the singer shifts focus to his inner feelings, the B features an entrance
directly on the downbeat before a smoothly distributed phrase (“If I say I
love him—­, you might think the words come cheap”). In its expanded AAB-
ACA<A′ form, the added C section has an even stronger “release” effect
than B with a downbeat entrance and decrease in density that accompany
his personal decision (“I’ll stay calm, un-­tie my tongue and try—­to stay—­
both kind and young”), and an abrupt key change prepares the last A.23
While beginning a phrase with loud downbeat rests happens across
many types of musical theater music, the Gershwins’ “Someone to Watch
Over Me” is quite striking. After a loud downbeat rest, the front-­loaded A
sections are characterized by pairs of quickly flowing dotted quarter notes
and sixteenth notes (often sung as swung eighth notes, see example 5.2d).
The beginning lyrics are set to a melodic line that matches their hopeful-
ness with a rising contour (“__There’s a some-­bod-­y I’m”), before a gently
syncopated rhythmic cell repeats three times in a stepwise descending
sequence (“long-­ing to see”). The following downbeat rest and declarative
quarter notes clearly express the singer’s yearning as they set the titular
hook (“__Some-­one who’ll watch o-­ver me”). In contrast to the rests and
lilting rhythms from before, the decisiveness of these concluding rhythms
helps accentuate the end of each A section.24
B starts with a long anacrusis of evenly distributed quarter notes before
a higher-­level syncopated rhythmic cell (an augmentation of A’s syncopa-
tion) repeats five times (“__Al-­though he may not be the man some—­g irls”).
While the total rhythmic density is not a drastic change between the A
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 123

Example 5.2d. “Someone to Watch Over Me” (Oh, Kay!, George and Ira Gershwin,
1926).

and B phrases, the rhythmic contrast comes from front-­loaded motion

changing to smooth distribution, and from the different ways the phrases
begin: starting with a rest for A and a long anacrusis for B. To aid his con-
sideration of the song as a ballad, not a rhythmic tap-­dance tune as it was
originally supposed to be, Alec Wilder argues that the rhythmic qualities
of the release lead it to be “freer, less spastic; in fact, [it] soars like a ballad”
(1972, 137). As Deena Rosenberg notes, the rhythmic contrast in the bridge
allows for a change in perspective, allowing the singer to move from
“describing an emotional void to focus on a specific man and her reactions
to him”; the mode of address then subtly changes in A3, from a report on
the character’s state of mind to an “overt plea, bringing the listener into
the text of the song” (1997, 150–­51).

Rhythmic Distribution

Rhythmic distribution describes the location of rhythmic density across

longer musical time spans, portraying where in the phrase or motive the
density occurs. This distribution varies greatly across musical styles and
between sections in the same style: some rhythms feature fairly even
attack points that create strings of mostly equal note durations; some
phrases or rhythmic cells are more dense at the beginning, which I call
“front-­loaded,” while longer notes occurring earlier with greater density
toward the end create “back-­loaded” phrases. Uneven rhythmic distribu-
tion creates specific transitional affects; the kinetic effect of a back-­loaded
phrase can ramp up energy to lead into the next section, or rhetorical and
harmonic closure is often signaled by phrases that end with longer notes.
 124 / here for the hearing

For example, in “This Nearly Was Mine” (South Pacific, R&H, 1949), the
front-­loaded B contrasts with the smother and slightly back-­loaded or
“middle-­loaded” A.
Within a song form, whether AABA or some variant, the A sections are
often more front-­loaded, dense, and rhythmically complex. These contrast
with central sections that are relatively more open, with rhythmic distri-
bution that is smoothly spaced, like the steady bridge in “Some Enchanted
Evening” (South Pacific, R&H, 1949), or the open and back-­loaded bridge in
“Soon It’s Gonna Rain” (The Fantasticks, Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones,
1960). Alternately, the inner B sections can have steadier and more evenly
distributed rhythms than the outer sections. In “If I Loved You” (Carou-
sel, R&H, 1945) the A section rhythms have greater back-­loaded density
than the evenly distributed B sections, and in “Far from the Home I Love”
(Fiddler on the Roof, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, 1964), dense, front-­
loaded A sections contrast with the smoother B. Even large-­scale musicals
from the 1980s include songs where changes in rhythmic distribution cre-
ate rhythmically contrasting sections, such as “Soliloquy/Javert’s Suicide”
(Les Misérables, Claude-­Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, 1985). From
across diverse musical styles, these examples demonstrate that changes
in rhythmic distribution support textural changes at decisive moments,
helping to shape a song’s dramatic arc.
South Pacific (R&H, 1949) includes three ballads in AABA form with
rhythmically contrasting B sections, including the aforementioned gen-
eral density changes from A to B sections in “Younger than Springtime”
(example 5.2a). The A section of “Some Enchanted Evening,” sung by Emile
de Becque as he describes meeting a lover, consists of two main repeating
rhythmic motives (example 5.3a); the front-­loaded a1 begins on the down-
beat (the titular “Some en-­chant-­ed eve-­ning, you may see a strang-­er”).
Motive a2 also features front-­loading rhythms, albeit of a different type:
a large anacrusis with over-­t he-­beat-­level triplets and beat-­level syncopa-
tion (“that some-­how you’ll see her—­a-­gain and—­a-­gain”). The B section
is much shorter (six versus sixteen measures), with simple rhythms that
are evenly spread across the motivic cell b as the lyrics change to rhetorical
questioning (“Who can ex-­plain it, who can tell you why?”). After A3, B
material recurs in expanded form to create the final tag, the downbeats
and smooth phrase highlighting the prescriptive actions (“Once you have
found her, nev-­er let her go”).
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 125

Example 5.3a. “Some Enchanted Evening” (South Pacific, Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II, 1949).

Emile also sings the waltz-­ballad “This Nearly Was Mine” in the second
act (example 5.3b). Here, the bridge similarly provides contrast through
rhythmic distribution, flipping the density of the first two measures of
each phrase between the middle-­loaded A (“One dream in my heart”) to
the front-­loaded B (“Close to my heart she came”). In the full version of
the song, greater rhythmic contrast comes in the lesser-­k nown C section,
which connects two full AABA refrains. As his focus shifts from the past
into his abiding, vivid dreams (“So clear and deep are my fan-­cies—”­),
the music surges forward to accompany his awakened desires. While the
increase in total musical density is only slight, the rhythmic distribution
creates a driving sensation through a motivic anacrusis, a denser second
measure, and anticipating the fourth downbeat.25

Example 5.3b. “This Nearly Was Mine” (South Pacific, Richard Rodgers and Oscar
Hammerstein II, 1949).
 126 / here for the hearing

Example 5.3c. “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” (The Fantasticks, Harvey Schmidt and Tom
Jones, 1960).

The AABA chorus in The Fantasticks’ “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” also finds
contrast through rhythmic distributions that change in the bridge section.
A starts with front-­loaded eighth notes that seem to quickly move away
from the downbeat (example 5.3c, “Soon it’s gon-­na rain”). In the more
open B section, the two characters discuss purposeful actions to plan for
their house (and their budding relationship): a short anacrusis begins a
back-­loaded rhythmic motive that repeats in ascending sequential fashion
(“We’ll find four limbs and a tree, we’ll build four walls and a floor, we’ll
bind it o-­ver with leaves”).
While rhythms can be clearly distributed on one end of a phrase, con-
trast can also come from juxtaposing phrases with evenly spaced rhythms
against phrases with more irregular note groupings. In “If I Loved You”
(AABA), the rhythms in A have a halting, fragmented quality with more
middle-­loaded density than the evenly distributed B—­a rhythmic distribu-
tion change that helps communicate changes in the character’s focus. The
A sections begin with the conditional statement “If I loved you—­,” made
more uncertain by placing the word “you” on the weak second beat, before
quarter notes tied into triplets create a tripping effect that sets a melodic
octave descent (example 5.4a).26 The B section’s rhythms are slightly less
dense, but the contrast is more through a change to smoother rhythmic
distribution than a change in overall density. Even though the tonal center
has moved from the surety of the tonic area to vi, the open rhythms of A
smooth into a steady pattern that heightens the feeling of clarity. This sup-
ports the lyrics that no longer begin with “if.” The character’s uncertainty
is gone and the declamatory bridge allows the characters to reveal their
actual feelings (“long-­ing to tell you”).27 Similar to the bridge in “Younger
than Springtime,” a change in the characters’ focus here also highlights
the dramatic transformation through rhythmic differentiation.
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 127

Example 5.4a. “If I Loved You” (Carousel, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
II, 1945).

In “Far from the Home I Love” (AABA), the character Hodel attempts
to make her father understand her in the front-­loaded A; she sings one
densely flowing bar before repeating a motivic cell with agogic accents on
the third beat (example 5.4b, “How can I hope to make you un-­der-­stand
why I do what I do”). In the bridge, the overall density is quite similar, but
the smoother and more evenly spaced rhythms contrast the front-­loaded
density from A. The changed rhythms in B correspond to a dramatic
change in the melodic contour—­f rom sudden descent to slowly rising—­as
the character describes the unexpected change in her situation (“Who
could see that a man would come who would change the shape of my
dreams?”). This changing density distribution is evident on the measure
level as well as the phrase level: in A, rhythmic cells are front-­loaded: in B,
rhythms slightly increase in density on the fourth quarter note in each bar.
In the 1980s, economic, sociocultural, and stylistic changes in Broad-
way and American culture at large gave rise to the “megamusical,” which,

Example 5.4b. “Far from the Home I Love” (Fiddler on the Roof, Jerry Bock and
Sheldon Harnick, 1964).
 128 / here for the hearing

though sung-­through, did include solo songs.28 These “set pieces” are often
a part of larger scenes, frequently repeated in different contexts (with dif-
ferent lyrics) through the show. Sections in these numbers are still often
set apart by rhythmic contrasts. However, differentiated sections are not
always bridges in a traditional AABA format. End sections in particular
are often set apart: these differentiated ending sections have characteris-
tics similar to traditional bridges and feature contrasting rhythms, often
for dramatic effect. In Les Misérables, which is sung-­t hrough, the song ini-
tially sung by Valjean as part of the long opening scene (“Prologue: What
Have I Done?”) is repeated in its entirety in act 2 as “Soliloquy/Javert’s
Suicide.”29 The rhythmic density gradually lessens from densely packed
beginning sections through the open final section as the character’s emo-
tions change from anger to confusion and finally despondency.
The song’s form is ABCBD: the sparser C section functions as a bridge
and the unevenly distributed D as a contrasting concluding section. Each
section deploys a few brief rhythmic cells, one to two bars in length, that
repeat insistently.30 As shown in example 5.4c, the three main cells in A
are similarly dense and consist mostly of driving sixteenth notes. (The first
lyrics of each cell are: (a) “Who is this man—”; (b) “__Damned if I’ll live”;
(c) “There is no-­t hing on earth that we share.”) The B section switches
to longer eighth notes in legato phrases that begin either just before, or
almost a whole measure before, the hypermetric downbeats, shown with
accents. (The first lyrics are: (d) “__How can I now al-­low this man”; (e)
“__This des-­p’rate man whom I have hun-­ted.”) The rhythmically contrast-
ing bridge/C, continuing the slower eighth notes, has a loud rest on the
downbeat and longer rests between rhythmic cells (lyrics: (f) “__And my
thoughts fly a-­part.”). After repeating the anacrusis from B (“__And must
I now be-­g in to doubt?”), the final D section has the shortest rhythmic cell
to this point, as static and repetitive sixteenth-­note pairs lead to beats one
and three. The fragmented rhythms set fragmented lyrics, and pitches
noodle unremittingly around the dominant scale degree as he stares hope-
lessly into the void (“I am reach-­ing but I fall”). His final long note initially
seems dissonant, but is soon transformed by swelling orchestral music
with a drastic key change that accompanies the underscored return of his
prior ballad, “Stars.”
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 129

Example 5.4c. “Soliloquy/Javert’s Suicide” (Les Misérables, Claude-­Michel

Schönberg and Alain Boublil, 1985).

Syncopation

While there is some form of syncopation in most musical theater styles,

recent shows tend toward more frequent and complex syncopation. 31
This happens at various levels: the beat, beat divisions and subdivisions,
or spanning multiple beats. Frequently, rhythmic contrast happens from
changes in syncopation: either changes in the frequency of syncopated
rhythms, or from the types of syncopation used. This can occur in more
traditional “sung” ballads as well as rap-­infused music that veers toward
semi-­spoken text. Changes in syncopation often highlight changed lyric
focus within an emotional journey, such as the angst-­r idden and densely
syncopated bridge of “Fine, Fine Line,” (Avenue Q, Robert Lopez and
Jeff Marx, 2003). In non-­A ABA forms, sections with drastic rhythmic
contrasts are often reserved for the song’s end in order to correspond
to a character’s final realizations or decisions, such as the closing sec-
tions of “Inútil” (In the Heights, Lin-­M anuel Miranda, 2008) and “Hur-
ricane” (Hamilton, Miranda, 2015).32 In these ballads, highly syncopated
 130 / here for the hearing

rhythms in central sections contrast declarative straight rhythms in the

culminating sections. While in different locations than earlier bridges,
these sections with changing rhythms similarly support dramatic devel-
opment through musical change.
In “Fine, Fine Line,” the A sections start with a brief anacrusis that
leads to a slightly syncopated melody. Here, four-­measure phrases are split
by gentle beat anticipations and rests into three asymmetrical subphrases
as Kate describes a precarious and potentially romantic relationship
(“There’s a fine, fine line—­; be-­t ween a lov-­er—­; and a friend—­,” exam-
ple 5.5a). When Kate switches focus in the B section to directly address
her estranged lover, her tone changes from reflection to anger and the
rhythms provide contrast with increased syncopation and density. After
beginning with a loud rest, the syncopation highlights the off-­beats, as
four-­bar phrases are filled with one connected thought (“__And I don’t
have the time—­to waste on you—­an-­y-­more—”).
Miranda’s In the Heights could be classified as a Latino/a “integrated”
musical, with its infusion of soul, R&B, and Latin rhythms into traditional
theater conventions and forms. Although a number of songs lie outside
traditional AABA form, they still exhibit meaningful rhythmic contrasts.
The ballad “Inútil” (ABABC) does so using a contrasting end section that

Example 5.5a. “Fine, Fine Line” (Avenue Q, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, 2003).

Example 5.5b. “Inútil” (In the Heights, Lin-­Manuel Miranda, 2008).

 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 131

decreases in rhythmic density and changes syncopation levels. The main

body of the number (AB)—­in which Kevin apologetically explains to his
family how he views their relationship—­is dense: syncopation subdivides
the beat and phrases that start with rests obfuscate the downbeat (exam-
ple 5.5b, “I’m proud to be your fa—­t her, ’cuz you work so much har—­der”).
Syncopation moves to the beat-­division level to provide space and add
weight to his final decision (“I will not— ­be the rea—­son that my fam— ’­ ly
can’t suc-­ceed—­” ).
Similarly to “Inútil,” the ballad “Hurricane” sets apart the ending sec-
tion with changes in syncopation, this time fully removing the subdivided
syncopation that has been normative. The number’s form is ABCAB′D,33
with sections A through C featuring subdivided syncopation. As Alex-
ander Hamilton surveys his current situation (that is, how to handle the
exposing of his affair with Maria Reynolds), his phrases mostly start with
downbeat rests, and anticipatory syncopation before other strong beats.
Example 5.5c shows the densely syncopated body sections (A1 “__In the
eye of a hur-­r i-­cane there is qui—­et for just a mom—­ent, a yel-­low sky—­”

Example 5.5c. “Hurricane” (Hamilton, Lin-­Manuel Miranda, 2015).

 132 / here for the hearing

and slightly denser A2 “__When I was sev-­en-­teen a hur-­r i-­caine—­”; and

B “I wrote—­my way out”). Also starting with a loud rest, the C section
functions as a typical bridge: as he changes focus to himself, it provides
rhythmic contrast through a change to rhythmically dense spoken rap
(“__I wrote my way out of hell—­I wrote my way to re-­vo-­lut-­ion”). After
repeated A and modified B sections, the ending (D) section eliminates all
syncopation, creating declarative rhythms to help Hamilton express his
controversial decision (“This is the eye of the hur-­r i-­cane, this is the on-­ly
way I can pro-­tect my leg-­a-­c y”).
Yonatan Malin observed that “syncopations embody a kind of tension,
and we may interpret this as the yearning or desire of a musical persona”
(2008, 67). Writing about electronic dance music, Mark Butler similarly
acknowledges that “certain types of rhythms are defined by a dynamic
tension between our perception of a note’s position and our sense of where
it should be. This interplay creates a kind of gravitational pull toward the
beat, a sort of negative emphasis on the position from which the note is
displaced” (2006, 87, italics in original). In “Hurricane,” the tension cre-
ated by rhythmic syncopation is released in the final section, creating a
musical depiction of the calm eye of the storm that the lyrics describe. At
this moment in the song, Hamilton is making a drastic decision that will
affect the rest of his life, and the drama is heightened by the markedly con-
trasting rhythms.34

Other Techniques for Contrasting Rhythms

While varied rhythmic density, phrase entrances, rhythmic distribution,

and syncopation are the most distinctive and effective ways to create
rhythmic contrast, there are other discrete methods. These include chang-
ing meters, as in “Days” (Fun Home, Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, 2015),35
and changes in articulation, as in “I Believe in You” (How to Succeed in Busi-
ness without Really Trying, Frank Loesser, 1961)—­rhythmic techniques that
can be used in tandem with various other procedures to create contrasting
sections.

For example, “Changing My Major” begins in  and changes to a  waltz for
Fun Home often features frequent drastic meter changes within songs.

the titular chorus.36 The meter changes in “Telephone Wire” signify spe-
cific changes in time: Alison narrates in the present and remembers the
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 133

Example 5.6a. “Days” (Fun Home, Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, 2015).

past. There are many verse/chorus formats (e.g., “Ring of Keys,” “Chang-
ing My Major,” and “Edges”), and also some AABA forms. “Days” is an
AABA song in which the major rhythmic contrast comes from changes in

tions in  are open and evenly distributed (“Days and days and days, that’s
meter, rhythmic density, and downbeat focus (example 5.6a). The A sec-

the intermittent duplets take over as the meter changes to  ; the increase
how it hap-­pens”), with occasional duplets and over-­t he-­beat triplets. In B,

in density and the added anacrusis together create rhythmic contrast as

the character changes focus to specific memories of the past (“There was a
time your father swept me off my feet with words”).
“I Believe in You” features an AABA structure with twenty-­four-­bar
A sections (two compound basic ideas and a continuation with the title
lyric).37 In A, the lengthy anacrusis of the presentation leads to a down-
beat arrival, which, while notated as a whole note, is often sung short and
staccato as the character engages in self-­description. (example 5.6b, “You
have the cool, clear, eyes of a seek-­er of wis-­dom and truth”). Paired triplets
create a surge in density in the fourth bar, creating an overall back-­loaded
distribution. A similar anacrusis characterizes the relatively front-­loaded
continuation, where the notes are held longer but still sharply accented
at the repeated title lyric (“Oh I be-­lieve in you. I be-­lieve in you”). The
vocal articulations in the A sections contrast with those in the legato and
smooth bridge (B), which features a dramatic downbeat entrance and
sweeping legato phrases, contrasting articulations that correspond to a
dramatic change of perspective in the lyrics and key area (“And when my
faith in my fel-­low man—­, all but falls—­a-­part”).
 134 / here for the hearing

Example 5.6b. “I Believe in You” (How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying,
Frank Loesser, 1961).

Conclusion

The examples in this chapter highlight various rhythmic elements, but

they only scratch the surface of the wide variety of rhythms in Broadway
ballads. Rhythmically contrasting sections are used to support a dramatic
arc, enhance emotional expression, or reflect change in the character’s
perspective. Formally, these sections can serve as an internal bridge or
establish a final decisive moment. The contrasts discussed herein are
achieved though changes in four musical parameters: rhythmic density,
phrase beginnings, rhythmic distributions, and the amount and level of
syncopation. These alterations occur at predictable locations within bal-
lads, though that expected juncture has changed over time; the more
recent style of a rhythmically contrasting section at the end of a ballad,
as in “Hurricane” and “[Javert’s] Soliloquy,” harkens back to some older
songs where rhythms from contrasting bridges returned at their songs’
end, as in “Over the Rainbow.” Regardless of location, musical and lyrical
contrasts help convey pivotal moments in the story. From diverse musi-
cal styles and eras, these examples all show how changes in rhythmic ele-
ments support the emotional journey of the character through the ballad.

Notes
1. In the context of musical theater, a ballad is a song in which music and
lyrics work together to explore a character’s emotional journey. This is often
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 135

a slower or lyrical solo with a romantic or personal focus, and usually occurs at
pivotal moments within the context of the show. Grant (2004) traces the begin-
ning of this congruence to Al Jolson, who “inadvertently turned the theater song
into a dramatic soliloquy that powerfully speaks the interior of a specific person
or character” (22–­23). Grant also connects the widespread use of foxtrot rhythms
in these songs to the foxtrot’s ability “to accommodate and highlight narrative
lyrics” (137).
2. See Hamm (1994) for a discussion of how genre can be shaped by changes
in performers’ interpretations and audience perception.
3. Occasionally, well-­k nown individual performers, original cast recordings,
and standard performance practices can help elucidate common rhythms as they
are usually sung and inform analyses.
4. Alec Wilder (1972) uses terms “main strain” for the A sections and says the
“release” is “almost always new material” (56). Hamm (1983) also uses the term
“release” (363). Forte (1995) considers the main part of song the refrain, which he
breaks into a ternary ABA sequence: Chorus 1, Bridge, Chorus 2, with Chorus 1
encompassing sixteen bars and the other two eight bars each.
5. As Hamm explains, in standard Tin Pan Alley songs, the lesser-­k nown
introductory verses were optional, and choruses—­or “refrains”—­were usually
made up of four equal-­length sections using either AABA or ABAC patterns. He
mentions how Kern, Gershwin, and Rodgers expanded the harmonic language
of Tin Pan Alley tunes, probably owing to their classical music experience (1983,
327–­90, particularly 358–­59 and 368). Appen and Frei-­Hauenschild (2015) also
trace the rise of AABA song form through the 1920s, exploring in detail the place-
ment of the “hook.” Note that McMillin (2006) calls the hook, or invariant lyric,
the “refrain” (109). Summach does as well, considering it part of the strophe, and
he separates out the more common “tail refrains” from “head refrains” (2011, [7]).
6. See McMillin’s discussion of Carousel’s bench scene (2006, 135–­39), and
the ensemble number “Everybody’s Got the Right to Be Happy” in Assassins (197–­
200).
7. Hamm notes the instability and “tonal adventures” of B sections (1983,
363). Graziano explores “the expansion of harmonic possibilities” in bridge sec-
tions of AABA form, noting the “surprise” of moving away from the comfort of
the tonic (2014, 96, 104). This focus on harmonic contrast in bridges appears in
analyses of other musical styles as well, such as Keith Waters’s study on bridges
in Debussy (2012). Brian Jarvis and John Peterson posit that the level of contrast
in bridges is “expected,” which they contrast with the “unexpected” contrast of
detours, including uncommon features such as completely new keys, new char-
acters, or “dramatic tempo changes” (2020, 9:40). Steve Larson (2003), Jarvis and
Peterson (2019), and Alec Wilder (1972) speak of the transitional, directed motion
of bridges that connect other sections. Allen Forte (1995) is interested in how
rhythms help unify a piece, not in how they can differ and create contrast in sec-
 136 / here for the hearing

tions. Michael Buchler compares bridges with “a sense of musical status” in two
songs, looking at their (lack of) harmonic motion, unachieved modularity goals,
and static melody (2008, 49–­50). Joseph Swain (2002) focuses on harmonic rela-
tionships, cadences, and phrase lengths, such as his discussion of phrase lengths
in “If I Loved You” (129–­30) and “Where’s the Mate for Me” (34), and the dis-
ruption of harmonic rhythms in “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” (200). Geoffrey Block
(2009) privileges melodic aspects over harmonic aspects, particularly melodic
intervals, as in his assertion that Kern chose to represent the river in Show Boat
through the melodic interval of a fourth (27–­33). In his study of the composer Ste-
phen Schwartz, Paul Laird (2014) also explores recurring melodic motives, even
as small as “three descending pitches.”
8. Other considerations include tempo and meter changes, articulation,
the length of rhythmic motives (which is tied into phrase length), and registral
accents.
9. Bridges tend to end in half cadences, chains of secondary dominants,
deceptive cadences, or other means of harmonic instability that necessitate tonic
return.
10. Unless otherwise noted, the dates used are those of the first Broadway or
cinematic production.
11. My discussion in this section considers the overall note-­content of a
phrase, whether generally “dense” or “open” (sparse). Changes in rhythmic den-
sity can occur in tandem along with changes in rhythmic patterns, changes in
syncopation, and the way the density is distributed through the phrase, which
will be explored later in more detail.
12. From here forward, underlined lyrics denote words that land on down-
beats, italics signify mid-­measure on-­beat attacks, underscores show downbeat
rests, and the em dash shows the anticipated accent of beats.
13. The song’s performance tempo is up for debate. Grant considers it a “fox-
trotted blues” (2004, 140); Wilder is also unsure that it is a ballad (1972, 57). While
the song later evolves into a danced ensemble number, I consider Julie’s solo pre-
sentation to be a ballad.
14. Scholars have discussed what they see as blues elements of the song, espe-
cially as the character singing it has then-­hidden Black heritage. Banfield notes
how this is a model for a diegetic song, yet it does more: “Julie knows a blues . . .
and her singing of it prefigures her unmasking; thus not just the singing of the
song but the recognition of musical and lyric style actually becomes an issue in
the plot” (1993, 184). The song is brought back for further diegetic use later in the
show. Appen and Frei-­Hauenschild cite the song as an example of how the AABA
form itself was associated with African Americans in the early years of its popular-
ity. McMillin similarly notes that while “it is Julie’s song, called for in the pantry of
the showboat, it is Kern’s song, too, and as Kern’s song it is saying something Julie
cannot say as a book character” (2006, 105–­9). Swain agrees: it is not just a “prop”
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 137

song since Julie is singing about herself and her situation (2002, 51). See also Greg
Decker’s discussion in this volume of the music in Show Boat as a marker for race.
15. As for most eras, the dates of the “golden age” are blurry; new trends began
in the 1950s, even as more traditional musicals continued to be written well past
1960.
16. Grant describes “On the Street Where You Live” as the show’s “most soar-
ing melodic line” with a compass of an eleventh—­which he finds unusual, as the
range of Broadway music had shrunk by then to help singers act on the lyric (2004,
27). I use the term “soaring” not just to delineate melodic contours that stretch a
larger span—­like the apex and nadir that Forte traces (1995, 26)—­or jump to a sin-
gle high note, like the melodic arc Grant discusses (25), but also to discuss longer
phrases featuring multiple high notes with longer durations. These often begin
directly on the downbeat, providing metric, registral, and agogic accents.
17. An anacrusis is an unstressed note or set of notes that begin the phrase or
gesture before the downbeat.
18. The 1992 Broadway musical Falsettos was a combination of the two off-­
Broadway one-­acts: March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990).
19. The incorporation of pop-­rock into Broadway scores has variously been the
subject of sharp critique and seen as a popular inevitability. For example, Swain
claims that when rock music began to influence musical theater, some considered
this “death to the music drama,” as “simpler harmonic plans deriving from the
blues, energized by insistent downbeats in fast tempo” took the place of “peri-
odically phrased and yet supple, flexible melodies” (2002, 415–­17). His critique is
partially based on the rhythmic content of rock styles: he argues that rock is not
a dramatic vehicle itself, because the driving beat and sound “best express pow-
erful but static emotions” (417). Grant complains that “the rhythm was made the
melody, and the rhythmic groove became the new building block of the song,” and
songwriters would simply altar the groove instead of creating differences with
melody and harmony (2004, 151–­53). On the other hand, Coleman writes that in
the early 1960s, the traditional musical seemed hopelessly out of touch with con-
temporary America and was “escapist and nostalgic” (2017, 356). Pop-­rock styles
began to fill the “chasm” between the musical language of musical theater and of
the culture at large (Swain 2002, 415).
20. For example, in Chorus Line (Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban, 1975),
the form in “Music and the Mirror” is A′ABCABB′, with front-­loaded A sections,
strong downbeat agogic accents in B and a denser C providing rhythmic contrast;
in the overall form ABBABCB′A′ of “If I Were a Rich Man” (Fiddler on the Roof,
1967), the striking rhythmic contrast comes in the C section that begins with a
loud rest (“_ the most im-­por-­t ant men in town”), which differs from the front-­
loaded A sections that begin on the downbeat (“If I were a rich man”), while the B
sections begin with an anacrusis (“I’d fill my yard”).
21. “Being Alive” also features modified section lengths with repetitive rhyth-
 138 / here for the hearing

mic cells developing into longer phrases, similar to those in “What I Did For Love”
and “Music and the Mirror” (Chorus Line, Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban,
1975).
22. A1 and A2 last twelve and fourteen bars, respectively, the B section lasts
a standard symmetrical sixteen measures, and the final A3 extends to eighteen
measures. See Banfield (1993, 68–­7 1) and Swayne (2004) for further discussion of
Sondheim’s AABA phrase explosion. While even in R&H it is common to expand
the final A, the slow growth to achieving full phrases with subsequent expansion
found in Sondheim is unique.
23. This key change (from F to G ♭ , signified with <) would seem to be a sim-
ple step-­up modulation, but it is poignantly set up earlier in the melody. Through
modal borrowing, the chromatic predominant iv in the first A section supports ♭6
in the melody. While usually the A anacrusis starts 3–4–­5, for the final chorus it is
modified to 3–4–­♭6, which becomes 5 in the new key.
24. The entire line repeats for A2, this time ending in a conclusive perfect
authentic cadence. A3 is mostly the same as A2, but with an optional tag for the
final climax.
25. This accompanies a drastic key change. While the AABA sections were in
C major, with a strong emphasis on F major (IV) in the bridge, the C section starts
in E minor, or iii, journeying through E ♭ major and G major before returning to C
major.
26. Block contrasts these “hidden triplets,” which seem to demonstrate the
hesitation of the subjunctive lyrics, with the “Many a New Day”–­type triplets
(Oklahoma!) on stronger metric beats (2009, 205).
27. The AABA form in “If Loved You” is only achieved after an introduction in
which quickly alternating rhythmic patterns lessen in density to herald the begin-
ning of the actual song. The bench scene is noted as a thoroughly “integrated”
scene encompassing interwoven dialogue, transitional music, and the main
refrain in AABA form. For more on this, see McMillin (2006, 137–­39) and Block
(2009, 199–­2 06).
28. Scholars and critics alike have tended to view megamusicals with skepti-
cism, implicitly arguing that popularity and artistic value were bad bedfellows
for most musicals after Oklahoma!. Criticism of these shows often centers on the
dramatic and narrative implications of the sung-­t hrough score (see for example
Swain 2002; Grant 2004; McMillin 2006). Sternfeld (2006) is one of the few aca-
demics who engages these shows critically. See also Hutchinson’s recent (2020)
analysis of music from Sunset Boulevard and Miss Saigon.
29. I choose to examine Javert’s version of the number in part because it is better
known and recognized. Swain (2002) notes the contrafactum, and Prece and Ever-
ett note how “Valjean and Javert share much of the same music, thus demonstrating
that they represent two sides of the same human condition” (2008, 248–­49). On
the other hand, Sternfeld argues that both Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 139

use “most of [their] set numbers as fodder for manipulations and recurrence, rather
than as character-­defining signature tunes” (2006, 260), noting that musical repeti-
tion constitutes one of three main characteristics of megamusicals (27).
30. Other Javert and Valjean numbers similarly use small, repeating rhythmic
cells to create contrast and build intensity. See for example Valjean’s “Who Am I,”
which similarly uses repeating rhythmic cells that decrease in rhythmic density,
and Javert’s “Stars,” which builds in rhythmic density to the declarative bridge (C,
“And so it must be, for so it is writ-­ten,” in ABABCA′).
31. Syncopation at the subdivision level is especially common in recent musi-
cals, corresponding to the increased syncopation in contemporary music that it
is closely linked with. For more on this, see both Temperley’s discussions of syn-
copation (1999, 2019) and Condit-­Schultz’s 2019 study of the increased frequency
and varieties of syncopations in recent Billboard hits.
32. The move from bridge to end echoes similar sections in earlier megamusi-
cals.
33. Alternately, the AB sections could be combined for an overall ABA′C, but I
see them as separate sections because of their relative length and thematic differ-
ences.
34. Hatten (1994) discusses musical markedness: how musical opposites can
create meaning through comparison. Markedness goes further than general con-
trast, as it requires one to invoke generic and contextual expectations.
35. The show premiered on Broadway in 2015, but first opened off-Broadway in
2013.
36. See also Rachel Lumsden’s chapter on Fun Home in this volume.
37. The full song has an extended introduction sung by the ensemble and a
combined finale, but my remarks focus on the central solo by the lead character.

Works Cited
Appen, Ralf von, and Markus Frei-­Hauenschild. 2015. “AABA, Refrain, Chorus,
Bridge, Prechorus—­Song Forms and Their Historical Development.” Samples.
Online Publikationen Der Gesellschaft Für Popularmusikforschung/German Society
for Popular Music Studies e.V. 13.
Banfield, Stephen. 1993. Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Block, Geoffrey Holden. 2009. Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show
Boat to Sondheim, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Buchler, Michael. 2008. “Modulation as a Dramatic Agent in Frank Loesser’s Broad-
way Songs.” Music Theory Spectrum 30 (1): 35–­60.
Butler, Mark Jonathan. 2006. Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design
in Electronic Dance Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Coleman, Bud. 2017. “New Horizons: The Musical at the Dawn of the Twenty-­First
 140 / here for the hearing

Century.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, 339–­55. Cambridge Com-

panions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Condit-­Schultz, Nat. 2019. “Expanding and Contracting Definitions of Syncopation:
Commentary on Temperley 2019.” Empirical Musicology Review 14 (November):
81.
Forte, Allen. 1995. The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924–­1950. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Grant, Mark N. 2004. The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical. Boston: Northeastern
University Press.
Graziano, John. 2014. “Compositional Strategies in Popular Song Form of the Early
Twentieth Century.” Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-­
Atlantic 6 (2).
Hamm, Charles. 1983. Yesterdays: Popular Song in America. New York: W. W. Norton
& Co.
Hamm, Charles. 1994. “Genre, Performance and Ideology in the Early Songs of
Irving Berlin.” Popular Music 13 (2): 143–­50.
Hatten, Robert S. 1994. Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and
Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hutchinson, Kyle. 2020. “Retrospective Time and the Subdominant Past: Tonal
Hermeneutics in Contemporary Broadway Megamusicals.” Music Theory Online
26 (2).
Jarvis, Brian Edward, and John Peterson. 2019. “Alternative Paths, Phrase Expansion,
and the Music of Felix Mendelssohn.” Music Theory Spectrum 41 (2): 187–­217.
Jarvis, Brian Edward, and John Peterson. 2020. “Detour or Bridge? Contrasting Sec-
tions and Storytelling in Musical Theatre.” SMT-V 6 (2) (March).
Laird, Paul R. 2014. The Musical Theater of Stephen Schwartz: From Godspell to Wicked
and Beyond. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Larson, Steve. 2003. “What Makes a Good Bridge.” Tijdschrift Voor Muziektheorie 8:
1–­ 15.
London, Justin. 1993. “Loud Rests and Other Strange Metric Phenomena (or, Meter
as Heard).” Music Theory Online. 0 (2).
Malin, Yonatan. 2008. “Metric Analysis and the Metaphor of Energy: A Way Into
Selected Songs by Wolf and Schoenberg.” Music Theory Spectrum 30 (1): 61–­87.
McMillin, Scott. 2006. The Musical as Drama: A Study of the Principles and Conventions
Behind Musical Shows from Kern to Sondheim. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Prece, Paul, and William A. Everett. 2008. “The Megamusical and Beyond: The Cre-
ation, Internationalization and Impact of a Genre.” In The Cambridge Companion
to the Musical, 246–­65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosenberg, Deena. 1997. Fascinating Rhythm: The Collaboration of George and Ira Gersh-
win. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Sternfeld, Jessica. 2006. The Megamusical. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
 The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends / 141

Summach, Jay. 2011. “The Structure, Function, and Genesis of the Prechorus.” Music
Theory Online 17 (3).
Swain, Joseph P. 2002. The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey, 2nd ed.
Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Swayne, Steve. 2004. “So Much ‘More’: The Music of ‘Dick Tracy’ (1990).” American
Music 22 (1): 50–­63.
Swayne, Steve. 2005. How Sondheim Found His Sound. Ann Arbor: University of Mich-
igan Press.
Temperley, David. 1999. “Syncopation in Rock: A Perceptual Perspective.” Popular
Music 18 (1): 19–40.
Temperley, David. 2019. “Second-Position Syncopation in European and American
Vocal Music.” Empirical Musicology Review 14 (1–2): 66–80.
Waters, Keith. 2012. “Other Good Bridges: Continuity and Debussy’s ‘Reflets Dans
l’eau.’” Music Theory Online 18 (3).
Wilder, Alec. 1972. American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–­1950, edited by
James T. Maher. New York: Oxford University Press.
Part 2
Chapters That Engage
a Single Work
6 Three Notions of Long-­Range
Form in Guys and Dolls
Michael Buchler

Guys and Dolls opened on Broadway on November 24, 1950, apparently to

uniformly positive reviews from New York’s often-­g rumpy press corps.
Specifically, raves appeared in the New York Times, the New York Daily News,
the New York Herald Tribune, the New York World Telegram, the New York Post,
the New York Journal American, the Daily Mirror, International News [Wire]
Service, the Sunday News, Colliers Magazine, the Saturday Review, and the
New Yorker.1 In 1950 and over the years since, both critics and scholars have
hailed it as a “perfect musical.”
In the immediate wake of the show’s premiere, John Chapman (theater
critic for the New York Daily News) wrote:

I did not want to leave the theatre after the premiere last night and come
back here and write a piece about the show. I wanted to hang around, on the
chance that they would raise the curtain again and put on a few numbers
they’d forgotten—­or, at least, start Guys and Dolls all over again. For here is
New York’s own musical comedy—­as bright as a dime in a subway grating, as
smart as a sidewalk pigeon, as professional as Joe DiMaggio, as enchanting
as the skyline, as new as the paper you’re holding.
. . . In all departments, Guys and Dolls is a perfect musical comedy.
(November 25, 1950)

/ 145 /
 146 / here for the hearing

Some historians have been similarly enthusiastic: David Ewen claimed that
Guys and Dolls “is the model of what an ideal musical comedy should be.
Like different parts of a solved jigsaw puzzle, each part is made to fit neatly
into the complete picture and is basic to the over-­all pattern” (Ewen 1958,
189). And Gerald Bordman declared that Guys and Dolls attained “tonal and
structural cohesion rare in the annals of the American Musical Theatre”
(Bordman 2001, 631).
What does it mean to be a “perfect musical comedy?” The idea of per-
fection might seem quaintly romantic today, especially as it appears to be
uniformly wrapped up in bygone ideals of organic unity, something that
many musicals from the past fifty years have flouted in creative and, at
times, postmodern ways. But in the golden era of book-­driven, single-­
composer musicals, traditional notions of musical and dramatic unity
were heavily valued and critically praised on Broadway. As Stacy Wolf
commented, “starting in the mid-­1940s, the critical judgment of a musi-
cal depended on how well the show’s elements were formally integrated”
(Wolf 2011, 9).
In this chapter, I investigate notions of the “perfect” midcentury
musical comedy from several perspectives: (1) character development in
an archetypal two-­couple romantic comedy; (2) large-­scale musical form,
investigating the placement and character of songs and incidental music;
and (3) the placement and meaning of duets. Theorists’ discussions of
musical form are not generally nourished by the interaction and develop-
ment of characters or by the categorization of songs according to their dra-
matic function and show order. However, the ways in which a composer
portrays their characters through musical topics, styles, and more dis-
crete musical features (harmony, rhythm, orchestration, . . .) have just as
much to do with form (writ large) as does the interplay of themes and tonal
areas in classical instrumental music. In this chapter, I aim to broaden our
notions of form and better capture each constituent song’s raison d’être.

An Artful Arrangement of Dramatis Personae

In some ways, Guys and Dolls resembles Mozart’s da Ponte operas, espe-
cially Marriage of Figaro and Cosí fan Tutte. They all feature two central cou-
ples, one of which is more significant than the other, and they also stress
a contrast between high and low culture: Cosí and Guys and Dolls both
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 147

involve a central wager; Figaro and Guys and Dolls both feature sympathetic
minor characters who facilitate the relationships. The latter two also both
include a minor character who keeps watch as illicit activities take place.
I see echoes of da Ponte’s dramatic archetypes in Guys and Dolls, but
I make no claim that either Abe Burrows or, least of all, Damon Runyon
actively felt that influence.2 Burrows was, by most accounts, the show’s
primary book author (the initial contracted librettist, Jo Swerling, left the
project during its creation), and Runyon wrote the famous short stories
that served as posthumous sources of the show’s characters and some its
plot points.3 Guys and Dolls projects far greater dramatic clarity than those
two operatic examples, and, though it is distinctly comic, the musical
avoids da Ponte’s sometimes inelegant silliness. Indeed, Frank Loesser
claimed that he wanted people to take the characters seriously and not
create a work of slapstick.4

Mapping the Drama

To understand how a drama functions, it can be useful to draw compari-

sons to an archetype and map out various characters’ relations with one
another. This brings the overall plot into sharper focus and helps make
sense of each character’s motivation and, more importantly for this proj-
ect, the songs they sing. Imagine an abstract dramatic model for a (het-
eronormative) two-­couple romantic musical comedy. Many such shows
were written in the 1940s and 1950s, including Oklahoma!, Kiss Me, Kate,
The Pajama Game, and The Most Happy Fella. Generally speaking, during
their dramatic expositions either the two men or the two women (or occa-
sionally both) are friends, and at least one of the couples (occasionally
both, as in Guys and Dolls) are in conflict, motivating the common first-­act
“I’m not in love with you” love duet (sometimes called the “conditional
love duet”) that anticipates the show’s central romance.5 Opposites always
seem to attract, after all.
The two-­couple romantic comedy often requires a third party—­an
agent—­either to introduce the couples or to help bring resolution to one or
both opposed pairs. Of course, if everything is copacetic from the outset,
there is probably no drama and certainly no comedy, so we expect some
combination of romantic conflict and agreement.
The cast of characters in Guys and Dolls falls almost neatly into two
 148 / here for the hearing

groups that help motivate the drama: the gamblers, who are pressuring
Nathan to find a place for their craps game, and the Save-­A-­Soul Mission,
which seemingly cannot find any souls to save on Broadway. The mission’s
tough and pragmatic regional head, General Mathilde B. Cartwright, has
unexpectedly come to town and announced that she will close the failing
mission. The earnest missionaries ask for a reprieve when Sky Masterson
promises that he can fill the place with sinners, if only Sister Sarah agrees
to travel with him to Havana, a trip that would satisfy Sky Masterson’s
crass bet with Nathan Detroit.
Figure 6.1 diagrams the dramatic framework of Guys and Dolls in terms
of its characters’ relationships to one another. At the risk of committing
the cardinal theatrical sin of “too much exposition,” I will walk through
this graph, listing plot details. Sky Masterson and Sister Sarah Brown are
unacquainted with one another as the show opens. After a bet necessi-
tates their introduction, they quickly develop an adversarial relationship
(dramatized by the duet “I’ll Know”), but by the end of the first act, it is
clear—­even to them—­t hat they have fallen in love (which they acknowl-
edge in “I’ve Never Been In Love Before”). By contrast, Nathan Detroit
and Miss Adelaide (who has no last name) are a loving couple who have
been together for so long that he seems to take her for granted, and she is
getting ready to give up on him unless he commits to marriage.

Figure 6.1. Dramatic framework of Guys and Dolls.

 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 149

The friendship between Sky and Nathan binds the two couples. Their
central $1,000 wager—­t hat Sky cannot take Sister Sarah to Havana with
him—­motivates the unlikely romance between Sky and Sarah, but while
the two principal men are competitive, they are not genuinely adversar-
ial. They share the same aims—­gambling and staying free and easy—­and
they both want the craps game to succeed. For at least the first half of the
show, the women do not encounter one another. After all, one is a prim
missionary, the other a burlesque performer. I have drawn the women’s
relationship with a dotted line. Except for a very brief encounter at the
end of act 1, the women do not truly talk with (or, more significantly, sing
with) one another until the very end of the musical, when they perform
the show’s final duet, “Marry the Man Today.” In the film version, which
excludes that duet, Sarah and Adelaide never meaningfully encounter one
another until the final scene.
The dramatic state in the first half of act 1 features no relation between
the women, an agreeable if competitive relation between the guys, and
conflict within each couple. But, toward the end of act 1, the adversar-
ial relationship between Sky and Sarah has turned loving, and Nathan
(slightly under duress) has set a date for marrying Adelaide. However, we
don’t go to intermission thinking that all is well—­not by a long shot.
Moving beyond the central four characters, figure 6.1 portrays the
drama as a trio of balances that more accurately reflects how everything
ties together in this complex but deeply integrated story. Sarah balances
her concerns for the mission with her animosity for Sky. That animosity
later turns to affection, then anger, then eventually forgiveness. Sky bal-
ances his desire to win a bet with his increasing affection for Sarah and his
need to fill her mission hall as promised. Nathan is balancing the promises
he made to his eager fiancée with the promises he made to his eager gam-
blers. Adelaide’s place in this drama, though important, is more unilateral.
She only cares about Nathan and whether he will or won’t commit to her.
She is therefore the only major character who is not really balancing two
concerns.
Various secondary characters act as agents who create and/or help
resolve the primary and secondary dramatic conflicts. Arvide Abernathy
is Sarah’s kindly and worldly grandfather who plays bass drum with the
mission band.6 When Sarah seems unwilling to forgive Sky for facilitating
Nathan’s decision to hold his craps game in the mission hall, Arvide sings
her the touching and vaguely Celtic/folksy song “More I Cannot Wish
 150 / here for the hearing

You,” advising that finding her own true love is the most important thing
she can do (as it was for most women in musicals from the first half of the
century). Arvide counsels Sarah to follow her heart and he quietly warns
Sky that if he fails to keep his end of the deal by filling the mission hall,
everyone on Broadway will learn that Sky has “welshed” on a promise.
Lt. Brannigan, shown on the right side of the graph, indirectly serves
as an agent by walking into a planning meeting for that night’s craps game.
All the tinhorns are wearing flowers in their lapels to identify themselves
and gain admission to the game. When Brannigan asks what’s going on,
one of the gamblers inventively declares that it is Nathan’s bachelor party,
as he is finally going to tie the knot with Adelaide. Naturally, Adelaide is
within earshot and overjoyed by the news, which consequently seals their
fate. (This is the point in the 1955 film version where Nathan Detroit,
played by Frank Sinatra, sings the song “Adelaide,” which was composed
for the movie and is not in the original show.)
Further motivating the drama, Big Jule, a larger-­than-­life thug visit-
ing from East Cicero, Illinois, is disturbed that the game broke up when
the cops arrived at the mission, and he demands that Nathan coordinate
another game to allow him to win back his losses (this time with Jule’s
own crooked dice). Without Big Jule and his lieutenant, Harry the Horse,
the important second craps game wouldn’t take place and we would lose
the motivation for Sky’s climactic moment in the second act, not to men-
tion the classic song, “Luck Be a Lady.” And without General Cartwright’s
threats of closing the mission, Sarah would lose her altruistic reason for
going to Havana with Sky, which is, after all, where she falls in love with
him and where, thanks to the local rum drinks, she first confronts her
repressed sexuality.
Capturing aspects of both a musical reduction and a transformational
network, the atemporal dramatic model of Guys and Dolls in figure 6.1
helps to elucidate some of the larger oppositional issues that unfold over
time and propel the drama. One of the primary conflicts is between reli-
gious and secular characters and institutions. Everyone on the chart’s left
side is religious, including Sky Masterson, whose hidden religious back-
ground gets revealed throughout the show in his scenes with Sister Sarah.
Two key moments from act 1 are illustrative: in the first mission scene, Sky
demonstrates that he can expertly cite biblical chapter and verse, and at
the end of act 1, Sky, in his most vulnerable and romantic moment, reveals
that his real name is biblical (Obadiah). Another opposition, as in da Pon-
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 151

te’s work, is between social ranks (again demarcated by the left side versus
right side of the same graph). In this case, religious characters correlate
with higher ranks and gamblers/burlesque performers with lower ranks.
A different sort of opposition separates those who approve of and those
who disapprove of gambling—­they’re separated on the horizontal axis
with Nathan and Sky (and everyone above them) as gamblers. Adelaide’s
vocabulary and her occupation mark her as distinctly low class, but she
dreams of white picket fences and she sees Nathan’s gambling as all that
stands between her and blissful married life.
Lehman Engel, one of the most important conductors, chroniclers,
and creative mentors during musical theater’s so-­called golden era, com-
mented that Burrows and Loesser “balanced the musical with two sets of
characters, each member as well as each couple telling [their] own tale. . . .
There is no secondary plot or subplot—­only two coexistent and closely
related ones.” Engel deemed this a “unique accomplishment” (2006, 95–­
96). My lengthy mise-­en-­scène explicitly draws out Engel’s observation.
In the remainder of this chapter, I examine ways that this high degree of
interconnectedness motivates (or is motivated by) Loesser’s local musical
decisions and how those musical decisions and the order of songs shape
the show’s large-­scale form.

Dichotomies and Religiosity

As Guys and Dolls opens, we both hear and see a strong contrast between
the missionaries and the gamblers. The overture is about half the length
of a 1940s Rodgers and Hammerstein overture, and instead of launching
directly into song, the curtain opens onto a fully choreographed (by Michael
Kidd) modern dance sequence (“Runyonland”) that vividly reveals the
shady goings-­on on Broadway. “Runyonland” leads directly into the famous
“Fugue for Tinhorns.” Thomas Riis described that song as “an instance of
quintessential Loesser/Runyon humor to call the opening three-­part round
a ‘fugue,’ a nose-­thumbing gesture for people who might want to point out
that it fell short of being a true Baroque fugue” (2008, 85).
Because it is a round with entries at four-­bar intervals, “Fugue for
Tinhorns” is both harmonically simple and hypermetrically regular, but
the syncopations, the pervasive use of accented dissonance, the mildly
bluesy passing use of ♭7, and the winding, seemingly continuous—­indeed
 152 / here for the hearing

Escher-­like—­descending lines mark this as a song that is both comedic

and distinctly secular. The fact that it goes round and round portrays the
tinhorns’ continuous obsession with gambling. Like “Oh, What a Beau-
tiful Mornin’” in Oklahoma, Loesser’s “Fugue” sets the scene but doesn’t
contribute to the dramatic exposition.7 Example 6.1 illustrates Loesser’s
inventive and deceptively simple contrapuntal structure by juxtaposing
the three four-­bar segments that are heard simultaneously. With nothing
but tonic and dominant harmonies, Loesser’s continuous descents ensure
that tonic bars prominently feature 1, 3, and 5, while dominant bars fea-
ture scale degrees a step lower: 7, 2, and 4.8 6 is usually passing, but some-
times forms a dominant ninth. Harmony and counterpoint aside, what
makes this tangled web of lyrics comprehensible and funny (the former
is a prerequisite of the latter) is that the active and syncopated first four
bars that feature creative lyrics (“I’ve got the horse right here . . .”) are jux-
taposed against the slower, unsyncopated, and lyrically repetitive assur-
ances of “can do, can do.” Though the parts of the tune are heard alternat-
ingly by three different singers, Loesser’s faster and more syncopated first
four bars always stand out as primary—­and that, of course, is where the
cleverest lyrics lie.
At precisely the moment “Fugue for Tinhorns” winds its way to a
cadence via a tacked-­on coda that ends the round (not shown in exam-
ple 6.1), sidewalk missionaries barge onto the scene with their quotid-
ian march, “Follow the Fold.” These first two songs both rely on limited
harmonic palates, consisting largely of tonic and dominant harmonies,
yet the contrast couldn’t be clearer. The final tonic of the “faux learned”
D ♭-­major “Fugue” is overrun by the missionaries’ C-­major march, creat-
ing an unmistakably stark opposition, both tonally and stylistically. The
immediate tonal motion down a half step is also markedly the opposite of
the usual intensifying gesture.9 The austere Salvationist band plays and/or
sings that same tune over and over again in the musical, always squarely,
always in C major, and often a bit out of tune, diegetically portraying the
missionaries’ remarkable lack of persuasiveness. Is it any wonder that
General Cartwright is threatening to close their branch? These evangelists
have no fire and no savvy, and their rhetoric (both musical and linguistic)
is clearly no match for that of the gamblers.
Soon after the mission band finishes their amateur rendition of this
comically stale melody, we hear another of the cleverest tunes in the
show—­and it was a late edition. In an early draft of the script, Abe Bur-
Example 6.1. “Fugue for Tinhorns,” a three-­voice canon with Escher-­like descents. The first entry’s twelve-­bar theme is layered against itself to
show the harmonic implications of the unfolding contrapuntal imitation.
“Fugue For Tinhorns” from Guys and Dolls by Frank Loesser. © 1950 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard
LLC.
 154 / here for the hearing

rows had purportedly described Nathan’s game as “the oldest established

permanent floating crap game in New York,” and Loesser thought that
was too rich a description to be relegated to a single spoken laugh line
(S. Loesser 1993, 102). The men’s ensemble number, “The Oldest Estab-
lished,” begins with a recitative-­like verse, featuring relative rhythmic
and metrical freedom and a melody of gradually ascending reciting tones.
“The Biltmore Garage wants a grand” (B ♭ 4) . . . “And they’ve now got a
lock on the door” (C5) . . . “There’s the stockroom behind McClosky’s Bar”
(D5). Unlike the endless descents in the “Fugue,” which seem to portray
an unabated and undirected conversation performed daily by rote, this
ascent has a clear goal and, by ascending, Loesser helps to build tension
that is gloriously diffused at the beginning of the refrain (“Why it’s good
old reliable Nathan . . .”).
The refrain’s acrobatic compound melody not only contrasts the verse,
but offers two stylistic juxtapositions with the missionaries and their
march. As in the opening “Fugue,” the gamblers show that their lyrics
demand syncopated rhythms. Also like the “Fugue,” this is an ensemble
number that opens by appropriating “high art” (classical recitative, in this
case) into a vulgar landscape by using lyrics inspired by Damon Runyon’s
poetically low-­class vernacular.
Loesser saves the memorable, if unwieldy, title lyric for the cadence,
which he sets using ornamented suspensions that clearly invoke religios-
ity. Indeed, at the end of the final chorus, the score is marked “Maestoso
(quasi religioso).”10 Clearly, both the missionaries and the gamblers are rev-
erent, but the objects of their reverence differ, as do their musical signifi-
ers. We hear another ornate contrapuntal allusion to religion in Sky Mas-
terson’s revelatory song “My Time of Day,” where religiosity is articulated
by a surprising bit of diatonicism and an ornamented cadential gesture
in the middle of an otherwise chromatic and episodic song (at the lyric:
“And the street lamp light fills the gutter with gold.”). Sky Masterson more
explicitly casts the refrain of his most famous song, “Luck Be a Lady,” as a
prayer just before he rolls the dice. After an especially chromatic climac-
tic moment (“you might forget your manners, you might refuse to stay”),
that song’s opening verse pauses and then concludes with a purely dia-
tonic cadential progression underscoring the text: “and so the best that
I can do is pray.” And, of course, the big showstopper near the end of act
2 is the gospel song “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” which is sung
by gamblers in the mission hall. Its religious markers directly counter the
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 155

foursquare “Follow the Fold,” and this livelier number leads both to the
mission’s salvation and to the genuine repentance of (at least some of) the
gamblers.11
Throughout Guys and Dolls, music reveals that the gamblers aren’t
necessarily averse to religion, but they are simply unwilling to listen to
the missionaries; the missionaries, on the other hand, cannot speak—­or
sing—­convincingly to the tinhorns, but once a tinhorn starts singing
the gospel, the others come around. Fauconnier and Turner’s model for
conceptual blending (as applied in Zbikowski 2002) seems made for this
kind of moment. It involves taking aspects from two different generic—­or
conceptual—­spaces and creating a product that represents more than the
sum of its parts. To wit: the missionaries seem marked by local diatoni-
cism, rhythmic/hypermetric squareness, stepwise motion, and a strong
emphasis on tonic and dominant (not pre-­dominant) functions.12 The
gamblers and Miss Adelaide, however, tend to be more chromatic, har-
monically rich, and syncopated, and/or to use dotted rhythms and triple
subdivisions of the beat (either triplets or compound time).
The missionaries also tend to stay in “safe” keys such as C, F, and B ♭ ,
while the gamblers more frequently sing in D ♭ and G ♭ . And when the gam-
blers draw on religious tropes, they generally seem to be of a more Catholic
or Lutheran variety, invoking ornamented cadences, plagal gestures, and
textures with considerably more polyphony. In the gamblers’ songs, reli-
gious markers also tend to lie in the verses. The livelier syncopated music
heard in “The Oldest Established,” “Luck Be a Lady,” and “Guys and Dolls”
(the title song) takes over in the choruses, but again these styles aren’t
strictly segregated.
The gamblers and the missionaries invoke separate religious musical
tropes, but it’s their frequency and placement throughout the show that
help us understand them as formal makers. My reading of large-­scale form
in Guys and Dolls draws inspiration from Dora Hanninen’s associational
landscapes, a nontraditional and flexible structural approach that builds
from well-­defined “associational sets.” Hanninen writes that “an asso-
ciative set is not just a collection of segments but a system of relationships
among segments that itself functions as a unit at a higher level of organiza-
tion. Instead of privileging certain shared features as necessary and suffi-
cient criteria for membership, an associative set recognizes the complex-
ity of relationships among its individual segments and embraces the full
spectrum of similarity and difference” (2012, 236).
 156 / here for the hearing

This is not motivic analysis—­at least not as we generally think of it—­

but rather something much more pliable that can accept any number of
criteria for judging similarity. Associative sets are placed on associative
landscapes, which offer a way of discussing form that moves far beyond
the standard taxonomical designations such as “AABA” or “sonata form.”
Hanninen’s set of tools inspires my large-­scale readings of form, but I
divert from her use in two important ways: (1) she does not bring cultur-
ally defined criteria such as musical topics and intersubjective meaning
into the mix, and (2) her associative criteria are better defined than what I
produce here, primarily because she limits her criteria to distinct musical
categories, including notes, harmonies, intervals, rhythms, and timbres.
Differences aside, my reading takes inspiration from the helpful questions
she poses about the recurrence of musical ideas, including an associative
sets’ “scale of activity” (whether it enjoys widespread or merely local-
ized appearances), whether they are common or rare within a work, and
whether any patches of associative sets are distributed evenly or unevenly
(Hanninen 2012, 174).
Table 6.1 shows the complete list of musical works in Guys and Dolls as
printed in both the published vocal score and libretto. I have annotated it
with the songs heard instrumentally [shown in square brackets] during
dances, transitions, and tags. The numbers are the original song numbers
used in the published vocal score. Perhaps most apparently, at the begin-
ning of the show the missionaries are marked by their dogged recitation
of the comically earnest “Follow the Fold.” Using the vocal score numbers
found on the left of this page, I have constructed some make-­shift land-
scapes in figure 6.2.
The first timeline in figure 6.2 traces recurrences of “Follow the Fold.”
It is heard in a dense patch at the beginning of the show, roughly alter-
nating with clever songs sung by the gamblers. Apparently, it’s the only
song that members of the Save-­a-­Soul Mission knew; it is habitual at first,
recurring less often as the plot unfolds and the characters—­and especially
Sister Sarah—­exhibit greater complexity.
The frequency of “Follow the Fold” is particularly salient in a show that
reprises songs considerably less than most other shows of its era.13 Cast-
ing a somewhat broader net, the next landscape in figure 6.2 charts all the
places where religion—­or at least morality—­is conveyed by the music and/
or text. The shadowed crosses ✞ are songs that are sung by the gamblers,
although numbers 29 and 31a probably should be shaded both light and
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 157

dark: they’re the last reprises of “Follow the Fold” and they involve the
group of newly enlightened gamblers as well.
A still broader way that we could think about these associations is that
the more rhythmically square a song is, the more likely it is to be sung
by (or to represent) Sarah Brown and the missionaries, whereas the more
rhythmically free, syncopated, or simply jazzy the number, the more likely
it is sung by the ne’er-­do-­wells or Miss Adelaide, whose songs often fea-
ture more natural speech rhythms. This is not an especially tightly defined
classification, so I offer grains of salt along with this third landscape. Many
of the light squares ❑ in this chart represent recurrences of “Follow the
Fold.” Song no. 23 is the very sweet “More I Cannot Wish You” that Arvide
sings to Sarah. Many of the dark squares ■ are either duets that involve
Sarah (“I’ll Know” and “I’ve Never Been in Love Before”) or they refer
back to those duets.14
The fourth landscape in figure 6.2 shows that only the gamblers or
Adelaide sing or are represented by pervasively nonsquare (for lack of a
better term) numbers until no. 15, late in act 1. No. 14 is the diegetic back-
ground music that Sky and Sarah hear in Havana. It is a long passage of
Latin dance music that gets more and more frenetic as the scene pro-
gresses (and finally ends when Sarah gets embroiled in what must be her
first bar fight). Although Sky is not a Latino, he is worldly and it is music
that represents an environment where he feels comfortable; however, it
is also music that, along with the cocktails, helps Sarah loosen up. As she
recovers outside the club, she sings her drunken and mildly swinging yet
still rather saccharine song, “If I Were A Bell.” That’s song no. 15, the first
light-­colored circle that appears.
Song no. 28, the next one with a light dot, is “Sit Down You’re Rockin’
the Boat,” where, especially in the most recent Broadway revival, the mis-
sionaries learn to worship up-­tempo and with more rhythmic vitality.
This is true conceptual blending and from that point on, both the saints
and sinners come together in song. After the gospel showstopper, every-
one sings “Follow the Fold,” Sarah and Adelaide sing their one duet, and
the show comes to a rousing conclusion with a full-­chorus reprise of the
show’s title song.
The square and nonsquare associative maps reveal that the gamblers
are more likely to sing straight (especially when they’re in love) than the
missionaries are to syncopate or swing, but these two charts are predomi-
nantly negative images of one another—­until the end, that is. Finally, the
 158 / here for the hearing

Table 6.1. List of musical works and keys

Act I
No. Description/song/[music] Key
Overture various
1 Opening: “Runyonland” various
2 Trio: “Fugue for Tinhorns” (Nicely, Benny, D♭
Rusty)
3 Quintet: “Follow the Fold” (Sarah, Arvide, C
Agatha, Mission Group)
3a Exit of Sarah and the Mission Band: [“Follow
the Fold”]
4 Concerted Number: “The Oldest Established” D ♭ , C, A ♭ , C
(Nathan, Nicely, Benny . . .)
5 Entrance of the Mission Group: “Follow the C
Fold”
6 Duet: “I’ll Know” (Sarah and Sky) A (Sarah), E (Sky)
6a Interlude: [“I’ll Know”] F, g
6b Vocal Finish: “I’ll Know” A♭
6c Change of Scene (2 to 3): [“I’ll Know”] F
7 Fanfare C
7a Song: “A Bushel and a Peck” (Adelaide and B ♭ , G, A ♭
Hot-­Box Dolls)
7b The Customers’ Exit: [“Home Sweet Home”] A♭
8 Song: “Adelaide’s Lament” G♭, G
8a Change of Scene (4 to 5): [“Adelaide’s C
Lament”]
9 Opening Scene 5: [“Follow the Fold”] C
10 Duet: “Guys and Dolls” (Nicely and Benny) F
11 Opening Scene 6: [“Follow the Fold”] C
12 Change of Scene (6 to 7): [“Fugue for Tin- C
horns,” unsyncopated]
13 End of Scene 7: [“Follow the Fold”] C
14 Havana: [“Cuban Café Shango,” “Polite
Rhumba,” “a la Tango,” “Samba,” “Rhumba”
various]
15 Song: “If I Were a Bell” (Sarah) E♭
16 Change of Scene: (9 to 10) [“I’ll Know”] A♭
17 Song: “My Time of Day” (Sky) F, g, A ♭ , G
17a Duet: “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” (Sky B ♭ (Sky), D (Sarah)
and Sarah)
18 The Raid: [“Fugue for Tinhorns,” unsynco- F
pated and fast]
19 Curtain Music: [“I’ve Never Been in Love A♭
Before”—­Maestoso]
20 Entr’acte various
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 159

Act II
21 Hot-­Box Fanfare C
21a Song, Chorus, and Dance: “Take Back Your B ♭ , C, F (dance)
Mink” (Adelaide and Dolls)
22 Song: “Adelaide’s Second Lament” (Adelaide) G♭
22a Change of Scene (1 to 2): [“I’ve Never Been in D♭
Love Before”]
23 Song: “More I Cannot with You” (Arvide) D
24 Change of Scene: (2 to 3) [lead-­in to “Luck Be C
a Lady”]
24a The Crapshooters’ Dance: [“Luck Be a Lady”] C, various
25 Song and Chorus: “Luck Be a Lady” (Sky and D ♭ , D, E ♭ , D ♭
the Crapshooters)
26 Change of Scene: (3 to 4) [“Luck Be a Lady”] E♭
27 Duet: “Sue Me” (Adelaide and Nathan) B♭
27a Change of Scene: (4 to 5) [“Sue Me . . . Follow B ♭ (both)
the Fold”. . . both slow]
28 Song and Chorus: “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ F
the Boat” (Nicely)
29 “The Guys Follow the Fold” C
29a Adelaide Meets Sarah [A: Adelaide’s Lament/S: D
I’ve Never Been in Love Before]
30 Duet: “Marry the Man Today” (Adelaide and c (G bridge)
Sarah)
31 Opening Scene 7: [“G&D, Luck Be a Lady, Various, ends in C
Fugue, Luck Be a Lady”]
31a Entrance of the Mission Band: [“Follow the C
Fold’]
32 The Happy Ending: “Guys and Dolls” (every- E♭
one)
Square brackets denote underscored instrumental music and comments. Parentheses show
performers.

last part of figure 6.2 combines the previous two charts to show a rough
alternation of square and nonsquare numbers and, at least at the begin-
ning, we have a rough alternation of songs by (or instrumental numbers
that apply to) gamblers and missionaries. This chart vividly depicts the
sort of conceptual blending that happy endings necessitate in love stories
involving characters from very different backgrounds and stations in life.15
 160
/
here for the hearing

Figure 6.2. Associative landscapes in Guys and Dolls. Numbers represent the song numbers in the original published
vocal score (and also in figure 6.1).
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 161

Duets as Formal Markers

While the exposition is dominated by ensemble numbers (“Fugue for Tin-

horns,” “Follow the Fold,” “The Oldest Established,” and, a bit later, “Guys
and Dolls”), Guys and Dolls is principally about relationships among the
quartet of central characters, and the show’s four duets arguably mark the
most important and perhaps the most obvious formal and dramatic junc-
tures. The musically manifest communication problems encountered by
the tinhorns and missionaries in act 1 are expressed differently and less
directly by the show’s two central couples. Whereas religious attributes
generally come to the fore in the musical’s solo or larger ensemble num-
bers, duets express relational conflict and accord.
One of Frank Loesser’s greatest contributions to musical theater was
what I’ll call the argumentative duet. Rather than the consecutive duet dis-
cussed below (and heavily favored by Rodgers and Hammerstein), the
characters in an argumentative duet trade lyrics, interrupting or over-
lapping with one another. Loesser deploys this largely comic device in
both act 2 duets: “Sue Me” and “Marry the Man Today.”16 In “Sue Me,”
Miss Adelaide’s fast and agitated complaints, “you promise me this, you

 (the same meter as her “Lament”) with almost constant eighth notes,
promise me that, you promise me anything under the sun . . . ,” are set in

rhythmically, if not grammatically running her sentences together even

anxious triple divisions in simple  time, as he pleads “Call a lawyer and
as Nathan attempts to squeeze in a word. Nathan responds to Adelaide’s

sue me, sue me, what can you do me?” and interjects “Alright already! I’m
just a no-­good-­nick!”
Adelaide’s other duet, “Marry the Man Today,” sung with Sister Sarah
Brown, is led into by “Adelaide Meets Sarah,” which directly opposes a
slow excerpt of “Adelaide’s Lament” (again with triple beat divisions) with
Sarah’s now-­w istful rendition of “I’ll know” (unsyncopated and in simple
quadruple meter). Both women maintain their own musical markers in
“Adelaide Meets Sarah,” but “Marry the Man Today” truly is a blended—­
not an interruptive—­number. It reflects neither Sarah’s pure diatonicism
nor Adelaide’s chromatic, anxiety-­r idden musical voice, and it places Ade-
laide’s impatient triple divisions into a slow and plodding march—­but the
only march we’ve heard since “Follow the Fold.”17
“Marry the Man Today” sharply differs from the first act’s conflicting,
but essentially pre-­romantic, duet: “I’ll Know,” a more traditional Broad-
 162 / here for the hearing

way duet in which Sarah and Sky sing the same song but with different
lyrics.
The two songs sung by the leading couple, Sky and Sarah, are tradi-
tional Broadway duets: what I call consecutive duets in which one member
of the couple sings the verse and chorus, and then the other person sings
the verse and chorus, generally with altered lyrics and often in a differ-
ent key and/or with differently orchestrated backing music. At the very
end of a consecutive duet, especially in love duets, the couple unites to
sing together, either in octaves or in harmony (often parallel tenths). “I’ll
Know” is the traditional act 1 I-­hate-­you-­but-­I’m-­attracted-­to-­you (con-
ditional) duet (see note 5) that depicts romantic conflict. Sky and Sarah
come from different backgrounds and have radically different worldviews,
and yet they’re both willing to sing the same tune, enumerating what they
imagine they’re seeking in a partner. The characters might not yet know
that they’ll fall in love, but we do, especially at the end when they sing “I’ll
know when my love comes along” in perfect harmony. At the end of act
1, their genuine love duet, “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” features the
same structure, but now the couple are truly on the same page, singing the
same lyrics in their consecutive renditions, and again coming together in
harmony at the end.
The differences between Sky and Sarah were musically articulated
even more strongly in 1976, when Guys and Dolls was revived on Broadway
in a short-­lived (and widely panned) production that featured an all-­Black
cast. Critical reception notwithstanding, I encourage readers to listen to
how James Randolph and Ernestine Jackson handled these roles. Their
characters are sharply distinguished: Sister Sarah is voiced traditionally in
the first verse and chorus of “I’ll Know”; Sky then sings his verse “straight,”
but moves into a smooth R&B style in the chorus.18 Sky Masterson vintage
1976 is both racially marked and culturally hip.
In that production, Sister Sarah acclimates to Sky’s style at the end
of the first act. After Sky pours out his soul in the remarkable “My Time
of Day” (which I discuss in detail in Buchler 2008, 49–­59), he sings “I’ve
Never Been in Love Before” in disco style and Sarah answers in kind, chan-
neling her inner Donna Summer. That romantic song in its disco incarna-
tion was a symbol not only of Sky and Sarah’s love, but of her acquiescence
and acceptance of Sky and his lifestyle.
As I mentioned earlier, the duets open a window onto the show’s large-­
scale form, and that form would have been even more tightly connected
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 163

had the original version that was premiered in Philadelphia in October

1950 lasted until the show’s Broadway opening the following month.
The act 1 scene in Mindy’s Restaurant originally included a wonderful
duet called “Traveling Light,” which was sung by Sky and Nathan. In it,
the guys celebrated living a free-­and-­easy life, avoiding getting weighted
down by marriage and its mundane trappings.
The song’s verse is expansive. Rather than the short-­short-­long (4+4+8
bar) proportional norm of the sentential Broadway phrase, this song opens
with a short-­short-­longer . . . and still longer extension: a phrase that lists
so many perceived grievances with marriage that it takes twenty-­eight
(not the usual sixteen) bars to wind its way to a cadence. Example 6.2
shows the verse’s opening melody, lyrics, and harmony; analytical anno-
tations demonstrate that this starts as a normal 4+4+8 sentence—­a pair
of basic ideas, followed by a continuation—­but that continuation’s path
to the expected cadence gets sidetracked by the musically onomatopoeic
(tedious, étudinous arpeggiations!) and hypermetrically disrupting set-
ting of “junior playing the violin.” That might have been heard as a weak
cadence on a stalled inverted dominant, but then Sky Masterson contin-
ues, shifting to minor and interjecting “and they no longer dream about
places they’ll go, they just brood about places they’ve been.” Neither gram-
matically nor musically can this be considered a new sentence. The basic
ideas (“Most guys buy themselves houses, and promptly box themselves
in”) are as harmonically basic as the missionaries’ song: nothing but an
alternation of tonic and dominant; the lengthy continuation then musi-
cally models the perceived marital entanglements.19
Sadly, Sam Levene, the original Nathan Detroit, couldn’t sing this
song (or, according to oft-­repeated stories by Loesser, Burrows, and Feuer,
much of anything else), but its inclusion in the trial runs of Guys and Dolls
must have made “Marry the Man Today,” the complementary conclud-
ing duet between Sarah and Adelaide, that much funnier and that much
more structurally completing.20 The cut first-­act song mockingly enu-
merates icons of domesticity (“. . . the stove and the wife, a subscription
to Life . . .”); its surviving second-­act companion celebrates them as “the
better things, respectable, conservative and clean” (“Readers Digest! Guy
Lombardo! Rogers Peet! Golf! Galoshes! Ovaltine!”).
With “Traveling Light,” the pre-­Broadway rendition of Guys and Dolls
featured an unusual symmetry: the guys sang an agreeable duet toward
the beginning of act 1 and the “dolls” came together with their agreeable
Example 6.2. Expansive sentential phrase structure in the verse of “Traveling Light,” which was cut before the show’s
Broadway debut.
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 165

duet at the end of act 2; argumentative duets dramatized a central conflict

between Sky and Sarah in act 1 and between Nathan and Adelaide in act 2;
and Sky and Sarah sang the only love duet in the middle of the show, just
before the act 1 curtain.21
Frank Loesser’s use of readily identifiable musical topics and tropes in
the songs and accompanying music helped to establish, and then break
down, the central dichotomies of character and plot in Guys and Dolls,
allowing a narrative that employs but shifts away from caricatures, to
focus more on human interaction than on stereotypes. Moreover, Loess-
er’s careful placement of musical markers, especially connoting religion,
and his judicious use of duets at key moments, projects a tremendous
sense of unity—­even symmetry—­in a show with several different plot
lines and where most of the major characters are balancing different con-
cerns within the drama. Or, as New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson suc-
cinctly put it a week after the premiere: “Although Guys and Dolls is com-
posed of the many bizarre elements essential to every musical show, it
seems simple and effortless on the stage. Everything falls into place easily
as though the play had been created in one piece, and every song and actor
were inevitable.”

Notes
1. If there were negative reviews, I have not located them. Stacy Wolf also
claimed that it was “met with unanimously rave reviews when it opened” (Wolf
2011, 36). Likewise, Thomas Riis, citing Brooks Atkinson’s review in the New York
Times (which concludes this chapter), notes that “rave reviews by such critical
arbiters as Atkinson had appeared before in the theatrical press, but seldom if
ever can one find the terms ‘perfectly-­composed’ or ‘work of art’ or the phrase
‘as though . . . every song and actor were inevitable’ attached to a single musical
comedy.” . . . “Guys and Dolls appealed to everyone, or so it seems” (Riis 2008, 75).
2. By contrast, the famed director and creative mentor, Lehman Engel, hears
resonances of John Gay’s The Beggars Opera and of various Shakespeare plots in
Guys and Dolls (226–­2 27).
3. Cy Feuer, one of the show’s two producers, claims that after they fired Jo
Swerling “he [Swerling] insisted that he still receive first billing in the credits for
the play and retain some small percentage of the royalties. This in spite of the fact
that not one of his words ever appeared in the show” (Feuer 2003, 115; see also
Burrows 1980, 142–­45).
4. Loesser’s previous musical, Where’s Charley? (1948) was a musical version
of a well-­k nown British farce. Not only did he want to avoid repeating that type
 166 / here for the hearing

of musical, but he and his producers (Feuer and Martin) were deeply aware of the
success of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific a year before Guys and Dolls
opened. That more serious musical married light comedy with more genuine and
heartfelt romance.
5. Examples include “People Will Say We’re In Love” (Oklahoma!), “I’m
Gonna Wash That Man Right Out-­a My Hair” (South Pacific), and “I’m Not At All
in Love” (Pajama Game). See Magee (2012, 248) for a longer description of “condi-
tional love duet.”
6. In the 1955 film, he is her uncle.
7. Indeed, one might wonder why our secondary characters open the show
with a song about playing the horses when the plot involves playing the dice. An
early version of this song was one of the first numbers Loesser composed on spec-
ulation before the script had been written.
8. Riis (2008, 86) reads ii7 chords sandwiched between the V 7 chords, but I
hear those as mere arpeggiations of the dominant with 6 serving a passing role in
every voice.
9. See Buchler 2008 for extensive observations about Loesser’s intensifying
gestures in Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.
10. Knapp makes a similar point, referring to the “gamblers’ innate affinities
for the religious feelings they overtly shun” (2005, 140).
11. At the end of the film version, we see Nicely-­Nicely Johnson (the tinhorn
who sings this song) donning a mission uniform. And conversion goes both
ways—­t he 2009 Broadway production has General Cartwright breaking character
by belting out a virtuosic coloratura chorus of “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”
That moment seems especially reminiscent of Loesser and Burrows’s later show,
How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, in which the previously songless
uptight head secretary, Miss Jones, has her big solo in the (otherwise male ensem-
ble) gospel showstopper, “Brotherhood of Man.”
12. Again, with the sole exception of “Fugue for Tinhorns.”
13. According to producer Cy Feuer, Loesser had wanted more song reprises,
but the show’s director, George Kaufman, prohibited it, insisting that Loesser
could reprise a song only if Kaufman and Abe Burrows could reuse jokes (Feuer
2003, 140).
14. 7b is a nondiegetic performance of the “Home Sweet Home,” played as
nightclub patrons leave at evening’s end.
15. Historically, this show follows on the heels of 1949’s South Pacific, about
which one could make very similar observations.
16. Loesser’s other overlapping argumentative duets include “Baby, It’s Cold
Outside,” “Make a Miracle,” and “It’s Been a Long Day.”
17. See Wolf (2011, 34–­4 1) for an especially compelling reading of “Marry the
Man Today” in the context of the burgeoning female duet in the 1950s.
 Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls / 167

18. Searching YouTube for “Guys and Dolls 1976” currently yields at least two
recordings.
19. This example is based on the score draft in the Frank Loesser Collection at
the New York Public Library Performing Arts Division. A performance by Gregg
Edelman and Tim Flavin with England’s National Symphony Orchestra can be
found on YouTube.
20. Producer Cy Feuer, librettist Abe Burrows, and the composer’s daughter,
Susan Loesser, all recount stories about Levene’s inability to carry a tune (Feuer,
127–­2 8; Burrows, 153–­5 4; S. Loesser, 105–­6)
21. In the 1955 film adaptation of Guys and Dolls, “Marry the Man Today” was
cut, creating a rather sudden ending, but perhaps creating greater duet symmetry
(which I think of more as a wonderfully creative feature rather than a common-
place goal of musical theater).

Works Cited
Atkinson, Brooks. 1950. “‘Guys and Dolls’: Broadway Rat-­Race Based on Some
Damon Runyon Characters.” New York Times (December 3). https://nyti.ms/3aW​
s41l
Bordman, Gerald Martin. 2001. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, 3rd ed. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Buchler, Michael. 2008. “Modulation as a Dramatic Agent in Frank Loesser’s Broad-
way Songs.” Music Theory Spectrum 30 (1): 35–­60.
Burrows, Abe. 1980. Honest, Abe: Is There Really No Business like Show Business? Bos-
ton: Little, Brown.
Chapman, John. 1950. “‘Guys and Dolls’ Is New York’s Musical Comedy.” New York
Daily News. November 25.
Engel, Lehman, and Howard Kissel. 2006. Words with Music: Creating the Broadway
Musical Libretto. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.
Ewen, David. 1958. Complete Book of the American Musical Theater. New York: Holt.
Feuer, Cy, and Ken Gross. 2003. I Got the Show Right Here: The Amazing, True Story of
How an Obscure Brooklyn Horn Player Became the Last Great Broadway Showman.
New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hanninen, Dora A. 2012. A Theory of Music Analysis: On Segmentation and Associative
Organization. Eastman Studies in Music. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester
Press.
Knapp, Raymond. 2005. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Loesser, Frank, Abe Burrows, and Jo Swerling. 1950. Guys & Dolls; A Musical Fable of
Broadway. New York: Music Theatre International.
Loesser, Susan. 1993. A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in
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His Life: A Portrait by His Daughter. New York: D. I. Fine.

Magee, Jeffrey. 2012. Irving Berlin’s American Musical Theater. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Riis, Thomas Laurence. 2008. Frank Loesser. Yale Broadway Masters. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Wolf, Stacy Ellen. 2011. Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Zbikowski, Lawrence Michael. 2002. Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, The-
ory, and Analysis. AMS Studies in Music. New York: Oxford University Press.
7 Style, Tonality, and Sexuality
in The Rocky Horror Show
Nicole Biamonte

Introduction

Tonal relationships and musical style reflect the characters’ sexual rela-
tionships and transformations in the British camp musical The Rocky Hor-
ror Show (1973) by Richard O’Brien. A precedent for correlating the tonal
plan of a dramatic work with its characters and plot has been well estab-
lished in opera analysis, mostly in the music of Giuseppe Verdi, in work
by David Lawton (1982, 1989), Stephen Huebner (2004), Edward Latham
(2008, 2020), and David Easley (2020). In musicals, the association of
characters with particular keys or harmonic patterns has been explored by
Trudi Wright (2020), Nathan Blustein (this volume), and Michael Buchler
(this volume), and the association of characters with particular musical
styles has been considered by Paul Laird (2011), Scott McMillin (2006),
Nina Penner (2020), and Elizabeth Sallinger (2016). In The Rocky Horror
Show, flat keys and softer pop-­music styles are loosely correlated with the
conservative, heteronormative human characters, and sharp keys and
hard-­rock styles with the sexually open, queer alien characters. The tonal
dichotomy also supports the narrative trajectories of the lead characters:
Janet’s sexual awakening is marked by a significant shift sharpward, from
the keys of E ♭ major and B ♭ major to A major, and Frank’s loss of power and

/ 169 /
 170 / here for the hearing

control is marked by a shift flatward from his opening key of E major to C

major and F major.
The show is set in a dilapidated cinema and parodies the conventions
of science-­fiction and horror movies as well as those of Broadway musi-
cals. The film version The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) eclipses the stage
musical in popularity, probably because the elaborate tradition of audi-
ence participation that developed around the film—­involving props, cos-
tumes, ritualized shouted commentary, and sometimes a “shadowcast” of
amateur performers mirroring the onscreen action—­offers a safe space for
exploring queer constructions of gender and sexuality.1 As in many musi-
cals, several main characters are typified by particular styles,2 such as pop-­
rock for the wholesome couple Brad and Janet and rockabilly for the biker
Eddie. Visually and musically, the show overall is strongly influenced by
glam rock, which was prevalent in the UK at the time Rocky Horror was
composed.3 Philip Auslander (2006, 63) elucidates this connection: “The
association of glam with gothic horror, particularly the Hollywood films
of the 1930s satirized by The Rocky Horror [Picture] Show that popularized
the nineteenth-­century novels on which they are based, makes perfect
sense. . . . those films, many of them directed by the avowedly gay James
Whale, contain multiple, coded references to homosexuality and reflect
a covert, queer sensibility based on an identification of the queer and
the monster as the Other.” Glam artists are known for androgynous self-­
presentations, flattening the differences between conventionally mascu-
line and feminine gender cues (e.g., David Bowie, Freddie Mercury; see
Gregory 2002; Auslander 2006). This association with visual androgyny
is particularly apropos to the show’s plot, in which a pansexual cross-­
dressing mad scientist—­one of a trio of aliens from the planet Transsexual
in the galaxy Transylvania—­sexually preys on Earthlings and creates an
idealized male lover for himself, evoking both Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion
and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The next section of this chapter provides
a summary of Rocky Horror’s plot and song placement, followed by a dis-
cussion of the tonal and stylistic relationships of the songs and the ways
they reflect the characters’ sexual relationships and narrative trajectories.
The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of the different generic
conventions the show invokes.
 Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show / 171

Synopsis

The show is framed by the Usherette singing “Science Fiction Double Fea-
ture,” which pays tribute to a variety of classic science-­fiction and horror
films from the 1930s through the early 1960s.4 Invoking these films in this
opening song also sets audience expectations for possible plot devices,
atmosphere, and dramatic register (i.e., camp). As the story begins, the vir-
ginal heterosexual couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss have just attended
their friends’ wedding, which inspires Brad to declare his love and pro-
pose to Janet (“Damn It, Janet”). The lyrics reify their conventionally het-
eronormative gender roles, and the song’s placement early in the show
acknowledges the ways in which “the classical . . . musical celebrates het-
erosexual romance and white patriarchal ‘normality’” (Benshoff and Grif-
fin 2006, 147). Such celebrations are typically a narrative goal of musical
comedies, so depicting a happy couple at the outset cues the audience to
expect an impending reversal and signals that this is not a typical musical
comedy. Brad and Janet get engaged and decide to visit the teacher of the
science class where they met, Dr. Everett Scott, to share the news. They
suffer a flat tire in a rainstorm and seek help at the nearby Frankenstein
castle (“Over at the Frankenstein Place”). At the castle they encounter
Riff Raff the hunchbacked butler, his sister and apparent incestuous lover
Magenta the maid, and the human character Columbia. They dance the
show’s signature number (“Time Warp”) joined by a chorus of four to six
phantoms, changed in the movie version to a large number of Transylva-
nian party guests. Their leader and the star of the show, the mad scientist
Frank N. Furter, appears, introduces himself (“Sweet Transvestite”), and
invites everyone to the laboratory, where he brings his human creation
and intended sexual playmate Rocky to life (“The Sword of Damocles”)
and admires his physique (“I Can Make You a Man”). The scene is inter-
rupted by Eddie, Columbia’s—­and possibly Frank’s—­former lover, who
escapes from the freezer where he was stored after Frank harvested half
of his brain to use in creating Rocky (“Whatever Happened to Saturday
Night/Hot Patootie”). Act 1 ends with Frank, angered by the interruption
of his spectacle and his literal and metaphorical loss of center stage, killing
Eddie and staging a brief mock wedding to Rocky.
Act 2 begins with the operatic convention of a thinly disguised char-
acter seducing other characters: Frank disguised as Brad seduces Janet,
and then Frank disguised as Janet seduces Brad, demonstrating that Frank
 172 / here for the hearing

is bisexual as well as nonbinary. Janet sings to Rocky of her newly awak-

ened desire (“Touch-­a Touch-­a Touch-­a Touch Me”; henceforth “Touch-­a
Touch Me”) and seduces him. In the original script, Brad responds to
these betrayals with the lament “Once in a While,” although this song is
often cut. Everyone in the castle is surprised by the arrival of Dr. Scott,
who has retired from teaching science and now investigates UFOs for the
government; he knows the castle is inhabited by aliens, and he is also,
coincidentally, Eddie’s uncle (“Eddie’s Teddy”).5 Frank prepares to return
to the planet Transylvania (“Planet Schmanet”), but first, the characters
perform a lingerie-­clad floor show (“Rose Tint My World/Don’t Dream It/
Wild and Untamed Thing”). The floor show is interrupted by Magenta and
Riff Raff, who announces that their mission to Earth is a failure, he is now
the commander, and Frank is his prisoner. Frank expresses willingness to
return with them (“I’m Going Home”), but Riff Raff rejects this idea, kills
Columbia, Frank, and Rocky, instructs the others to leave, and, along with
Magenta, departs from Earth in the castle. Brad, Janet, and the Narrator
lament their situation (“Super Heroes”), and a reprise of the opening song
“Science Fiction Double Feature” serves as an epilogue.

Sexual, Tonal, and Stylistic Relationships

Figure 7.1 diagrams the characters’ sexual relationships and the keys of their
songs. Flat keys are loosely correlated with the most important human
roles: the main characters Brad and Janet, and the Usherette (also known
variously as Miss Strawberry Time, the Belasco Popcorn Girl, and Trixie),
a frame narrator who sings the opening and closing song that contextu-
alizes the show as theatrical storytelling in the form of a science-­fiction
movie.6 The human characters are also the only ones to sing in minor keys,
in the songs that frame act 2: Janet in A minor in the verses of “Touch-­a
Me,” and Brad, Janet, and the Narrator—­another external character like
the Usherette, who provides spoken introductions to many scenes7—­in
G minor in “Super Heroes.” In contrast, sharp keys loosely correlate with
the Transylvanians Frank, Riff Raff, and Magenta, and the humans most
closely associated with them, Columbia, Eddie, and Rocky. This dichot-
omy of flat versus sharp keys highlights the difference between the sex-
ually conservative and traditionally gender-­ conforming human main
characters and the sexually open and gender-­bending Transylvanian main
 Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show / 173

Figure 7.1. Tonal and sexual relationships in The Rocky Horror Show. Aliens are
shaded dark gray, humans modified or created by Frank are light gray, and other
humans are unshaded. Listed under each character’s name are the keys of their
songs and/or verses, in the order in which they occur in the show. Explicit sexual
relationships are shown with solid lines and implicit ones with dotted lines.

characters. Along with stylistic differences in these characters’ music, this

opposition correlates with the central conflict of the narrative as well as
with its characters’ development. The show’s star, Frank, and its female
lead, Janet, have the broadest tonal trajectories, spanning half the circle of
fifths and reflecting their changing motivations and relationships. Frank’s
entrance number, “Sweet Transvestite,” is in E major, the sharpmost key
in the show, but later in act 1 he sings to Rocky in C major and B ♭ major,
and his songs in act 2 are in C major and F major. This flatward path can
be interpreted as reflecting the trajectory from Frank’s initial status as the
leader of the aliens’ mission to his ultimate failure, and possibly also his
increasing sexual preoccupation with Earthlings.
Janet’s tonal trajectory moves in the opposite direction, from singing
in flat keys in act 1 to expressing her sexual awakening in A major at the
beginning of act 2, but her music returns to the flat key of G minor for
the lament at the end of the show. Brad and Janet sing the same number
of songs, but Brad’s tonal trajectory is much narrower, spanning half the
tonal distance (a quarter of the circle of fifths, from E ♭ major to C major),
which can be interpreted as suggesting that he is far less changed by his
 174 / here for the hearing

experiences in the castle than Janet. The effect of the tonal distinctions
among the characters is enhanced by the stripped-­down instrumenta-
tion of the show, which is more typical of a rock band than most musicals:
piano, synthesizer, guitars, bass, drums, and tenor saxophone. The tonal
effect (when no songs are transposed) is subtle but perceptible, especially
in the prominent guitar and bass parts, because they have more open
strings in sharp keys.8
Figure 7.2 is a table of the songs, characters, styles, and keys in the
musical, in order of occurrence.9 The show’s first six songs establish a
clear tonal contrast between the first three songs and the next three
songs (bracketed in the figure), as well as a stylistic contrast between the
innocent, conventional humans who are introduced in flat keys, and the
sexually aggressive, queer aliens who are introduced in sharp keys. The
framing song “Science Fiction Double Feature” is sung by the female
usher in E ♭ major,10 and Brad and Janet’s pair of scene-­setting duets are
in B ♭ major and E ♭ major. All three songs can be characterized as pop or
soft rock. “Science Fiction” features doo-­wop backing vocals, and the
chorus uses the archetypal doo-­wop progression I–­v i–­IV–­V, rotated to
IV–­V–­I–­v i.11 Julian Cornell (2008, 49n7) describes both “Damn It, Janet”
and “Over at the Frankenstein Place” as a mixture of older rock and roll
with Broadway show tunes. “Damn It, Janet” is exaggeratedly repetitive
in several domains: the looped progression I–­iii–­v i under 8–7­– 6, the spo-
ken interjections of “Janet” or “Oh Brad” after nearly every line, and the
syntactically similar verse lyrics, which, in Knapp’s words, “revel in their
own uninspired inadequacies” (2010, 246)—­for instance, Brad sings “The
river was deep, but I swam it . . . the road was long, but I ran it,” and Janet
responds “Now we’re engaged and I’m so glad / that you’ve met Mom and
you know Dad.” The next song, “Over at the Frankenstein Place,” is more
Broadwayesque, partly because the texture dramatically expands from the
opening verse, which consists only of Janet’s vocal melody and a bass line
played on piano, to the following chorus, which includes the full band,
harmonized lead vocals, and choral backing vocals. In conjunction with
the repeated lyric “There’s a light,” the gospel-­inflected backing vocals
suggest, misleadingly, that the literal light seen by the characters could be
a metaphorical means to their salvation.
The next three songs offer both stylistic and tonal contrast to the first
three. “Time Warp,” in the key of A major—­which is almost as remote
as possible from the E ♭ major of the preceding song—­presents the possi-
Figure 7.2. Songs, characters, styles, and keys in The Rocky Horror Show.
 176 / here for the hearing

bly incestuous Transylvanian siblings Riff Raff and Magenta, as well as

Frank’s discarded (Earthling) lover Columbia. Frank’s first song, “Sweet
Transvestite” in E major, is equivalent to an entrance aria that establishes
him as the show’s diva, flaunting both his gender-­bending and his sexual-
ity: dramatically and affectively, “Sweet Transvestite” is not very different
from Carmen’s entrance aria in Bizet’s eponymous opera. In the following
number, “The Sword of Damocles,” Frank’s creation Rocky laments his
existence in D major. These three songs, which introduce the alien charac-
ters and their relationships, are marked musically by the hardest-­rocking
styles heard so far and visually by the characters’ spectacular entrances
and costumes. “Time Warp” functions as both a dance song and a parody
of a dance song, with instructional lyrics. It features several rock signifi-
ers, including the partly palm-­muted strumming in the opening, and two
chord progressions characteristic of late 1960s rock: I–­II–­♭VII–­I V–­I in the
verse and ♭VI–­♭ III–­♭VII–­I V–­I in the refrain. The verse ends with a double-­
plagal progression of root motion by descending fourths or ascending
fifths, which is extended in the refrain to a quadruple-­plagal progres-
sion (Biamonte 2010). These plagal progressions mark the song as rock
music and, through their extended reversals of the more conventional
descending-­fifth progression, suggest otherness.12 The harmonic lan-
guage of “Sweet Transvestite” is typical of both classic rock and its influen-
tial progenitor, the blues: the verse progression, I–­♭ III–­I V–­I, is based on a
pentatonic motive idiomatic to the guitar that I have called a “reverse axe-­
fall progression” (Biamonte 2010, 106), and the refrain follows the pattern
of a blues cadence, V–­I V–­I.13 The insistently rising chromatic motive in
octaves that comprises the accompaniment is based on an underlying pen-
tatonic scale that is characteristic of the blues, but the rising chromatic
motives also signal desire.14 “The Sword of Damocles” draws on the simple
three-­chord patterns and boogie-­blues figurations typical of early rock and
roll. The accompaniment textures of all three songs foreground the elec-
tric guitar, the instrument most representative of rock music, in contrast
to the piano-­centric accompaniments of “Damn It, Janet” and the begin-
ning of “Over at the Frankenstein Place.”
These first six songs establish the characters and their interpersonal,
stylistic, and tonal relationships. The rest of act 1 presents a conflict that
ultimately results in the show’s tragic ending. The next song, “I Can Make
You a Man,” is a conventional show tune that Frank sings to Rocky in C
major. This key can be interpreted as mediating between the flat/sharp–­
 Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show / 177

human/alien dichotomy established by the previous songs, providing

a tonally neutral meeting ground for the impending consummation of
their relationship and perhaps also signaling Frank’s impending loss of
power. The ending segues into “Whatever Happened to Saturday Night/
Hot Patootie” in A major, approached from C major via the common tone
E. The 1950s rockabilly style evokes Elvis or—­as Cornell (2008, 43–­4 4)
argues— ­the UK glam version of Elvis, Gary Glitter, and the lyrics establish
Eddie’s heteronormative perspective and lament his lost teenage naiveté.15
Although Eddie is human, Frank has removed half of his brain to use for
Rocky, transforming him: as Eddie sings in the first verse, “It don’t seem
the same since cosmic light came into my life—­I thought I was divine.”
This change, and the fact that he is now (mostly) under Frank’s control,
offers analytical justification for the setting of his song in the Transylva-
nians’ key of A major. A more direct connection is the strong similarity
of the “Hot Patootie” chorus progression, I–­II–­I V–­I, to the “Time Warp”
verse progression, I–­II–­♭VII–­I V–­I in the same key. At the end of act 1 Frank
briefly reprises “I Can Make You a Man,” with an enthusiastic interjection
by Janet, “I’m a muscle fan!” This contradicts her comment just before
the first performance of the song, “I don’t like men with too many mus-
cles,” and prefigures her sexual liberation at the beginning of act 2. The
reprise is in B ♭ major, two keys flatward and the same key as Brad and
Janet’s opening love duet, a tonal relationship that could be interpreted
as a vain attempt by Frank to perform heteronormativity. In the movie
and later versions of the show, a coda in E ♭ major quoting Mendelssohn’s
wedding march was added. Frank’s mock wedding to Rocky parallels the
wedding that Brad and Janet attended just before their opening song, the
wedding-­march quotation suggests a veneer of ironic conventionality, and
the return to E ♭ major lends tonal coherence to act 1. Like Brad and Janet’s
engagement, Frank and Rocky’s presumed consummation happens too
soon: this is only the end of act 1.
In act 2, changes in tonality help to mark the characters’ transforma-
tions. The most dramatic of these is Janet’s sexual awakening, depicted in
the opening song “Touch-­a Touch Me” by a shift from the weakly defined
A minor of the verse to A major in the chorus—­a key associated with the
Transylvanians, and by extension, with sexual agency. Stylistically, how-
ever, this song is closer to the pop-­rock of Janet’s opening music than the
hard rock of the aliens’ early songs. This stylistic resemblance signals her
humanness and perhaps also that, unlike the aliens, her sexual agency is
 178 / here for the hearing

not yet fully realized. On a more pragmatic level, the comparatively soft
style of the song may have been prompted by her gender: female vocalists
are more typical in pop styles and male vocalists in rock styles. Figure 7.3
shows a chord chart for the second verse and first chorus of “Touch-­a Touch
Me.” This is the first instance of a minor tonic for a character’s song in the
show. In combination with Janet’s opening lyrics, “I was feeling done in,
couldn’t win; I’d only ever kissed before,” and low register, the minor key
represents her emerging discontent with the conventional model of gen-
der and sexuality to which she has heretofore been confined. In contrast,
in the heightened “breakout chorus”16 she owns and flaunts her sexual-
ity, using the same progression as the “Hot Patootie” chorus (I–­II–­I V–­I), a
close subset of the “Time Warp” verse progression. All three songs are in
the same key: A major, associated with the aliens. In addition to the shift
to the parallel major, the music increases in intensity via a higher vocal
register, faster surface rhythm, faster harmonic rhythm, and expansion of
the accompaniment texture. The song concludes with a pump-­up modula-
tion17 to B ♭ major that reflects her increasing excitement and also restores
the key of her first song, suggesting that she has internalized this new sex-
ual agency.18 Millie Taylor (2012, 30) describes a similar transformation
from act 1 to act 2: “[Janet’s sexual liberation] is represented by her musical
development from the pop sounds and clear soprano tones in the refrain
of ‘Damn It Janet’ to her solo ‘Touch-­a Touch Me’ with its rock-­rumba
rhythm, introduction of a lower vocal register, and a throatier, full-­bodied
vocal sound.”
Janet’s act 2 solo was originally balanced by “Once in a While,” a bal-
lad for Brad expressing pain, regret, and forgiveness. The song is set in an
entirely diatonic F major, reflecting Brad’s lack of a liberating transforma-
tion, in contrast to Janet’s newfound sexuality. In terms of the overall pac-
ing of the show, its slow tempo and soft country-­inflected style dissipate
all the energy of the opening number, so it is often cut in performances,
and was cut from the movie as well. The two songs that follow were added
to the show two months after its premiere. Like “Once in a While,” both
consist of simple diatonic harmonies, but their brisker tempos and denser
surface rhythms help to sustain momentum. In “Eddie’s Teddy,” which is
Dr. Scott’s only lead vocal, he recounts his nephew’s transgressive biker
lifestyle and disturbing disappearance. Frank sings “Planet Schmanet” as
he harasses Janet and advises her to “wise up,” suggesting that her trans-
formation is not yet complete. The song is set in F major, the key of most of
 Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show / 179

Figure 7.3. Chord chart for “Touch-­a Touch Me,” verse 2 into first chorus. Only the
initial text of each line is shown.

Frank’s music in act 2, reflecting his loss of control and thus of his status as
leader of the alien mission.
The set piece that follows, the “Floor Show,” is the central scene of act
2. It parodies the musical genre conventions of both the song-­and-­dance
spectacle and the ensemble number in which the characters are reconciled
and live happily ever after. In the opening song, “Rose Tint My World,”
four characters sing of the ways in which Frank has changed them: Colum-
bia sings of disillusionment and drugs, Rocky of doubt and lust, Brad of
confusion and fear, and Janet of sexual empowerment. Figure 7.4 provides
chord charts for each verse. The first two verses are sung by Columbia
and Rocky in C major. Their vocal lines are melodically and rhythmically
active, oscillating between chord roots and fifths over harmony that pro-
longs the tonic. In contrast, Brad’s verse begins on the subdominant, F
major, and is then inflected by the minor subdominant, emphasizing his
humanness (only humans sing in minor keys) and his continued trepida-
tion regarding queerness of gender and openness of sexual expression. His
melody moves much more slowly than in the preceding verses and is nar-
rowly focused on middle C, expressing a kind of panicked paralysis. Janet’s
verse follows the same chord progression as Brad’s, but it modulates to A
 180 / here for the hearing

major, the key of her sexual liberation. She begins with the same repeated
long notes as Brad, but over the course of the verse her rhythmic density
increases and her pitch range expands, helping depict her embrace of her
newfound sexuality. This is the point of maximal contrast between Brad’s
and Janet’s music, reflecting their different responses to their experiences.
At the beginning of the show, they sing together in B ♭ major and E ♭ major.
In the second half, their tonalities are increasingly distantly related: F
major versus A minor/major at the beginning of act 2, and C major versus
A major in the floor show. They are reunited in the closing lament, when
they sing the same music in the same key of G minor. This flat-­side tonality
reconfirms their humanness, but the minor mode signals that they have
been fundamentally changed and even damaged by their experiences in
the castle. In the reprise of “Science Fiction” that closes the show, the line
“Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet” confirms this interpretation, in
a final refusal of the happily-­ever-­after narrative promised by their open-
ing love duet.
Columbia’s and Janet’s verses of “Rose Tint My World” both invoke
Frank, preparing—­even demanding—­his entrance. The music returns
to C major as Frank makes what is described in the script as “a spectacu-
lar entrance” and sings “Don’t Dream It, Be It,” an ode to self-­realization
through hedonism. The slow introduction (“Whatever happened to Fay
Wray”) leads to a verse that begins with music very similar to Brad’s verse
in “Rose Tint My World.” Both melodies consist of a repeated note C over
the chord progression IV–­iv–­I, but with more or less opposite lyrics. Brad
sings “It’s beyond me, help me Mommy,” while Frank urges, “Give your-
self over to absolute pleasure.” The anthemic chorus that follows, “Don’t
Dream It, Be It,” is widely interpreted as the central message of the show
despite Frank’s tragic end. The music remains in C major, repeating the
title phrase over the doo-­wop progression, I–­v i–­IV–­V, which as Knapp
(2010, 249) has observed, regularizes the rotated version used in the fram-
ing song “Science Fiction.” The script calls for the characters to “come
together touching and fondling one another, Frank in the centre” (in the
movie, this scene takes place in a swimming pool). The floor show con-
cludes with a chorus line danced to the energetic “Wild and Untamed
Thing.” This song uses the same progression as “Rose Tint My World,” now
in F major, and repeats the title lyrics from the earlier song as a refrain, cre-
ating a symmetrical lyrical and musical frame for the “Floor Show.” The
keys of the floor-show music, F major and C major, represent a tonal meet-
Figure 7.4. Chord chart for “Rose Tint My World,” verses 1–­4. Only the initial text of
each line is shown.
 182 / here for the hearing

ing ground between the humans and the aliens—­F rank sings in a (human)
flat key, as he has done since the end of act 1, and the humans sing in the
(alien) rock style, in a temporary, dreamlike accord.
The spectacle is dramatically interrupted by the mutiny of Magenta
and Riff Raff. Riff Raff asserts: “Frank N. Furter, it’s all over, your mis-
sion is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme. I’m your new commander,
you now are my prisoner. We return to Transylvania—­prepare the transit
beam.” He sings these lyrics to the same repeated-­note melody and IV–­
iv–­I progression that set Brad’s plea for help in “Rose Tint My World” and
Frank’s exhortation to pleasure in “Don’t Dream It, Be It.” Thus music that
first underlays an expression of fear more or less caused by Frank is later
used to set Frank’s call for self-­g ratification, and finally to underlay his
loss of power and control. His last song, the torchy piano-­driven ballad
“I’m Going Home” in F major, is his final piece of self-­indulgence. Riff Raff
kills him for his hubris, then kills Columbia and Rocky, and departs with
Magenta.
The final scene comprises the lament “Super Heroes,” which was cut
from the movie, possibly to avoid two consecutive slow-­tempo songs at
the end. In the key of G minor, the relative minor of their opening duet,
Brad laments his pain and loss (“down inside I’m bleeding”), Janet seems
to lament her newly awakened sex drive (“still the beast is feeding”), and
the Narrator concludes with a negative outlook on the human race (“lost
in time, and lost in space . . . and meaning”). The bleakness of this scene
stands in sharp contrast to the spectacle of the “Floor Show.” As Kelly Kes-
sler (2010, 119) observes, “a narrative based on communal annihilation
and death, [Rocky Horror] drives this failed convention [of reality-­defying
happy endings] home by presenting numbers reminiscent of early Holly-
wood musicals just prior to the ensemble’s ultimate destruction and disil-
lusionment.” The Rocky Horror Show is a rare and early example of a musical
with a tragic ending. The final song, a reprise of “Science Fiction” in E ♭
major, re-­establishes the external frame for the story, returning the audi-
ence to its position as spectators.
Kessler reads Rocky Horror as a satirical critique of musicals, symptom-
atic of the late-­twentieth-­century destabilization of the genre because
its central character dies (2010, 6). She compares it to other contempora-
neous musicals that end with the male lead’s death: Hair (1967), Godspell
(1971), and All that Jazz (1979). These shows are imperfect analogies with
Rocky Horror, however, because Frank functions as both male and female
 Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show / 183

lead, and also because his death is overdetermined by other generic con-
ventions in play. The oldest of these is the ancient Greek model of trag-
edy, in which the hero dies as punishment for his hubris. A tragic narra-
tive underlies both Rocky Horror and its influential progenitor Frankenstein:
both mad-­scientist characters play God and defy nature by artificially
creating human life. Frank additionally maims and kills Eddie and has
nonconsensual sex with other characters. Numerous commentators have
construed Frank’s death as punishment for his hedonistic lifestyle and/
or his queerness (Bozelka 2008; Endres 2008; Grant 1991; Kilgore 1986;
Kinkade and Katovic 1992; Reale 2012). This interpretation is analogous
to the well-­established convention that horror-­movie characters who have
sex—­especially female characters—­must die, and in some ways Frank is
coded as female.19 Frank’s death is also in keeping with his status as an
operatic heroine, who like countless divas before him is subject to soci-
etal control of his excesses as well as a voyeuristic glamorization of his
suffering and death (Clément 1988; McClary 1991). Like Carmen, Frank
is contextualized as an exotic, feminine Other, and like her, he sings a
rhythmically teasing and insistently chromatic entrance aria—­almost a
name aria—­flaunting his sexuality. (A potential gender-­based difference
in the musical representation of these characters is that Carmen’s chro-
maticism is in the melody and descends, while Frank’s chromaticism is in
the bass line and ascends). Like Dido and Butterfly, although unlike Car-
men, Frank sings an exit aria; Knapp compares his “diva-­farewell” scene to
Norma Desmond’s in Sunset Boulevard (2010, 244). The onstage deaths of
the main character in both Carmen and Rocky Horror were groundbreaking
for their time. McClary has described the function of Carmen’s death as to
“purge all traces of the exotic and chromatic, to restore social and musi-
cal order” (1990, 61), which applies equally well to Frank’s death in Rocky
Horror. Thus Frank dies because he is a hubristic male tragic hero, because
he is a transgressive queer, and because he is an overly sexual female diva.
These interpretations, however, are dispiritingly at odds with the exu-
berant celebration of queerness and sexuality that constitutes the core of
the show, which is celebrated, in turn, by the unprecedented culture of
audience participation that has grown around Rocky Horror. The tragic end-
ing is set at a distance by the framing conceit that it is a late-­night showing
of a science-­fiction movie, and the real-­life shadowcast performances and
other forms of audience participation at cinema screenings of the movie
version add an additional layer of creative commentary. The widespread
 184 / here for the hearing

tradition of participation in cinema screenings has inspired performances

of the live musical that encourage or incorporate audience participation.
The patriarchal, heteronormative moral that the show’s ending appar-
ently conveys is rejected by the audience’s reception of the movie, and
more recently of the live musical, as a safe space for display and experi-
mentation with gender and sexuality.
In this chapter, I have demonstrated various stylistic, tonal, harmonic,
and motivic relationships in the music of The Rocky Horror Show: the asso-
ciation of humans with flat keys and pop styles versus aliens in sharp keys
and rock styles; Frank’s tonal trajectory flatward into human territory, sig-
nifying his loss of power and control; Janet’s tonal trajectory sharpward,
signifying her sexual awakening; and Brad’s lack of a tonal trajectory, sig-
nifying that he is fundamentally unchanged by his experiences. These
musical relationships help to define the characters and subtly support the
narrative—­an important function in light of the convoluted and improba-
ble plot of this groundbreaking satirical musical that bends both genders
and genres.

Notes
Thanks to Greg Decker, Michael Buchler, and Jerry Cain for helpful comments
on this paper.
1. For discussions of constructs of gender and sexuality in the movie version,
see Aviram 1992; Kessler 2010, 162–­63; Knapp 2010, 240–­5 2; Peraino 2006; Reale
2012; and Weinstock 2008. The tradition of audience participation is analyzed in
Austin 1981; Ellis 2020; Kinkade and Katovich 1992; Locke 1999; and Weinstock
2008.
2. In this volume, authors Greg Decker, Michael Buchler, and Robert
Komaniecki use this concept as a jumping-­off point for their respective analyses.
3. Lloyd Whitesell (2006, 271) argues that the emphasis on carnality and base
desires in Rocky Horror marks it as burlesque rather than glam.
4. In the order they are mentioned in the song, the movies are: The Day the
Earth Stood Still (1951), Flash Gordon (1936), The Invisible Man (1933), King Kong
(1933), It Came from Outer Space (1953), Doctor X (1932), Forbidden Planet (1956),
Tarantula (1955), The Day of the Triffids (1962), Night of the Demon (1957), and When
Worlds Collide (1951). In the original script, the roles of the Usherette and Magenta
are doubled, i.e., played by the same actor.
5. The script calls for the same actor to play Eddie and Dr. Scott.
6. Nina Penner (2020) describes frame narrators as appearing at the begin-
ning and end of a show, inviting the audience to understand the middle section
 Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show / 185

as storytelling (65–­66), and theatrical storytelling as “a nested performance for a

fictional audience” (49).
7. The Narrator is a modern version of the Greek chorus: he directly addresses
the audience, provides transitions between scenes, and comments on the action.
In Penner’s model of character-­narrator types, he is a choral narrator (Penner
2020, 62–­63).
8. The open strings on a bass are E–­A–­D –­G (low to high), which are also the
lowest four open strings on a guitar in standard tuning (an octave higher), plus
B–­E . Thus E is one of the most resonant keys on the guitar, and when played in
open positions, E and A chords, and to a lesser extent D chords, have the most
resonant bass notes. By contrast, in flat keys, the roots of the primary triads are all
stopped notes on the guitar and bass, which sound less reverberant.
9. Instrumental music is excluded from this table: the overture, incidental
music during scene changes, the entr’acte, and music for bows. The original score
used for productions in the 1970s had no overture. A brief blues-­rock overture in C
major was added for the UK revival in 1984; it was replaced with a different over-
ture in D major for the Broadway revival in 2000.
10. In the movie version, “Science Fiction Double Feature” is sung by Richard
O’Brien.
11. The rotated version of this progression in the “Science Fiction” chorus
became common after the doo-­wop era; some well-­k nown examples are the cho-
ruses of Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963), the Beatles’ “I Want
to Hold Your Hand” (1964), and Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans” (1972).
12. The “Time Warp” verse progression I–­II–­♭VII–­I V–­I nests its double-­plagal
progression within the Lydian-­inflected I–­II–­I V–­I, which is also fairly common in
classic rock: it underlies the verses of several Beatles songs, including “Eight Days
a Week” (1964) and “You Won’t See Me” (1965), as well as the verses of the Rolling
Stones’ “As Tears Go By” (1966). The quadruple-­plagal progression of the “Time
Warp” refrain is the basis of the Leaves’ “Hey Joe” (1965) and its better-­k nown
cover by Jimi Hendrix (1966), and the chorus of Deep Purple’s “Hush” (1968).
13. The “reverse axe fall” I–­♭ III–­I V–­I harmonizes the choruses of Sam and
Dave’s “Hold on I’m Coming” (1966), the verses of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be
Wild” (1966), and—­as dominant seventh chords—­the choruses of the Beatles’
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967).
14. The most famous instance of a rising chromatic motive used to signal
desire is the “Desire” motive from Wagner’s music drama Tristan und Isolde. An
example from music that is stylistically closer to “Sweet Transvestite” occurs in
the Beatles’ “I Want You,” which conveys desire through a more concise ascending
semitone at the end of the title phrase.
15. The nature of Eddie and Frank’s relationship is not made clear, which is
why in figure 7.1 I have connected them with a dotted line rather than a solid one.
When Brad and Janet first arrive at the castle, other characters describe Frank’s
 186 / here for the hearing

and Eddie’s relationship with sexual innuendos: Columbia comments that he was
a delivery boy whose delivery wasn’t good enough, and Riff Raff explains that
Frank wanted to help Eddie find “a new position” (these lines were cut from the
movie version). However, shortly after murdering Eddie, Frank comments that
“He had a certain naïve charm, but no muscle. We had a mental relationship,”
which suggests that Frank was not sexually attracted to Eddie and was using him
only to harvest part of his brain. Just before the floor show, however, Columbia
complains to Frank, “First you ditch me for Eddie, and then you throw him off like
an old overcoat for Rocky,” implicitly equating Frank’s relationship with Eddie to
his relationships with her and with Rocky. Frank’s response adopts this parallel
framing as well: “Rocky’s behaving just as Eddie did.”
16. Doll (2011, [2]) defines a breakout chorus as “increas[ing] in intensity with
respect to various parameters, including loudness, lyrical content, pitch level
(both melodic and harmonic), rhythmic and textural activity, and timbral noise”
as compared to the preceding verse section. Breakout choruses in the relative
major are very common, because verse and chorus share a background diatonic
collection. Breakout choruses in the parallel major are much more rare, because
the background collection shifts three moves in the sharp direction. One example
is Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” (1966).
17. The very common strategy of modulating up a half or whole step between
repeated choruses at the end of a popular song has been given a variety of nick-
names; “pump-­up modulation” (Doll 2011; Ricci 2017) and “elevating modulation”
(Griffiths 2015; Hanenberg 2017) seem to have become the most widespread. See
Buchler 2008 for a discussion of this modulation type in songs of Frank Loesser,
and Blustein in this volume for an even more germane examination of pump-­up
modulations as a strategy for tonal return.
18. See Nathan Blustein’s chapter in this volume for a detailed consideration of
the dramatic implications of pump-­up modulations that return to previous keys.
19. The entry “Death by Sex” at the TV Tropes website gives many examples.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathBySex

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8 Music, Time, and Memory in
Jason Robert Brown’s
The Last Five Years
Jonathan De Souza

On a certain level, The Last Five Years (2001) presents a typical musical-­
theater story: an aspiring actress and an aspiring writer meet in New York
City, fall in love, and marry. Yet composer-­lyricist-­author Jason Robert
Brown twists this conventional plot in several ways. First, the romantic
leads, Cathy and Jamie, are the only characters onstage. The show alter-
nates between their solos, and Brown (2017) describes it as “a song cycle
for two people.” The Last Five Years thus embodies a stripped-­down form
of the dual-­focus narrative structure that Rick Altman (1987, 16–­59) iden-
tifies in American film musicals—­a structure based on the opposition and
ultimate union of two thematic poles, which are identified with the two
romantic leads.1 Second, while this narrative structure normally ends with
the couple’s wedding, The Last Five Years keeps going. Here Cathy and Jamie
fall out of love and separate, in a precise inversion of the standard plot.
Finally—­and, for present purposes, most importantly—­t he show involves
a temporal trick: Jamie’s scenes move forward through time, while Cathy’s
go backward. At the end of the show, she has just met her future husband;
in the first song, “Still Hurting,” she mourns their failed marriage.

/ 190 /
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 191

Cathy’s beginning, then, is also an ending. In a sense, it frames the

show, and a close reading of “Still Hurting” can illuminate The Last Five
Years as a whole. As Cathy sings “Jamie is over and Jamie is gone,” her
melody descends from 5 to 3 over a tonic harmony that is prolonged by
subdominant and subtonic chords (for an analytical reduction, see exam-
ple 8.1). As Cathy obsessively names her ex, the two-­measure musical
idea repeats. Her concluding line (“and I’m still hurting”), which recurs
throughout the song, comes to rest on 1 but breaks the rhyme scheme. It
flips from a third-­person to a first-­person perspective, as Cathy returns
to her own pain. In mm. 25–­3 2, the music strays from the tonic (lead-
ing to a half cadence in m. 32), and the lyrical perspective shifts again,
with Cathy posing a series of questions to her absent partner. The open-
ing section returns in mm. 33–­4 1, completing an AABA song form—­but
this form’s concluding tonic chord features a suspension that refuses to

Example 8.1. Middleground and foreground sketches for the motif introduced in
“Still Hurting,” mm. 5–­6.
 192 / here for the hearing

resolve (mm. 40–­4 1). Like Cathy, the harmony cannot yet find closure.
The resulting tension launches a new section (mm. 42–­5 7), with chro-
matic descents above pedal tones (climbing from the tonic C to E ♭ in mm.
50–­53). Cathy again addresses Jamie, now with imperatives instead of
questions, and finally expresses her anger. After an instrumental inter-
lude based on the opening material, she repeats the B section (mm. 67–­
76), then returns to the opening line, “Jamie is over” (m. 77). At the end
of the song, Cathy has gone nowhere. She is stuck in the same mood, the
same moment. Still hurting.
This opening sets out an initial temporal level (the end of the relation-
ship) and point of view (Cathy’s), as well as a certain musical style. Yet two
moments in the number diverge from these established levels. First, the
piano’s brief prologue. In contrast to Cathy’s contemporary musical-­theater
idiom, the prologue’s hesitant waltz hearkens back to an earlier era. (Also,
where Cathy’s music seems tied down by the tonic, the waltz lacks a root-­
position I chord, starting on iiø 65 and ending on the V7 that sets up the segue
into Cathy’s song.) Second, the strings’ interlude in mm. 58–­66 recasts the
A material in quasi-­baroque counterpoint, with imitation and ornamenta-
tion. Both passages involve distinctive shifts in musical discourse, yet their
significance is not immediately clear. Both point to something beyond the
song itself, and both will recur, transformed, later on.
These moments reveal a network of specific and generic references, a
web of musical relationships that generate interpretive questions about
Cathy and Jamie. Such analysis, however, requires a more theoretical
approach to temporality in musical theater.2 Drawing on literary theory
and music psychology, this approach necessarily goes beyond Brown’s
work and touches on varied musical theater repertoire. It guides analysis
of The Last Five Years and ultimately shows how reprise and pastiche—­t wo
of musical theater’s most maligned features—­play with time and memory.

Temporality in Musical Theater; or, Story Time,

Song Time, Show Time

Though the audience never sees Jamie write, we do see him read his stories
aloud. He presents an excerpt from his novel at a public reading.3 And, more
intimately, he tells Cathy a “Christmas story” in “The Schmuel Song.” In
it, an aged tailor named Schmuel encounters a magic clock that gives him
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 193

the “unlimited time” that he needs to sew the dress of his dreams. Jamie’s
readings, like all storytelling, may be understood in terms of a distinction
between story and discourse (Culler 1981, 189).4 In narratology, story refers
to a series of events, while discourse refers to the way these events are
presented—­f rom a particular point of view, in a certain order, according
to poetic or generic conventions. Jamie might have told Schmuel’s story in
a different way, without changing any of the events: in present instead of
past tense, with the tailor or the clock as a first-­person narrator, in iambic
pentameter, as a comic strip, and so on. Analytically, the story/discourse
distinction suggests two contradictory logics: as Jonathan Culler puts it,
“one logic assumes the primacy of events; the other treats the events as the
products of meanings” (1981, 198). Schmuel’s happily-­ever-­after ending
(in which “a girl in Odessa” promises to love him forevermore) might be
“caused” by preceding events in the story, but it might equally be “caused”
by the discursive norms of the folktale genre.
The distinction can also illuminate narrative temporality. For exam-
ple, the time taken by narrated events (erzählte Zeit, or “told time”) is dis-
tinct from the time it takes to narrate them (Erzählzeit, “telling time,” see
Müller 1948; Dowling 2011, 47–­4 8). Schmuel’s story involves an “endless
night,” but Jamie tells it in a few minutes. “The Schmuel Song” also sets up
a temporal disjuncture within the story. On one level, the clock stops time,
delaying the sunrise until the dress is complete; on another, it takes the
tailor back forty-­one years. World-­time stands still while Schmuel-­time

man movement of the opening’s  +  gives way to a sprightly, waltzing
reverses. The song’s metrical shifts reflect this reversal: the halting old-­

 in m. 77. While Schmuel magically moves backward in story time, actu-
ally recovering his youth, Cathy moves backward only in discursive time.5
The show’s title, along with numerous lyrical references to time and age,
emphasizes that the underlying story time is entirely naturalistic.
Of course, tension between story and discourse is not unique to The
Last Five Years. It is central to musical theater. Though story and discourse
align in realistic dialogue or diegetic performance, characters in a musi-
cal do not necessarily sing or dance when the actors do (cf. Penner 2013).
Lyrics might correspond to story-­based speech. But they might also repre-
sent inner thoughts or speech that has been transformed via repetition or
rhyme. Again, this distinction has temporal implications. Like Jamie’s spo-
ken book reading, Cathy’s audition piece—­t he Jerome Kern–­like “When
You Come Home to Me”—­is performed in real time (schematically, story
 194 / here for the hearing

time = song time). Yet a four-­minute song might instead correspond to a

brief moment of introspection (story time < song time). This would follow
a long-­standing convention in musical theater and opera, which juxta-
poses real-­time scenes and temporally static numbers. A single song might
also traverse several years in the story (story time > song time). For exam-
ple, in “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King (1997) and “I Know It’s Today”
from Shrek: The Musical (2008), multiple actors portray a single character
at different ages.6 This relation between story time and song time may also
be indeterminate: in “Still Hurting,” Cathy’s conflicting emotions might
play out in a single moment or over several hours.
Such temporal relations also emerge at the level of a show as a whole.
In A Chorus Line (1975), it is fairly easy to imagine that the duration of the
diegetic audition (experienced by the characters in the show) matches
the duration of the show (experienced by the performers and audience)—­
despite the final performance in costume, which functions as a kind of epi-
logue. By contrast, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1943) mostly
spans a single day of story time (again, with an epilogue), while their Alle-
gro (1947) spans thirty-­five years, following Joseph Taylor Jr. from birth
to professional maturity.7 Meanwhile, musical revues—­such as Brown’s
Songs for a New World (1995)—­neutralize any larger sense of temporal pro-
gression, presenting a series of disconnected moments.
Unlike many shows, The Last Five Years does not present the story in
chronological order. Gérard Genette refers to such discursive reorderings
as “anachronies” (1980, 35). All anachronies depart from an initial tem-
poral level (what he calls the “first narrative”). Genette not only distin-
guishes between “analepsis” (flashback) and “prolepsis” (flash-­forward),
but considers various kinds of each anachrony (1980, 40, 48–­49). For
example, external analepsis accesses a time before the first narrative—­as in
Wicked (2003), where most of the show is an extended flashback. It reaches
beyond the witch’s birth and reconnects with the show’s opening in the
finale.8 Internal analepsis, by contrast, replays a moment that occurs after
the opening time point. This type is represented by “Satisfied” from Ham-
ilton (2015), which reenacts the scene where Alexander Hamilton meets
the Schuyler sisters, from Angelica’s perspective instead of Alexander’s.
Musicals such as Fun Home (2013) involve other, complex anach-
ronies. Here the cartoonist Alison Bechdel “draw[s] her memories of the
past,” summoning childhood and college memories that mingle with her
present.9 Each of these interwoven periods involves a different relation
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 195

between story time and show time. Nineteen-­year-­old Alison’s timeline

unfolds chronologically (from her coming out to her father’s suicide),
whereas the childhood vignettes lack any obvious order. As Fun Home’s
lyricist/book writer Lisa Kron puts it, “these scenes from the past flow
unbidden and on their own terms, as memories do” (2015, 7). Meanwhile,
present-­day Alison is effectively at a standstill. As Kron emphasizes, Ali-
son is a character, not a narrator. She remains inside the story, even though
it is presented from her point of view or “focalized” through her (Genette
1980, 189–­90).
If Fun Home involves a kind of subjective anachrony, Stephen Sond-
heim’s Merrily We Roll Along (1981, revised 1994) might be said to fea-
ture objective anachrony. The show begins in 1976, with successful but
unhappy composer Franklin Shepard, and ends in 1957, when Frank and
his friends are young, idealistic artists. The scenes appear in exact linear
order, only reversed. (This temporal structure is already established in the
1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, on which Merrily We Roll
Along is based.) Furthermore, sung transitions explicitly name the years,
situating the story in historical time. In Merrily We Roll Along, then, mem-
ory does not guide discursive order, and all of the characters are carried
along by a single timeline.
The Last Five Years blends these approaches. As with Merrily We Roll
Along, it is not difficult to reconstruct an underlying order of events (see
table 8.1). In fact, fans of The Last Five Years have created versions of the
2002 cast recording and 2015 film adaptation that put the songs into
chronological story order.10 Yet as in Fun Home, the discourse is focalized
or character-­ centered, systematically alternating between Cathy and
Jamie’s viewpoints.11 With this alternation, The Last Five Years does not
offer a nonlinear presentation of the story, but a bilinear one. Figure 8.1
represents this graphically.12 The horizontal axis puts the songs in show
order, whereas the vertical axis puts them in story order (with lower posi-
tions earlier in time). The two characters’ timelines intersect in the duet
“The Next Ten Minutes,” where Jamie and Cathy get married. Here the
temporal crossing plays out in song time as well as show time, as Jamie’s
introduction and Cathy’s coda occur at the same moment in story time.
For Brown, the show’s temporal structure represented a solution to a
technical problem. In a sense, it added discursive complexity to compen-
sate for a relatively straightforward story:
 196 / here for the hearing

Table 8.1. Songs in The Last Five Years, arranged by show order and hypo-
thetical story order
Show Order Story Order
1. Still Hurting (Cathy) 2. Shiksa Goddess (Jamie)
2. Shiksa Goddess (Jamie) 14a. Goodbye Until Tomorrow (Cathy)
3. See I’m Smiling (Cathy) 12. I Can Do Better Than That (Cathy)
4. Moving Too Fast (Jamie) 4. Moving Too Fast (Jamie)
5. A Part of That (Cathy) 6. The Schmuel Song (Jamie)
6. The Schmuel Song (Jamie) 10. Climbing Uphill (Cathy)
7. A Summer in Ohio (Cathy) 9b. When You Come Home to Me
(Cathy)
8. The Next Ten Minutes (duet) 8. The Next Ten Minutes (duet)
9a. A Miracle Would Happen (Jamie) 9a. A Miracle Would Happen (Jamie)
9b. When You Come Home to Me 7. A Summer in Ohio (Cathy)
(Cathy)
10. Climbing Uphill (Cathy) 5. A Part of That (Cathy)
11. If I Didn’t Believe in You (Jamie) 11. If I Didn’t Believe in You (Jamie)
12. I Can Do Better than That (Cathy) 13. Nobody Needs to Know (Jamie)
13. Nobody Needs to Know (Jamie) 3. See I’m Smiling (Cathy)
14a. Goodbye Until Tomorrow (Cathy) 14b. I Could Never Rescue You (Jamie)
14b. I Could Never Rescue You (Jamie) 1. Still Hurting (Cathy)

My initial instinct was that I wanted to write a simple piece with two peo-
ple. But I thought that if it went all song, song, song, song in chronological
order I’d have to come up with surprises in the plot. I’d have to keep throw-
ing extra theatrical ideas at them to keep the plot moving forward because
otherwise it’s just a relationship. And what I realized was that if I had them
coming at it in separate directions that on a practical level it solved a lot of
the story problem for me because you never really knew what was coming
next—except you also always knew where the story was. (Brown 2016)

The Last Five Years, then, embodies the double temporality of narra-
tive theorized by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. For Ricoeur, every story
is simultaneously told forward and backward (Dowling 2011, 10). That is,
narrative combines the viewpoints of the characters, who move through
a story without knowing its ending, with that of the narrator, who starts
with the ending in mind. As with Wicked, Fun Home, and Merrily We Roll
Along, The Last Five Years reveals its ending at the beginning, encouraging
the audience to toggle between the characters’ and narrator’s perspectives.
Its double orientation toward future and past, toward Jamie and Cathy,
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 197

Figure 8.1. Temporal chart for The Last Five Years. The horizontal axis represents
the songs’ show order; the vertical axis, their story order. Xs and Os represent
Cathy’s and Jamie’s songs, respectively. (For song titles, see table 8.1.)

affects experiences of the story. But this doubling can also shape interpre-
tation of specific musical details, particularly when it comes to repetitions
and references, as in the oblique instrumental passages—­t hat is, the pro-
logue’s waltz and the quasi-­baroque interlude—­in “Still Hurting.”

Reprise, Reverse Reprise, and Double Anachrony

Echoes of “Still Hurting” resound throughout The Last Five Years, but the
show also includes more localized repetitions. For example, consider
Jamie’s penultimate song. Like many internal analepses, “Nobody Needs
to Know” fills in a gap or discloses a secret (Genette 1980, 50–­5 2). In this
case, Cathy’s suspicions, voiced early in the show, are finally confirmed:
while she is performing summer stock in Ohio, Jamie is having an extra-
marital affair in New York. His obsessive mood is matched by a looping
progression with a chromatically descending inner voice over an A ♭ tonic
pedal (for a reduction, see example 8.2). The loop creates an increasingly
oppressive sense of harmonic stasis, which is relieved when Jamie breaks
his train of thought (in mm. 43, 81, and 159). While the progression appears
in the song’s coda, this section also echoes an earlier song. “Since I need to
be in love with someone,” Jamie tells his lover, “maybe I could be in love
 198 / here for the hearing

Example 8.2. Middleground and foreground sketches for “Nobody Needs to

Know,” mm. 9–­12, illustrating the looping progression.

with someone like you.” The lyric “someone like you” recalls the last line
of Jamie’s first song, where he identifies Cathy as the “Shiksa Goddess”
that he’s been waiting for. Both numbers close with a sustained high note,
over an unexpected off-­tonic ending—­a direct modulation from A ♭ to G
in “Nobody Needs to Know” (what might be understood as an unusual
“pump-­down” modulation), and a deceptive resolution to vi (F ♯ minor) in
“Shiksa Goddess.” The beginning of his affair echoes the beginning of his
relationship with Cathy.
This is nearly a minimal instance of reprise, repeating only a few words
and a musical gesture. But whether fragmentary or exact, reprises con-
nect distant moments.13 The past makes itself heard in the present. In the
Hammersteinian integrated musical, reprise typically puts familiar music
into a new dramatic context. As Stephen Sondheim explains, “The tune,
even the lyric, might be the same, but the situation would be changed,
lending the reprise poignancy or triumph or, rarely in Hammerstein’s case
but often in the hands of his followers, irony” (2010, 381). Often this corre-
sponds to a scene of recognition (what Aristotle called anagnorisis), where
a narrative goal reveals itself within the story, where characters accede to
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 199

the power of discourse (Dowling 2011, 9). In Oklahoma!, for example, the
reprise of “People Will Say We’re in Love” marks the point when Curly and
Laurey give in to their overdetermined pairing, and also when the cow-
boy realizes that he is destined to become a farmer in the new state. Such
recognition embodies a paradox of narrative causality: “no, it was entirely
unforeseeable; yes, we now see that it was inevitable all along” (Culler
1981, 194). And reprise can emphasize this tension. The story continues to
move forward, while musical discourse looks backward.14
Yet anachronies can alter the temporal implications of reprise. “See,
I’m Smiling,” the third song in The Last Five Years, presents Cathy’s side
of a conversation. Jamie has come to Ohio for her birthday. But when
Cathy discovers that he plans to return to New York without seeing her
show, her hope turns to disappointment and anger. Lyrically, an essential
twist comes at the song’s closing, when the eponymous lyric from mm.
8–­9 becomes “see I’m crying” (mm. 110–­1 11). Arguably a more signifi-
cant moment comes out of Cathy’s anger. In this section, her declamation
speeds up; the music leaves the home key of A major and ascends by minor
thirds (from A minor to C minor to E ♭ minor). “You can’t spend a single
day,” she tells him, “that’s not about you and you and nothing but you”
(mm. 94 and 98–­99). This passage recurs in Cathy’s penultimate song,
“I Can Do Better than That” (mm. 111–­1 14 and 119–­1 20). There, however,
“you and you and nothing but you . . .” expresses not Jamie’s self-­adoration
but her adoration for him.
Though this example features Hammersteinian recontextualization,
the timeline is flipped. “I Can Do Better than That” could be viewed as
a proleptic reprise, which refers to a future moment in story time. Or
“See, I’m Smiling” could be a reprise that is presented before the original.
Sondheim refers to this phenomenon as “reverse reprise,” and he uses it
throughout Merrily We Roll Along:

The structure of Merrily We Roll Along suggested to me that the reprises

could come first: the songs that had been important in the lives of the
characters when they were younger would have different resonances as
they aged; thus, for example, “Not a Day Goes By,” a love song sung by a
hopeful young couple getting married, becomes a bitter tirade from the
wife when they get a divorce, but the bitter version is sung first in the
musical’s topsy-­turvy chronology. This notion also gave rise to an uncon-
ventional use of melodic material: what were vocal lines in their early lives
 200 / here for the hearing

could become accompaniments for other songs in their later lives, under-
currents of memory, but the audience would hear the accompaniments
first. (Sondheim 2010, 381)

The reverse reprise in “See, I’m Smiling” closely resembles Sondheim’s

use of “Not a Day Goes By,” both musically and dramatically. Both pro-
spectively echo a love song that occurs earlier in story time but later in
show time.15
Other repetitions in the show are more temporally ambiguous, espe-
cially those involved in “Still Hurting.” The piano’s waltz reappears with
lyrics at the end of the show as Jamie’s final goodbye, “I Could Never Res-
cue You.” Here his timeline finally reconnects with the first narrative. As
the couple separates, he gives voice to his feelings of resignation and nos-
talgia. In show time, the vocal version follows the instrumental one; in
story time, it either precedes or is simultaneous with it. From this perspec-
tive, the introduction to “Still Hurting” is an instrumental double, heard
before the original that seems to unlock its meaning. This reading would
explain why the prologue distances itself from Cathy’s music: it stands
in and speaks for the absent Jamie. The concluding lyrics are implicit in
the instrumental prologue, so that the show’s end is embedded in its
beginning.
This reading, however, is complicated by the appearance of the waltz,
played by the strings, in “The Next Ten Minutes” (when the two timelines
intersect). The waltz introduces what Genette calls a “double anachrony”
(1980, 83). If the waltz emerges from the first narrative, its appearance
at Cathy and Jamie’s wedding would be an “analeptic prolepsis,” a ret-
rospective flash-­forward. (“As we have already seen, they will fall out of
love later.”) Yet this can easily be inverted. If the waltz originates at their
wedding (an earlier moment in story time), then the prologue would form
a “proleptic analepsis,” an anticipatory flashback. (“As we will see later,
they were in love once.”) In one reading, the strings echo the piano and
voice; in the other, the piano and voice echo the strings. Of course, the two
interpretations are complementary. Both connect the waltz—­t hat quint-
essential couple’s dance—­w ith both characters, not with Jamie alone. The
ambiguity of the waltz, temporally and as a signal of both love and loss, is
irresolvable.16
Similar issues affect the opening of “Still Hurting,” which is the most
repeated material in the show. Aspects of it recur in three of Cathy’s songs:
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 201

the distinctive I–­IV6 –­♭VII9 –­I chord progression closes “A Part of That”
(mm. 119–­200), and the coda melody is orchestrally reprised in both “A
Summer in Ohio” (mm. 128–­1 29) and “I Can Do Better than That” (mm.
183–­187). Each of these three songs presents melody or accompaniment
(but not both) from “Still Hurting,” and each represents a “reprise-­as-­
coda” (Blustein 2016). But there are also notable differences. In “A Part of
That,” Cathy expresses uncertainty about their relationship. She reflects
on both Jamie’s eccentricities and his creative powers. The music vacillates
between “bouncy” optimism and a more expansive half-­time feel. This
is musically, temporally, and affectively close to “Still Hurting,” and the
instrumental quotation might be seen as a tragic answer to her questions
about the relationship. While the reprised chord progression is unmistak-
able, the melodic reprises in “A Summer in Ohio” and “I Can Do Better”
are less obvious. Musically, the melody’s rhythm is altered; affectively,
both songs are exuberant and represent earlier stages in their relationship.
In show time, “I Can Do Better than That” presents the last instance of the
“Jamie is over” melody. But in story time, it is the first instance, appearing
after Cathy asks Jamie to move in with her. This again engages the para-
doxes of double anachrony.
Furthermore, Jamie sings this melody at nearly the same moment in
story time, when the couple has “found an apartment on 73rd.” In “Moving
Too Fast,” the melodic quotation is rhetorically marked by a modulation
to the key of ♭VI in m. 39. The funk-­rock reinterpretation of Cathy’s music
may seem arbitrary or puzzling. After all, Jamie isn’t hurting. He’s carried
away by romantic and literary success, a feeling that is musically empha-
sized by the pump-­up modulations in the song’s final section (from A to
B ♭ in m. 90, then to B in m. 94, and to C in m. 98). Yet Jamie’s lyrics paral-
lel Cathy’s from “Still Hurting.” Recall that Cathy focused on Jamie, with
the repeated last line of each stanza (“And I’m still hurting”) returning
to herself. Similarly, in “Moving Too Fast,” Jamie’s lyrics criticize “some
people,” who are emotionally or creatively stuck, with the last line of each
stanza returning to himself (“But I keep rollin’ on”). Ultimately his desire
to move forward will lead him to move away from Cathy, whose personal
and professional stasis resembles the “some people” he disdains. Whether
entering or exiting a relationship, Jamie keeps moving on.
This interpretation fits with an echo of “Still Hurting” in another
of Jamie’s songs, “If I Didn’t Believe in You.” As they fight, he comes to
express his love conditionally. If he hadn’t believed in her, Jamie says, he
 202 / here for the hearing

Example 8.3. Reduction of melodies with a shared chord progression, from

Cathy’s song “Still Hurting” (see mm. 5–­6) and Jamie’s “If I Didn’t Believe in You”
(see mm. 19–­20). To facilitate comparison, the latter has been transposed from F
major to C major.

simply wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. Here, as in “A Part of That,”
the I–­IV6 –­♭VII9 –­I chord progression recurs without the melody. This

a temporary metric shift from  to  (m. 29). The progression, however,
progression is most prominent at the end of each stanza, highlighted by

underpins the first main section (m. 19), entering after the parlando intro-
duction. Intriguingly, Jamie’s melody here may be understood to reverse
Cathy’s melody from “Still Hurting.” Where her basic idea went from 5 to
3, his goes from 3 to 5. (The analytical reduction in example 8.3 uses cross-
ing lines to highlight this relation between their melodies.) The virtual
voice exchange over the show’s most iconic progression suggestively mir-
rors the temporal exchange that happens throughout the show as a whole.
This moment is both a standard reprise of “Moving Too Fast” and a reverse
reprise of “Still Hurting,” simultaneously looking toward the past and the
future. The music makes it clear: when Jamie no longer believes in Cathy,
he will no longer love her.
These interrelated echoes reflect Brown’s commitment to what he
calls “the lyric musical theatre,” “where songs explore the characters” and
where “everything is of a piece and there for a reason” (quoted in Shen-
ton 2015). This musical integration does not lock down meaning, though,
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 203

and Brown’s references are not leitmotifs that represent stable, identifiable
signifiers.17 They instead function as a kind of “prosthetic memory” (Mar-
gulis 2014, 22). Musical repetition orients the audience’s remembering in
an open-­ended way. Although at first the material from “Still Hurting” is
associated with Cathy’s heartbreak, this becomes increasingly ambiguous
as the show progresses. In the end, Cathy’s pain and Jamie’s progress are
musically entwined.

Pastiche or Parody?

The strings’ quasi-­baroque interlude in “Still Hurting” is bound up with

this network of musical repetitions, since it elaborates material that recurs
in five later songs (“Moving Too Fast,” “A Part of That,” “A Summer in
Ohio,” “If I Didn’t Believe in You,” and “I Can Do Better than That”). Still,
the archaic counterpoint sticks out, as the only moment in The Last Five
Years that explicitly references classical music. Formally, this interlude
might be understood as an instrumental substitute for a vocal recapit-
ulation of the A section. After all, when Cathy begins to sing again, she
takes up the B section (mm. 67–­76). Perhaps developing this material
also enhances its memorability, preparing the audience for the callbacks
that appear later in the show. According to research in music cognition,
recognition memory requires a musical passage to be distinctive and also
repeated (Huron 2006, 224). If the ♭VII9 chord contributes to the opening’s
distinctiveness, the imitative interlude would add varied repetition. These
explanations, though, do not yet account for the interlude’s learned style.18
This stylistic imitation differs from the quotations discussed in the
preceding section, and it engages a different kind of memory. Recogniz-
ing a tune or progression—­a specific sequence of notes or chords—­involves
veridical expectations and episodic memory (that is, memory for partic-
ular events). Recognizing a musical style or genre, on the other hand,
involves schematic expectations and semantic memory (Bharucha 1994,
213–­39; Huron 2006, 224–­25; Margulis 2014, 92). This distinction from
music psychology helps to account for deceptive resolutions and related
phenomena. In “A Summer in Ohio,” for example, there is a moment when
the piano accompaniment falls apart (mm. 47–­4 8).19 This “mistake” is
written into the score, and the cast recording preserves a single, fixed ver-
sion of it, which sounds exactly the same on repeated listening. Because of
 204 / here for the hearing

this consistency, fans of The Last Five Years will develop veridical expecta-
tions and episodic memories for that “mistake.” But it still sounds funny,
because it violates the schematic expectations that correspond to stylistic
norms. This distinction may also explain why the interlude in “Still Hurt-
ing” can seem jarring: despite my veridical knowledge of the piece, the
stylistic shift remains schematically surprising.
Though Brown does not use this psychological terminology, the
composer consciously tries to manage musical expectations. He made
extended comments on this phenomenon in a 2014 interview:

There are things that just sound like “this is what’s supposed to happen”
and “this chord goes to that one.” And I think most pop music sort of does
that. And for me musically, it’s . . . If you know it’s supposed to do that, then
my job is to ask the question, “Why do we know that? What else could it
be?” And I find that when you ask those questions—­I find that when I ask
those questions—­t he emotional life sort of blossoms. You know, I start to
feel things that I can’t articulate. That’s the whole point of writing music,
is to be able to write things that you can’t articulate. But I think that the
essential ambivalence, the essential ambiguousness, of our lives is able to
come out in the music that I write, if I’m doing it right. (Laufer Krebs 2014)

Challenging expectations, then, is not just a compositional game. It has dra-

matic and affective implications. For Brown, this is essential to “real art.”
He wants to inhabit a place “between what is definite and what is unsure,”
rather than “the land of the certain” (Laufer Krebs 2014). And this illumi-
nates many of Brown’s compositional choices. For example, it helps explain
his reliance on deceptive resolutions and unexpected modulations, or his
rare augmented-­sixth chords, which invariably correspond to moments of
emotional revelation.20
But imitating a conventional style would seem to contradict Brown’s
aesthetic goals. Doesn’t this imitation move away from so-­called “real art”
toward the certainty that he attributes to “most pop music”? Arguably,
musical predictability and ambiguity are mutually implicated, and sche-
matic or generic passages offer a range of dramatic effects.
Style’s function in musical theater can be approached via Frederic
Jameson’s distinction between parody and pastiche. For Jameson (1991,
17), both involve “the imitation of a peculiar . . . style, the wearing of a
linguistic mask.” But whereas parody sets the borrowed style against a
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 205

normal stylistic register, pastiche flattens stylistic hierarchies and neu-

tralizes any sense of a privileged, natural style. Pastiche, then, is “blank
parody” (Jameson 1991, 17). In musical theater, pastiche can be found in
the free stylistic play of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and
the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat (1968), whose score ranges from vaude-
ville to country to calypso to Elvis impersonation and so on. But in their
Jesus Christ Superstar (1970), King Herod’s vaudeville style stands out from
the prevailing rock-­opera idiom, an instance of parody that marks him as
inauthentic.21 Similarly, in Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Seussical
(2000), vaudeville and rag-­influenced music functions as merely one ele-
ment in a stylistic potpourri; in the same team’s Ragtime (1996), by con-
trast, the titular style is established as a normal musical register, a histor-
ical vernacular.
The parody/pastiche distinction seems less helpful with diegetic songs
like Cathy’s audition piece, which imitates early-­t wentieth-­century musi-
cal theater within the world of the story. The distinction is more relevant
to Cathy’s nondiegetic songs. For example, “A Summer in Ohio” adopts
a swing style, complete with light cocktail piano and a clear AABA form
(mm. 9–­57). Writing to Jamie from her summer stock gig, the newlywed
Cathy presents a series of fantasies—­involving wealth, travel, beauty, and
so on—­that “wouldn’t be as nice” as her underwhelming circumstances
in Ohio, far from her new husband. After the written-­in “mistake” at the
end of the B-­section bridge (mm. 47–­4 8), her sarcasm intensifies, with
fantasies transformed into nightmares (eating rotten fish, chewing tin-
foil, demonic dental work). The irony in the lyrics is enhanced by the too-­
sunny music, whose style diverges from Cathy’s normal voice. Just as “Still
Hurting” established the temporality of the first narrative, it also estab-
lished Cathy’s “natural” mode of expression. That normal voice comes out
in the middle section of “A Summer in Ohio,” when Cathy speaks of their
relationship as the one thing she’s done right. In the rest of the song, she
is joking, to be sure, but also struggling to make the best of a frustrating
situation. Musical parody, then, reflects emotional subtext.
Cathy takes on a similar musical mask in “A Part of That,” which opens
with a “bouncy” swing feel and jazz-­v iolin fills. Here she tries to put a pos-
itive spin on her marital frustrations. She wants to convince herself that
everything is okay, but her optimism is difficult to sustain. Unlike “A Sum-
mer in Ohio” with its “Tempo di Stripper” finish, “A Part of That” drifts
away from the opening style and ends subdued and bittersweet. The song
 206 / here for the hearing

goes from parody to sincerity, in a version of the process that Ronald Rod-
man calls a “stylistic dissolve” (2000, 98).
What about Jamie? His various styles in “The Schmuel Song,” repre-
sent different characters. Though this is not a diegetic song, its musical
masks are tied up with performative narration rather than self-­expression.
But conventional styles are also central to songs in Jamie’s own voice. His
opening, “Shiksa Goddess,” comes just after their first meeting. Jamie
is thrilled. He’s been waiting, he says, for a non-­Jewish girl: not for this
particular woman, but for a type. The music is full of generic types too,
alternating between Latin-­feel verses and a rock ’n’ roll chorus, with the
occasional dash of klezmer (mm. 58–­59). (The klezmer insertions are an
obvious musical topic, a sign of Jewishness.)22 Jamie’s “natural” voice,
then, is initially hard to pin down, but mid-­song, he starts to let his guard
down. As he acknowledges his fear, the harmonic language opens up: a
French 43 resolves to V 64 in the home key of A, initiating a passage with a
stepwise, chromatic bass line (mm. 70–­83). Later, a deceptive resolution to
♭VI (F major) launches a section, marked “dreamy,” where Jamie’s stylistic
masks recede further (mm. 105–­1 24).
Jamie’s stylistic code-­switching involves the same keys in “Moving Too
Fast” and “A Miracle Would Happen.” In the latter, bluesy A major sup-
ports Jamie’s half-­joking complaints about his attraction to other women.
After Cathy’s audition interlude, though, the song is suddenly in F major,
and he addresses his wife directly (see m. 107). In “Moving Too Fast,” the
prevailing A-­major “funky rock” gives way to F major when Jamie sings
the melody from “Still Hurting.” Some generic inflections remain here
(for example, the R&B–­flavored dominant ♭9/13 in mm. 44 and 53). Still,
given the larger pattern, it seems that F (as ♭VI of A) is marked as a zone of
sincerity for Jamie. The juxtaposition of conventional and “natural” styles
would again make this parody, not pastiche.
That said, the generic is not necessarily ironic, and in Jamie’s songs,
conventions in music often converge with conventions of life. As Lauren
Berlant argues, “genres provide an affective expectation of the experience
of watching something unfold, whether that thing is in life or in art” (2011,
6). “Moving Too Fast” makes it clear that Jamie’s vision of the good life
combines romantic and literary fantasies. Both are more or less generic.
He wants to get the All-­A merican Girl and to write the Great American
Novel. These fantasies reflect Jamie’s self-­understanding, though they
also require partners (“a woman I love” and “an agent who loves me”). “All
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 207

genres,” Berlant notes, “produce drama from their moments of potential

failure” (2011, 148). The couple might not come together, the hero might
not win, or a tonal composition might not find its way back to the home
key. Yet Berlant is centrally concerned with “the waning of genre,” with
what happens when the fantasies that inform a life cannot be sustained,
opening up an “impasse” whose ambiguities produce new anxieties but
also new possibilities and pleasures (Berlant 2011, 6, 199–­200). The Last
Five Years features a certain waning of genre too. As Jamie becomes more
ambivalent about his personal and professional life, stylistic tropes in his
music fade away. They are absent in the raw moments when the marriage
is falling apart (“If I Didn’t Believe in You” and “Nobody Needs to Know”).
Jamie, it seems, is only able to recapture the generic, to regain a coherent
personal narrative, in the final waltz.
Nonetheless, “The Next Ten Minutes” lacks this association of musical
style and lifestyle. In their desire to marry and have children, Jamie and
Cathy are arguably at their most normative, yet the duet resists generic
markers. It features gently rolling quartal harmonies, evoking the move-
ment of the water in Central Park. This antiparodic quality suggests
complete sincerity, true love. But it also heightens the contrast with the
strings’ waltz, whose entrance engages both veridical and schematic rec-
ognition. Again, then, Brown’s music juxtaposes the predictable and the
ambiguous, the specific and the generic, playing with multiple modes of
expectation and memory.

Conclusion

The Last Five Years stages a gap between story time and show time. Like other
pieces that feature anachronies, it brings time to the audience’s attention.
Yet this idiosyncratic structure reveals temporal aspects of musical theater
in general. Spoken scenes and songs, for example, imply different relations
to the presumed real time of the story, and moving between these modes
of performance is also moving between temporalities. From this perspec-
tive, reprise and parody/pastiche have temporal implications too. Reprise
refers to moments inside the show; parody/pastiche, to styles outside of it.
Both engage distinctive modes of musical memory and can foster a sense
of irony or authenticity. As it takes apart a love story, The Last Five Years
reveals music-­theatrical conventions that are often taken for granted.
 208 / here for the hearing

Though all of this informs interpretation, The Last Five Years also
shows how musical relationships can orient listeners without determin-
ing meaning. As Berlant puts it, “A musical phrase is powerful because it
repeats: as we become attached to it, it helps us find a place before the plot
tells us what it means and where that place is” (2011, 157). Of course, The
Last Five Years never provides complete answers. In the end, the audience’s
relationship to Cathy and Jamie might parallel the couple’s relationship to
each other—­a mix of attachment and ambivalence.
The ambiguities in the show—­its musical and temporal puzzles—­
encourage a particular kind of spectatorship. They call for active, repeated
listening, and conversation. Fans of The Last Five Years, like so many musi-
cal theater fans, form an interpretive community; their connection to the
show is productive (Kuhn 2002, 196–­2 12; Wolf 2011, chap. 7). They create
reordered versions of the soundtrack and film, blog posts, performances
uploaded to YouTube. Music analysis is simply a more formal, academic
contribution to this discussion. The activity is retrospective, sustained by
memories of a show. But analysis might truly involve a kind of double tem-
porality, recalling past experiences while anticipating future ones, looking
for new ways to hear music we love.

Notes
1. Elsewhere, I have discussed some limits of Altman’s account (see De Souza
2012, 80).
2. To be clear, “temporality” refers not to time itself but to our relationships
with time (e.g., lived experiences, concepts, or aesthetic representations of time).
On time and temporality in music, see Hatten (2006, 62–­63).
3. In the show, Jamie’s reading is a spoken monologue. In the liner notes to
the original cast recording, the excerpt is printed with formatting that recalls the
New Yorker.
4. The story/discourse opposition takes many forms, from the Russian for-
malists’ fabula/syuzhet to Tzvetan Todorov’s histoire/discours to Gérard Genette’s
histoire/récit. This narratological distinction also underpins the opposition of
diegetic/nondiegetic in film music scholarship (Gorbman 1987; Winters 2010).
Finally, Byron Almén (2008) offers a more general approach to music and narra-
tology.
5. This parallel does not seem coincidental. As the song’s epilogue reveals,
Schmuel and the clock represent Cathy and Jamie, respectively, and he is encour-
aging her to pursue her own dreams.
 Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years / 209

6. It is perhaps no coincidence that both of these shows are based on films,

since cinematic montage has long been used to depict the passage of time.
7. Les Misérables (1980) nicely demonstrates how the relation between story
time and show time may involve variable pacing. Its first act goes from 1815 to
1832, whereas its second act remains within 1832, with discourse time slowing
considerably to focus on the ill-­fated Paris uprising.
8. In Genette’s terms, Wicked’s analepsis is also “complete,” because it rejoins
the first narrative. Partial analepsis, by contrast, remains separated from the
opening temporal level (Genette 1980, 62).
9. In this volume, Rachel Lumsden considers these anachronies through the
lens of “queer temporalities.”
10. At the time of writing, several chronological versions were available on
YouTube (e.g., https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_dQnq0Chp4MBnWlaPhjti6​
RhKEVa_bdw, based on the 2002 recording, and https://youtu.be/LKVlQJ0b3q4,
based on the 2015 recording).
11. Genette refers to this as “variable focalization” (1980, 189).
12. According to Brown (2015), the musical spans from 1993 to 1998. As such, I
have indicated these dates in figure 8.1.
13. A general theory of reprise types has been offered by Nathan Beary Blus-
tein (2016).
14. Of course, reprise might stay within the world of story—­as in Cathy’s
diegetic auditions in The Last Five Years or the von Trapps’ repeated performances
in The Sound of Music (1959). Yet since the same music can be attached to different
dramatic situations, reprise is predicated on the potential divergence of story and
discourse. In a revue, reprise may lack narrative grounding, fostering the musi-
cal pleasure that typically results from “relistenings” (see Margulis 2014, 95–­102).
Something similar happens in overtures that proleptically introduce tunes with-
out narrative context, tunes whose dramatic significance emerges only later.
15. Musical foreshadowing is similar to reverse reprise. For example, in Frank
Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella (1956), Rosabella receives a love note from Tony,
and she sings Tony’s tune before he does (even before he appears onstage). Thanks
to Michael Buchler for bringing this example to my attention.
16. See also Greg Decker’s and Rachel Lumsden’s essays in this volume, both of
which discuss the waltz as a musical signifier for love and romance.
17. Carolyn Abbate (1989) critiques leitmotivic-­semiotic interpretation (and
ideas of musical narrative, more generally).
18. The interlude might also be a demonstration of learnedness per se, a marker
of compositional skill and musical seriousness.
19. In the score, this written-­in mistake is marked “very Jonathan Edwards,”
referring to the comedic lounge-­pianist alter ego of arranger and composer Paul
Weston.
 210 / here for the hearing

20. See “Shiksa Goddess,” mm. 70–­7 1; “The Next Ten Minutes,” mm. 58–­59;
and “If I Didn’t Believe in You,” m. 53. In each case, the augmented-­sixth chord
6
resolves to a cadential 4 .
21. Lin-­Manuel Miranda uses a similar parodic strategy in Hamilton, with King
George III’s light pop style diverging from the main character’s hip-­hop vernac-
ular. The Wizard’s “Wonderful” in Wicked follows the same pattern. In each case,
the music emphasizes a powerful character’s shallowness.
22. Michael Buchler (2019) discusses a similar instance of code-­switching
between klezmer and contemporary popular vocal styles in I Can Get It for You
Wholesale (1962).

Works Cited
Abbate, Carolyn. 1989. “What the Sorcerer Said.” 19th-­Century Music 12: 221–­30.
Almén, Byron. 2008. A Theory of Musical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Altman, Rick. 1987. The American Film Musical. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Berlant, Lauren. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bharucha, Jamshed J. 1994. “Tonality and Expectation.” In Musical Perceptions, edited
by Rita Aiello and John A. Sloboda, 213–­39. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blustein, Nathan Beary. 2016. “Playwriting in Song: ‘Reprise Types’ in Stephen Sond-
heim’s Sweeney Todd.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory, Vancouver, November
6.
Brown, Jason Robert. 2015. “Jason Robert Brown Q&A The Last Five Years (NYC).”
YouTube video. February 20, 2015. https://youtu.be/ofnb9xEAjOQ
Brown, Jason Robert. 2016. “The Last 5 Years—­Jason Robert Brown on Bringing the
Show to London.” YouTube video. October 28, 2016. https://youtu.be/1GSLYaU​
gGVs
Brown, Jason Robert. 2017. “Go Behind ‘If I Didn’t Believe in You’ with Jason Robert
Brown.” YouTube video. January 18, 2017. https://youtu.be/O7bGcERnXA8
Buchler, Michael. 2019. “‘Sing Me a Song with Social Significance’: Battling Industri-
alist Oppressors on the Broadway Stage.” Keynote presented at the Music Theory
Midwest Conference, University of Cincinnati.
Culler, Jonathan. 1981. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
De Souza, Jonathan. 2012. “Film Musicals as Cinema of Attractions.” In From Stage
to Screen: Musical Films in Europe and United States (1927–­1961), edited by Massi-
miliano Sala, 71–­91. Speculum Musicae 19. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
Dowling, William C. 2011. Ricoeur on Time and Narrative: An Introduction to Temps et
Récit. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
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Genette, Gérard. 1980. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Translated by Jane E.

Lewin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Gorbman, Claudia. 1987. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press.
Hatten, Robert S. 2006. “The Troping of Temporality in Music.” In Approaches to
Meaning in Music, edited by Byron Almén and Edward R. Pearsall, 62–­75. Bloom-
ington: Indiana University Press.
Huron, David. 2006. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jameson, Frederic. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Kron, Lisa. 2015. “Foreword.” In Fun Home, by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron. New
York: Samuel French.
Kuhn, Annette. 2002. Dreaming of Fred and Ginger: Cinema and Cultural Memory. New
York: New York University Press.
Laufer Krebs, Bonnie. 2014. “Jason Robert Brown Exclusive Interview—­The Last Five
Years.” YouTube video. September 7, 2014. https://youtu.be/eo_3feEG4D0
Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth. 2014. On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Müller, Günther. 1948. “Erzählzeit und erzählte Zeit.” In Festschrift Paul Kluckhorn
und Hermann Schneider, 195–­212. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
Penner, Nina. 2013. “Opera Singing and Fictional Truth.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 71: 81–­90.
Rodman, Ronald. 2000. “Tonal Design and the Aesthetic of Pastiche in Herbert Sto-
thart’s Maytime.” In Music and Cinema, edited by James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and
David Neumeyer, 187–­205. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press; University
Press of New England.
Shenton, Mark. 2015. “The Big Interview: Jason Robert Brown.” The Stage, May 24,
2015. https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/interviews/2015/big-interview-jason​
-robert-brown
Sondheim, Stephen. 2010. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–­1981) with Atten-
dant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines, and Anecdotes. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Winters, Ben. 2010. “The Nondiegetic Fallacy: Film, Music, and Narrative Space.”
Music & Letters 91: 224–­44.
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York: Oxford University Press.
9 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home
Rachel Lumsden

The Tony Award–­w inning musical Fun Home (2015) offers a distinctive,
innovative perspective on queer sexuality. As Stacy Wolf (2011) notes,
musicals traditionally exude a “heterosexual imperative” (214) where
“heterosexual relationships, romance, and marriage provide the narrative
spine” (213). When gay characters do appear, Wolf emphasizes that they
are usually secondary characters who ultimately “bolster heteronormativ-
ity” by providing a contrast (often humorous) to the primary heterosexual
relationship that drives most musicals (216).1
Fun Home upends these conventions. The heart of the musical is the
complex relationship between a father (Bruce Bechdel) and daughter (Ali-
son Bechdel), which is further complicated by their respective sexualities.
The musical chronicles Alison’s emerging awareness of her lesbian iden-
tity and contrasts her eventual acceptance of her own sexuality with that
of her closeted gay father, who commits suicide.
In this essay, I examine how Fun Home represents Alison’s queerness.
I begin with a short overview that describes how the plot and dramatic
structure intersect with processes frequently discussed in queer scholar-
ship, such as “slippage” and “queer temporality.” Next, I analyze the two
songs that focus on Alison’s sexual identity—­“Ring of Keys” and “Chang-
ing My Major”—­to explore what happens when a musical foregrounds les-
bian identity and takes it seriously. Fun Home deserves in-­depth scholarly
consideration not just because it features a lesbian as a central character,

/ 212 /
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 213

but for the extraordinary ways that its music envisions and envoices les-
bian sexuality.

Slippages, Queer Temporalities, and the Structure

of Fun Home

Fun Home is based on the eponymous graphic memoir by cartoonist Alison

Bechdel (2006). Feminist and queer scholars have praised its innovative
visual and narrative style.2 In a 2009 interview, Bechdel notes that her
work draws on processes of “slippage” that exploit the fractures “between
appearance and reality . . . between the expected and unexpected” (12:36–­
59).3 The memoir slips back and forth in time and lacks a conventional
linear structure; Bechdel has described its form as a labyrinthine spiral
(Chute 2010, 183). Ann Cvetkovich (2008) and Valerie Rohy (2010) both
characterize Fun Home as a “queer archive” that problematizes traditional
(heterosexual) life narratives and simplistic distinctions between past and
present. Rohy explains how Bechdel’s memoir, like other forms of queer
historiography, purposefully “resist[s] teleology, linearity, causality, and
the pose of epistemological mastery in favor of nonidentity, plurality, cir-
cularity, and the nonsequential narrative” (2010, 343).
The musical also has an unusual structure that flirts with the bounds
of past and present, fact and memory. The musical eschews a traditional
multi-­act form and chronological narrative. Three different actresses
depict Alison’s character in three different life stages: “Small Alison”
(young child), “Medium Alison” (college freshman), and “Alison” (forty-­
three-­year-­old).4 Presented in a single ninety-­minute act, the story skips
unpredictably back and forth between the three different time periods of
the three Alisons. For example, the two songs discussed in this chapter
appear in reverse chronological order: the audience hears Medium Ali-
son’s triumphant solo, “Changing My Major” approximately thirty min-
utes before Small Alison’s solo, “Ring of Keys.” Lisa Kron, who wrote the
musical’s book and lyrics, emphasizes that “the scenes flow unbidden and
on their own terms, as memories do” (2016, vii).
The large-­scale design of the musical and memoir also resonates with
scholarship on “queer temporality,” which explores how queer lives and
artistic works can work as transgressive forces that rupture conventional
(and dominant) chronologies typically associated with heterosexual lives
 214 / here for the hearing

(childhood, marriage, childbearing, etc.). Jack Halberstam stresses that

queer temporality “disrupts the normative narratives of time that form the
base of nearly every definition of the human” (2005, 152). In her study of
the musical Rent, Sarah Taylor Ellis describes how its “queering” of a tradi-
tional linear timeline provides “a lifeline of identification that is particu-
larly resonant for socially marginalized subjects and communities” (2011,
197). Fun Home has obvious intersections with these ideas. As Cvetkovich
emphasizes, Fun Home “embraces a queer temporality, one that refuses
narratives of progress,” in which there is “no self-­congratulatory separa-
tion of past and present” (2008, 124).

“Ring of Keys”

I begin with “Ring of Keys,” Small Alison’s only solo number, which
occurs approximately two-­thirds of the way through the musical. The
inspiration for this song is a sequence of panels midway through the
memoir, in which, as young child, Alison sees a “truck-­driving bulldyke”
(described in the musical as an “old-­school butch”) while eating in a diner
with her father. In the panel that features the “ring of keys” of the song’s
title, young Alison stares from afar, wide-­eyed, at a heavyset butch deliv-
ery woman5 in the foreground. The butch woman sports a button-­down
plaid shirt and work pants; the eponymous “ring of keys” dangles from
her right hip, prominently affixed to a wide black belt by a hardy leather
loop with a snap. Bechdel’s captions for this sequence emphasize its trans-
formative impact on Alison: “I didn’t know there were women who wore
men’s clothes and had men’s haircuts. . . . The vision of the truck-­driving
bulldyke sustained me through the years” (Bechdel 2006, 118–­19).
Bechdel contrasts young Alison’s admiration and fascination with her
father’s disdain, as he glares at the butch woman through narrowed, suspi-
cious eyes. This sequence encapsulates the tensions between young Alison
and her father, who frequently regulates her appearance; earlier in the mem-
oir, Bechdel writes that “he was attempting to express something feminine
through me” (2006, 98). These panels call to mind other moments in which
Alison’s father attempts to feminize her by insisting that she wear a velvet
dress (35), barrette (96–­97), pearl necklace (99), ponytail (116), or even that
her dress have a proper neckline (15). (Indeed, Alison even has a barrette
in her hair in these particular panels.) The sequence foregrounds the butch
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 215

woman as young Alison gawks in wonder at her short hair, flannel shirt,
and key ring. In contrast to the butch woman’s confident, hands-­on-­hips
pose, Alison quivers with excitement, her hands clutched in her lap, eyes
wide, eyebrows raised in astonishment. Finally, young Alison sees a real-­life
example of the kind of woman she could be.
In a 2015 interview, composer Jeanine Tesori describes “Ring of Keys”
as an existential touchstone for Small Alison, explaining that it “is not a
love song. It’s a song of identification because for girls you have to see it
to be it” (Clement 2015). Like the memoir, the musical frames “Ring of
Keys” with other scenes in which Alison’s father controls her appearance.
The song is preceded by a terse exchange of dialogue (Bruce: “Where’s
your barrette? It keeps the hair out of your eyes.” Alison: “So would a
crewcut.” Bruce: “If I see you without it again, I’ll wale you.”).6 Adult Ali-
son then interrupts to shift the scene, describing the moment the butch
woman enters the diner just before Small Alison begins to sing. The stag-
ing also helps stress the significance of this encounter for Small Alison,
since she sings this number while her father and Adult Alison (two queer
adults living very different kinds of queer lives) surround her from oppo-
site points of the stage. In a gripping performance by Sydney Lucas at the
2015 Tony Awards ceremony, Small Alison turns and faces Adult Alison
while she sings the second verse and chorus, creating an emotional link
between past and present, child and adult.7 Another important differ-
ence between the memoir and musical is that the butch woman is not
shown onstage in the musical, which highlights how the moment is not
really about the butch woman per se, but her transformative impact on
Alison and her identity.
Scholarship on Bechdel’s memoir typically discusses this scene and its
implications in a strictly visual context, examining how Alison “sees” the
butch woman, and how Bechdel offers a queer, lesbian rebuttal to a tradi-
tional “masculine gaze” (Lemberg 2008, 134–­37; McBean 2013, 109–­1 1).
I will return to these ideas later in this essay, but in this section I want
to explore how Tesori’s sonic choices, combined with Lisa Kron’s lyrics
(which do not appear in Bechdel’s memoir), offer an alternative interpre-
tation of the scene. In the original panel Small Alison has no words for
what she sees—­she simply sits in astonished silence. But the musical flips
this on its head, since Small Alison’s seeing the butch woman propels her
into song. In the musical, seeing not only helps Alison clarify her identity
and desires, it (quite literally) helps her begin to find her own voice.
 216 / here for the hearing

One of the most noticeable features of this song is the halting, frag-
mented phrases that begin each verse. Here Small Alison’s song disinte-
grates, for she cannot find the words to adequately express how she feels.
The lyrics break off at just the moment when she tries to make sense of
what she sees: “Someone just came in the door / Like no one I ever saw
before / I feel—­/ I feel—­.” (The second verse contains similar ruptures, such
as “I want—­,” “You’re so—­,” and “I, um—­.”) Kron’s textual lapses intersect
with contemporary queer scholarship on the use of ellipses to express the
unspeakable. (Following traditional notational practices for lyrics, dashes
are used to show the breaking off of the text, not ellipses, but the effect is
similar.) Martha Vicinus notes that a textual lapse like an ellipsis “begs for
interpretation, yet resists it” (2004, 234). Halberstam describes how the
textual breaks in “Ring of Keys” reflect “the unspeakability of affectionate
regard,” explaining that “there are no words for such affect, no precedents
for generations of butches past who may also have seen strong, gender-­
queer, female-­bodied women and who may have wanted to claim them”
([1998] 2018, xx).
But in these passages, it is both the music and the lyrics that combine to
depict Small Alison’s initial bewilderment. The opening phrase (shown in
example 9.1) illustrates her inability to fully express her feelings; her halt-
ing, fractured lyrics create a complicated nexus of allure, fascination, and
self-­identification. Measures 5–­8 begin as a characteristic sentence (2+2+4
measures).8 But after a presentation with two basic ideas (2+2 measures)
that establish a clear expectation for continuation cadence, the phrase
continues circling through a static I–­I V progression and no cadence mate-
rializes, reflecting her inability to fully comprehend or articulate what she
sees. (The same passage returns in the second verse in mm. 35–­4 2, with
the words “I thought it was s’posed to be wrong / But you seem okay with
being strong / I want—­/ You’re so—­.”)
The second phrase of the verse (mm. 13–­18, also shown in example
9.1) begins identically to the first, with the same set of two-­measure basic
ideas. Either of these phrases easily could have been written as a traditional
2+2+4 sentence; a hypothetical version is shown in example 9.2. (This
example, which I have composed, illustrates how utterly uninteresting
such a “normal” phrase would be.) But instead, the second phrase is even
more deviant than the first: it’s shorter (six measures instead of eight), and
unravels even further. After gasping, “I feel—­” Small Alison completely
stops singing, and the phrase ends not with a balanced four measures (as
Example 9.1. “Ring of Keys,” first verse. (Similar music appears in the second
verse, mm. 35–­48.)
 218 / here for the hearing

Example 9.2. Hypothetical recomposition of the first phrase of “Ring of Keys” as a

paradigmatic (but much more boring) sentence.

it did before) but a two-­measure instrumental break that leads into the
chorus. Notably, at the same point in the second verse, she is so overcome
that she can only utter single syllables (“I, um—­” ).
Although Small Alison’s verses are faltering and fragmented, her con-
viction builds during the choruses. This shift hinges on the lyrics, which
suddenly swerve from her initial emotional shock into a detailed list of
the butch woman’s physical characteristics (“Your swagger and your bear-
ing and the just-­r ight clothes you’re wearing / Your short hair and your
dungarees and your lace-­up boots”). Small Alison’s focus on these “just
right” qualities contrasts sharply with the very wrong types of clothing and
accessories that her father has adorned her with in an attempt to make
her conform to traditional standards of female beauty. The phrase struc-
ture of the chorus also becomes more regular and tight-­k nit, changing to
a simple, regular 4+4+4 pattern that differs from the unpredictable verse.
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 219

Alison’s thoughts and emotions gain new clarity during the chorus, when
she focuses more intensely on the butch woman’s appearance.
Alison’s confidence continues to build during the bridge (mm. 63–­
73), as she begins to articulate affections of camaraderie with the butch
woman (“Do you feel my heart saying hi? / In this whole luncheonette
why am I / The only one who sees you’re beautiful? / No. I mean . . . Hand-
some.”). The stripped-­down texture shown in Example 9.3 lends a sense
of clarity to Alison’s inner ruminations. Sustained chords appear in the
accompaniment (mm. 63–­64), instead of the rollicking, swaying eighth-­
notes heard throughout the other sections. A new ascending bassline
appears for the first time in mm. 63–­65 and 67–­69 (C ♯ –­D ♯ –­E or 6, 7, 8 in
the home key). This rising bassline (coupled with parallel tenths in the
vocal line) gives these measures a feeling of emboldened optimism. The
ascending stepwise bassline in this passage contrasts with the static I–­I V
motion throughout the verses and descending basslines in the choruses
(mm. 19–­2 1 and mm. 49–­51). The hopeful 6, 7, 8 bassline is also echoed in

Example 9.3. “Ring of Keys,” mm. 63–­72.

 220 / here for the hearing

the vocal line in mm. 70–­7 1, where Alison ascends 5, 6, 7, 8 (with the text
“who sees you’re beautiful”) up to E5, the highest note of the song.
Text-­painting also helps depict her increasing self-­awareness and “out-

from the triple division of the notated  meter to a duple division with the
sider” status in this section. In mm. 69–­70, the music suddenly shifts

words “Why am I the only one who sees you’re” (the shift to a duple pulse
occurs on the bolded text). This tension reflects Small Alison’s unique
perspective—­in the entire diner, only she appreciates and admires the
butch woman—­and her increasing awareness of her own identity outside
of heterosexual norms. Remarkably, the only other shift to a duple pulse
in the vocal part occurs during the chorus, where Alison sings “and the
just right clothes you’re wearing” (m. 21, m. 51, and m. 78). Even more
remarkably, the pitches Alison sings during the “just right” duple shift
are identical to the ones that occur in m. 69 (the linear descent B–­A–­G ♯),
lending a subtle connection between the “just right” clothes and Alison’s
ability to see the woman for who she really is. These momentary shifts
to duple meter depict how the butch woman’s appearance pushes against
dominant heterosexual gender norms (just as a shift to a duple division
disrupts the established compound meter), but it is “just right” for her—­
and, ultimately, for Alison too.
The harmonic plan of the song also reflects her reactions to the butch
woman. One noticeable feature of “Ring of Keys” is its lack of cadences.
Remarkably, there is no root-­position V–­I cadence in the primary key (E
major) during the entire song. The first sixteen measures simply sway
between I and IV harmonies, gently rocking between E and A in the bass.
The first clear dominant in the main key does not even appear until m. 64,
during the song’s bridge, but it is a passing chord in first inversion (refer
back to example 9.3). Definitive V–­I motion occurs only during the end of
the chorus, which modulates to G major and rocks between I and V(7) in
the new key as Small Alison sings “And your keys, oh / Your ring of keys.”
I hear these harmonic choices in a few different (and intersecting) ways.
First, the meandering effect of so much I–­I V–­I motion evokes a noticeable
circularity that mirrors the “ring” of keys of the song’s title. At the same
time, the heavy emphasis on I and IV, plagal motion frequently associated
with religious works (especially the final “Amen” in Christian hymns),
lends a feeling of transcendence—­perhaps even spirituality—­to the song.
Indeed, “Ring of Keys” even concludes with its own “Amen” moment in
mm. 92–­95, where the music again alternates between I and IV as Small
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 221

Alison quietly sings “I know you” in the song’s final measures. Finally, the
lack of cadences in the main key helps depict Small Alison’s present situ-
ation. As a child (who lives with an overbearing and sometimes abusive
father), she cannot fully understand or become the butch woman she sees.
The definitive V–­I cadences in the secondary key, during the music about
the butch woman and her appearance, represent a yearning for an identity
that has not yet been fully actualized. The chorus provides a vision of the
future—­the “ring of keys” (of course, an obvious metaphor for power) that
Alison herself will hold one day.
In his essay for the cast album of Fun Home, theater critic Jesse Green
explains how “Ring of Keys” reflects Small Alison’s character, noting that
“it’s as if the song itself, like Alison, were thinking its way into coherence”
(2015, 5). But I hear “Ring of Keys” as much more than a subtle reflection of
Small Alison’s nascent identity. To me, it directly articulates an overt resis-
tance to her father’s attempts at control, as well as to prevailing hetero-
sexual norms. “I know you,” Alison sings to the butch woman. In Female
Masculinity, Halberstam describes how tomboyhood can serve as a “poli-
tics of refusal” that (for some butches) is sustained into adulthood (2005,
177). Halberstam emphasizes how tomboys like Small Alison “offer a set
of opportunities for theorizing gender, sexuality, race, and social rebel-
lion . . . the desires, the play, and the anguish they access allow us to theo-
rize other relations to identity” (2005, 175). Halberstam’s work resonates
with McBean’s discussion of this scene in Bechdel’s memoir. McBean
argues that in this moment, Alison (even as a child) “is able to articu-
late a particular kind of resistance. It is consistently drawn in Fun Home
as constraining as well as opening up to alternative possibilities” (2013,
110). In “Ring of Keys,” Small Alison does much more than slowly develop
a “coherent” perspective: she recognizes—­and feels solidarity with—­t he
kind of woman she will eventually become. As a tomboy child she can’t
quite grasp the butch woman’s ring of keys yet, but she will. In fact, the
musical shows that in some sense, she already has.

“Changing My Major”

This ecstatic number is the other solo that focuses on Alison’s sexual iden-
tity, and it provides an important counterpoint to “Ring of Keys” since it
occurs approximately thirty minutes earlier in the musical. (When Small
 222 / here for the hearing

Alison admires the butch woman and feels a kinship with her, the audi-
ence has already seen that eventually she will fully embrace her own sex-
uality.) Medium Alison sings “Changing My Major” in her college dorm
room just after having sex with a woman for the first time. Kron (2016)
describes this song as Alison’s “coming-­out scene” (vii) and “a joyful open-
ing into a world of wondrous possibility” (vii–­v iii).
Although superficially these songs seem to have little in common,
they share some important similarities. Both songs are dramatic solos, and
the only solo numbers that these two characters sing. Both songs involve
important “firsts” for Alison regarding her sexual identity: the first time
she sees a butch woman and the first time she has sex with another woman.
The staging of these songs is similarly provocative. In both songs Alison
sings alone, but she is surrounded by other silent characters onstage, who
provide a visual frame of reference for her thoughts. In “Ring of Keys,”
Small Alison is framed by the two adult characters that represent her own
conflicts with her identity: her father (the closeted gay man who tries to
regulate and control her) and adult Alison (the lesbian she will eventually
become). In “Changing My Major,” Medium Alison sings while her first
lover, Joan, sleeps onstage in her bed.
Both songs also rely on the bodies of other lesbian women to clarify
Alison’s thoughts and emotions. Small Alison idolizes the butch woman’s
physical presence and appearance (her “swagger,” “short hair,” and more).
Medium Alison enumerates specific features of Joan’s body (her “inner
thighs,” “ass,” and “well-­made outline”). But these embodied characteris-
tics transcend mere objectification: both songs offer a lesbian perspective
that deconstructs a traditional “male gaze,” famously discussed by film
theorist Laura Mulvey.9 Numerous scholars and artists have explored the
ramifications of the “male gaze” and the potential for an alternative, femi-
nist “female gaze” to transform it. For example, in a 2016 keynote address,
director Joey Soloway describes how a “female gaze” can work as a trans-
gressive “empathy generator” (39:39–­40). Soloway’s female gaze draws
on empathetic processes of “feeling/seeing” and “attempts to get inside
of the protagonist, particularly when the protagonist is not a cis male”
(17:36–­53). Soloway emphasizes how this creates “a feeling of being in feel-
ing rather than looking at the character . . . I’m not just showing you this
thing, I really want you to feel it with me” (17:58–­18:10).
Soloway’s comments explain how empathy, emotion, and self-­
identification can offer an alternative to the objectification of the female
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 223

body that is typically associated with the male gaze. Both Alison char-
acters perceive the female bodies that inspire their songs with a spirit of
egalitarianism, not conquest. For example, Medium Alison humorously
emphasizes how she will “Familiarize myself with her [Joan’s] well-­made
outline / While she researches mine.” Both Alison characters are imbued
with empathy and emotions traditionally associated with fear and weak-
ness (rather than strength and domination). In “Ring of Keys,” Small
Alison wonders, “Why am I the only one who sees / You’re beautiful . . .
no, I mean, handsome,” and even concludes the song by singing “I know
you.” In “Changing My Major,” Medium Alison frequently undercuts her
lusty outbursts with self-­deprecating rejoinders, such as: “I feel like Her-
cules! / Oh god, that sounds ridiculous” (mm. 54–­55), “I have to trust that
you don’t think I’m an idiot or some kind of animal” (mm. 20–­2 1), or an
extended passage where Alison nervously stammers, “And I’ll work on
calming down / So by the time you’ve woken up / I’ll be cool, I’ll be col-
lected / And I’ll have found some dignity / But who needs dignity? / ’Cause
this is so much better” (mm. 56–­62). She even expresses how vulnerable
she feels after having sex with Joan, “Overnight everything changed / I
am not prepared / I’m dizzy, I’m nauseous / I’m shaky, I’m scared” (mm.
107–­1 2). Fun Home thus deconstructs a traditional male gaze on several dif-
ferent levels. The Alison characters view the butch woman and Joan with
admiration and egalitarianism, rather than uncontrolled lust or domina-
tion: both Alisons seem to see these women as who they really are, rather
than as superficial objects of desire. Further, Small Alison and Medium
Alison are presented with a vulnerability that also cultivates empathy
from the audience. They are—­to quote Soloway—­“empathy generators”
who subvert traditional (male) paradigms.
The music of “Changing My Major” also charts Medium Alison’s emo-
tional reactions to her first sexual experience. Clever manipulations of stan-
dard phrase-­structure types help to communicate the song’s erotic impli-
cations. The recitative-­like introduction (mm. 1–­11) and subsequent verses
(mm. 12–­25 and 54–­69) have a stammering, halting feel because of Alison’s
quick, nervous lines, which cram rapid-­fire lyrics (such as “Oh my God, last
night / Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, last night”) into
consistent two-­and four-­measure subphrases. The expression marking for
the first verse explains the feeling as “Neurotic, a little too fast.”

unexpectedly shift from  to a  waltz. As Gregory Decker suggests in his
But the mood quickly changes during the choruses of the song, which
 224 / here for the hearing

chapter in this volume, waltzes in musicals are unequivocally associated

with love and romance, so Tesori draws on the waltz topic to connect
Alison and Joan’s relationship to this enduring legacy in musical the-
ater. Wolf characterizes the waltz as “the dance of romance” that unites
couples and “signifies their attachment” (2002, 30). However, the waltz
chorus in “Changing My Major” also refutes traditional phrase-­structure
expectations. Each chorus begins with what seems like a paradigmatic
sixteen-­measure sentence (4+4+8 measures) with two (4+4) basic ideas
(see example 9.4). Yet as the phrase continues, it revels in ambiguity. The
continuation differs from a traditional sentence because it begins not with
new material, but with a third repetition of the basic idea: the text in mm.

Example 9.4. “Changing My Major,” mm. 26–­41 (first phrase of chorus).

 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 225

34–­37 repeats what was just heard in mm. 30–­33, and the music in mm. 34–­
35 is identical to that in mm. 30–­31 (and almost identical to mm. 26–­27).
This phrase calls to mind Michael Callahan’s (2013) “SLT3b”
[n+n+(n+n)2n], a sentence type he identifies in his work on the Great
American Songbook.10 Callahan emphasizes the inherent ambiguity of
this sentence type, because its third line of text (set to a third repetition
of the basic idea) “complicates the separation between lyrical presenta-
tion, continuation, and cadence” (2013, [5.9]). Callahan’s “SLT3b” loosely
intersects with Matthew BaileyShea’s sentence with “dissolving third
statement,” where the continuation begins with a third statement of the
basic idea, but eventually “break[s] through toward cadence” (2004, 11).
Callahan explains that the tension and ambiguity of this sentence type
“is brought about by a passage that, musically or lyrically or both, (1) does
what the first two did for the first time (at least initially) and (2) simulta-
neously gains enough momentum to initiate a continuation that some-
how exceeds a mere third like iteration” (2013, [5.7]). Callahan character-
izes this sentence type as a complex “sleight-­of-­hand” [7.2] that relishes
“ambivalence” [5.7] and “ambiguity” [5.9].
Subtle details of the phrase help morph the initially ambiguous third
statement into a continuation → cadence. The shift hinges on the word
“sex,” which was just heard in the second basic idea (mm. 30–­33), but in
m. 36 now suddenly soars up to a B4, the highest note of the chorus so far.
From B4, the melodic line glides down in an unbroken stepwise stream
(B–­A– ­G ♯ –­F ♯) over the new vi7 harmony in mm. 36–­37, and the phrase
spins to its conclusion (a clear-­cut IAC in m. 40). Retrospectively, because
of Alison’s gradual textual accrual, it becomes clear that what initially
seemed like a third textual repetition is actually the first complete sen-
tence of text in the chorus (“I’m changing my major to sex with Joan, with
a minor in kissing Joan.”).
The chorus continues to defy expectations as it progresses. The sec-
ond phrase (mm. 42–­53) begins with material similar to the first phrase,
and easily could have been written as another sixteen-­measure (4+4+8)
sentence to answer the first, in a large-­scale antecedent-­consequent struc-
ture (thirty-­t wo measures, two sixteen-­measure sentences). However, the
second subphrase of the second phrase (mm. 46–­49) begins to chart a new
course. The harmonic rhythm slows to two measures and new, colorful
harmonies appear (such as the F ♯9 in mm. 48–­49). And instead of conclud-
ing with a balanced eight-­measure continuation → cadence, the second
 226 / here for the hearing

phrase maintains a steady two-­measure harmonic rhythm (rather than

the usual harmonic acceleration found in a continuation), and ends with a
truncated four-­measure subphrase that lacks a decisive cadence, and this
abridged phrase (4+4+4) slips into the second verse.11
I like to think of the ambiguities in these phrases through a queer lens.
The choruses draw on traditional ideas (waltz topic, sentence structure) to
validate (or possibly legitimize) Alison’s feelings for Joan, which are just
as authentic as those of other well-­k nown heterosexual lovers in musical
theater. However, Alison’s music also pushes back against these conven-
tions. I hear these waltz choruses as having moments of “slippage,” where
Alison borrows from traditional paradigms (waltz, sentence structure),
but also refuses to be contained by them.
But for me, the most remarkable aspects of this song involve moments
of “slippage” in the harmonic realm. On the surface, “Changing My Major”
seems more harmonically stable than “Ring of Keys”: dominant harmo-
nies appear frequently, and many phrases feature clear cadences and
conclusive ii–­V(7) –­I progressions (such as mm. 38–­4 1 and mm. 42–­45, to
give just two examples). However, the large-­scale structure of this song
is much more complex and unpredictable. “Changing My Major” features
several “pump up” modulations by ascending half step: over the course
of the song, Alison propels the music from A ♭ major, to A major, finally
ending triumphantly in B ♭ major. Walter Everett has described ascending
half-­step modulations as creating a sudden and “transcendent effect of
hyper-­arrival” (2008, 283). Part of the song’s powerful impact thus rests
on these unexpected shifts of key, which drive the music optimistically
higher and higher.
Examining the voice-­leading details in the passages that launch these
half-­step modulations provides some insight into why they sound so

the A ♭ verse in  into a  waltz chorus in A major. The verse could have
seamless, even slippery. As discussed above, the song abruptly shifts from

easily ended with a prolonged dominant in A ♭ that elides with the cho-
rus and plods along in the same key, as shown in the (extremely unsatis-
factory) hypothetical recomposition in example 9.5a. Instead, the closing
measures of the verse (mm. 24–­25, shown in example 9.5b) are peppered
with dissonant fourths, and the music suddenly, and quite literally, slips
upward by half step to the dominant of the new key, A major. Similar “slip-
pery” voice leading returns the music to A ♭ major for the second verse (see
example 9.5c). Now the bass slides up by half step (from E to F), and the
Example 9.5a. Hypothetical recomposition of the chorus, staying in A ♭ major.

Example 9.5b. Tesori’s (much more interesting) version of this passage, with
dissonant chords in mm. 24–­25 and sudden modulation to A major through
“slippery” voice leading.

Example 9.5c. More “slippery” voice leading returns the music to A ♭ major for the
second verse.
 228 / here for the hearing

other chord tones slither down by half step (D to D ♭ , A to A ♭). (The voice
descends by an augmented second, a dissonant interval typically avoided
in traditional voice leading, because it returns to the same E ♭ pitch Alison
sang in the previous verse so that the melodic material will remain the
same.) Just as the phrase structure slips between the expected and unex-
pected, so too does the slithery voice leading enact surprising shifts that
veer the music into new and unpredictable harmonic realms.
The passage that leads into the final chorus serves as an important musi-
cal moment in Alison’s character development. In mm. 112–­123, Alison
drives the music upwards by half step from A to B ♭ (the key in which the
song concludes) as she sings, “Am I falling into nothingness / Or flying into
something so sublime? / I don’t know, but I’m / Changing my major to Joan.”
The reference to “falling” and “flying” reflects one of the central themes of
the musical, which begins and ends with Alison playing a game of “air-
plane” with her father (Bruce) as he hoists her weightless above him.12 “Fall-
ing” and “flying” serve as obvious metaphors for Alison and Bruce’s differ-
ing views of their sexualities: she eventually embraces her lesbian identity,
but he remains closeted and dies when he walks in front of a delivery truck.
Notably, in his final song in the musical, Bruce sings the exact same pair of
lyrics about “falling” and “flying,” but with a much different outcome. The
musical differences between these two identical textual moments depict
the different character trajectories of Alison and Bruce.
Example 9.6 provides a summary of these two passages. With the
word “falling,” Alison’s music begins to shift from A major to B ♭ major:
the three sharps of the A-­major key signature are removed (G ♯ 4 and C ♯ 4
even “fall” to G4 and C4 in the accompaniment in mm. 112–­1 13), and the
phrase ends with a half-­diminished seventh chord on A (mm. 119–­20).
On a very deep structural level, the A-­major tonality of the previous cho-
rus and beginning of the bridge (mm. 70–­1 12) has shifted down to the A
half-­diminished chord that ends the passage. But this A half-­diminished
seventh chord, sustained over the word “I’m,” ultimately functions as a
pivot chord that heaves the music upward to B ♭ major. The subsequent lyr-
ics “(I’m) changing my major to Joan”—­marked fortissimo and “Definite,
sure (‘to the world!’)”—­appear with a definitive IV6 –­V 7–­I progression in
B ♭ major, the key in which the song concludes. (Measures 121–­1 22 even
stretch out the first part of the phrase to two expansive measures in  time,
instead of the brisk  waltz used for previous appearances of these lyrics.)
Other melodic details also give this passage a feeling of triumphant arrival.
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 229

Example 9.6a. “Changing My Major,” mm. 112–­123.

Example 9.6b. “Edges of the World,” mm. 87–­98.

Alison’s climactic C5 (“I’m”), sustained for two full measures (her longest
note in the song so far), is restated in m. 121, and precisely over the word
“changing,” it morphs into a 4–­3 suspension that resolves over IV6. I hear
this “I’m changing” moment as a sonic representation of Alison’s evolu-
tion: unlike her father, Alison decides to fully affirm her sexuality and
soars into her lesbian identity.
 230 / here for the hearing

The music Bruce sings to the same text, which appears in his unconven-
tional eleven o’clock number “Edges of the World,” differs from Alison’s
and reflects the very different arc of his character. Instead of joyful ascent,
Bruce’s music remains static, stuck—­and ultimately spirals down into des-
perate, frenetic anguish. Indeed, the expression markings after his ver-
sion of this passage are “agitato” (m. 95), “desperately grand” (m. 99), and
even “crazy” (m. 105). Bruce’s reference to Alison’s earlier lyrics appears
in mm. 87–­98. Instead of her celebratory resolution, Bruce despairs, “And
I’m falling into nothingness / Or flying into something so sublime / And
I’m a man I don’t know / Who am I now? Where do I go? / I can’t go back
/ I can’t find my way through.” Bruce’s melodic material in mm. 87–­91
(during their shared lyrics “I’m falling into nothingness / Or flying into
something so sublime / And I’m”) is virtually identical to Alison’s, except
that it is transposed down by half step (see Example 9.6b).13 But the path
that Bruce’s music takes is dramatically different from Alison’s. The bass
in mm. 87–­9 4 ascends stepwise through F ♭ , G ♭ , and A ♭ , a last-­ditch effort
at hope. Bruce’s phrase ends with the same half-­diminished chord Ali-
son sang (transposed down a half step), sustained for two measures over
the same word, “I’m.” But instead of the triumphant sense of arrival in
Alison’s song, Bruce’s music sinks despondently down. His vocal line col-
lapses into a dissonant descending tritone with the words “a man” (B ♭ to
F ♭ , mm. 94–­95). Instead of the optimistic half-­step pump-­up modulation
in Alison’s song (from A to B ♭), Bruce’s music—­like his character—­remains
paralyzed, stuck. In m. 95, the bass shifts down from A ♭ to G ♭ , and the six-­
flat key signature that first appeared at the beginning of this passage (m.
87) is retained. After four measures of trembling tremolo chords over the
same bass note, Bruce continues in G ♭ major in m. 99 (“I might still break
a heart or two”), but this passage ultimately shifts the music downward
yet again, to F major (m. 105ff.). Instead of “flying” triumphantly into his
sexuality, as his daughter Alison does, Bruce cannot fully come to grips
with who he is; his version of these same lyrics reflects his “falling” into
frustration, fear—­and eventually, death.

Conclusion

Wolf (2002) has described musicals as an “aggressively heteronormative

genre” (40), emphasizing that “celebration of heterosexuality is the raison
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 231

d’être of the musical . . . we hum heterosexuality on our way out the theater’s
doors” (30–­31). But twenty-­first century musicals have begun to depict a
wider range of sexualities and sexual relationships, and detailed analysis of
these characters—­and the music that they sing—­yields important insights
into artistic depictions of queerness. Alison’s journey into understanding
her own sexual identity is a turbulent one, tinged by her fraught relationship
with her father and his own sexuality. As Cvetkovich explains, “central to
Fun Home’s moral and political complexity is its willingness to engage with
sexual desire as a messy and unpredictable force” (2008, 118).
But Fun Home (both the musical and memoir) also offers a vision of
queer sexuality that reveals its potential power for shaping alternative his-
torical legacies. Cvetkovich argues that Bechdel “reminds us of other tem-
poralities and histories that pervade the national consciousness even as
they remain largely invisible within it” (2008, 123). Ultimately, Fun Home
shows the transformative things that can happen when a musical dares to
speak—­and sing—­lesbian sexuality. No mere childhood lark, Alison even-
tually transcends the metaphor of the “airplane” game she plays with her
father. By having the courage to embrace her sexuality, she is finally fly-
ing . . . soaring . . . free.

Notes
1. Wolf cites Rent, Spring Awakening, and Avenue Q as examples of musicals
that feature secondary gay characters who “effectively re-­center the straight
couple as the norm” (2011, 217). She also notes that most gay (and overtly “gay-­
seeming”) characters in musicals are men (2011, 212–­13).
2. Bechdel’s memoir has been discussed by a wide array of scholars; space
does not permit me to list all of these important sources. In addition to the work
cited throughout the essay, see especially Barounis 2016 and Gardiner 2018.
3. Bechdel explains how “disjunctures” and “slippages” between text and
image in the cartoons of Charles Adams inspired her own work: “What I found
out as I went along is that nothing matches up, that this slippage is everywhere.
Even when you try to tell the truth, you can’t because language itself has a slippery
relationship to reality (13:09–­2 2). . . . the space between the image and words was
a very powerful thing if you could figure out how to work with it” (16:10–­2 0).
4. The design of the musical also differs in some ways from the memoir. For
example, adult Alison is not a character in the memoir.
5. Throughout this essay, I refer to the butch character as a woman (and
use she/her pronouns) because that is how she is described in Bechdel’s memoir
(2006, 118). Similar gendering occurs in the musical. For example, in the dialogue
 232 / here for the hearing

that precedes “Ring of Keys,” Adult Alison says, “You didn’t notice her at first but
I saw her the moment she walked in. She was a delivery woman” (Kron 2015, 56).
6. This dialogue appears in Bechdel (2006, 96–­9 7), twenty pages before the
“bulldyke” panel sequence. In the musical, another lengthy argument between
Bruce and Small Alison about a dress and barrette unfolds in “Party Dress” (which
occurs earlier in the musical, just before “Changing My Major”).
7. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAuesRJm1E (accessed 1 July
2020).
8. For a detailed explanation of the various types of sentences (including
characteristic sentences and hybrid types), see Caplin (1998).
9. In her well-­k nown essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey
argues that “the image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze
of man” is taken a step further in film, since “cinema builds the way she is to be
looked at into the spectacle itself” ([1975] 2005, 301). She also describes a multilay-
ered process of “looking” that involves the relationships between the characters
within the film, the camera as it’s filming, and the audience “as it watches the final
product” (301).
10. Callahan uses “n” to denote “the musical duration of one basic idea” (2013,
[1.2]). A standard eight-­measure sentence of 2+2+4 measures would be designated
n+n+2n.
11. Some listeners may hear a half cadence at the end of this phrase because
of the strong 4–­5 bass motion in mm. 50–­53. However, the chord in mm. 52–­53
(shown in example 9.5c) is not a true dominant: it is a D-­major triad with E in the
bass. This chord could possibly function as an altered dominant, but it lacks the
chordal third (G ♯) and fifth (B). In addition, half cadences traditionally involve
dominant triads, not dominant sevenths (or ninths, or elevenths). The harmonic
implications of this moment will be discussed in more detail below.
12. Bechdel’s memoir also draws on metaphors of “falling” and “flying”: it
begins with a multipanel sequence where Alison and her father play “airplane,”
and concludes with Alison leaping off a swimming pool diving board into her
father’s arms. Bechdel’s memoir also emphasizes the “falling vs. flying” metaphor
through its numerous references to the well-­k nown myth of Icarus and Daedalus;
these passages are discussed in Freedman (2009, 131–­3 2 and 137–­38), Lemberg
(2008, 138–­39), Pearl (2008, 287–­88), and Rohy (2010, 357).
13. One could interpret a possible narrative significance in the choice of keys
for these two passages: perhaps the decision to write Bruce’s phrase a half-­step
lower than Alison’s is another subtle way of depicting his character’s downward
course. Of course, this could also be a total coincidence, a natural result of the
different keys in which the two songs start and the different keys that they move
through. But since Bruce’s song contains so many sudden and extreme changes
of key, Tesori could have easily set this melody in the same key as Alison’s. In any
case, the two passages are almost identical transpositions of one another, except
 Lesbian Desire in Fun Home / 233

that Bruce’s chord in mm. 89–­9 0 is in root position (Alison’s was in second inver-
sion), and his chord in mm. 91–­9 2 is a triad (Alison’s has an added seventh).

Works Cited
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Blue Eyes.” New York: Oxford University Press.
Freedman, Ariela. 2009. “Drawing on Modernism in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.”
Journal of Modern Literature 32 (4): 125–­40.
Gardiner, Judith Kegan, ed. 2018. Approaches to Teaching Bechdel’s Fun Home. New
York: Modern Language Association of America.
Green, Jesse. 2015. “So Beautiful, So Fine.” Liner notes for Fun Home Broadway Cast
Recording, pp. 3–­6. PS Classics (PS-­1529).
Halberstam, J. [1998] 2018. Female Masculinity. Twentieth anniversary edition with a
new preface. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Halberstam, J. 2005. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives.
New York: New York University Press.
Kron, Lisa. 2015. Fun Home (libretto). New York: Samuel French.
Kron, Lisa. 2016. “Foreword.” Fun Home: Vocal Selections. Music by Jeanine Tesori,
book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, vii–­viii. New York: Samuel French.
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Kron, Lisa, and Jeanine Tesori. 2016. Fun Home: Vocal Selections. New York: Samuel
French.
Lemberg, Jennifer. 2008. “Closing the Gap in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Women’s
Studies Quarterly 36 (1/2): 129–­40.
McBean, Sam. 2013. “Seeing in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Camera Obscura 84
(28/3): 102–­23.
Mulvey, Laura. [1975] 2005. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Reprinted in
Feminist Theory: A Reader, 2nd ed., edited by Wendy K. Kolmar and Frances Bart-
kowski: 296–­302. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Rohy, Valerie. 2010. “In the Queer Archive: Fun Home.” GLQ 16 (3): 341–­61.
Soloway, J. 2016. “J. Soloway on the Female Gaze.” TIFF Masterclass, September 11.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnBvppooD9I (accessed 5 June 2020).
Tony Awards. “Fun Home Performance Tony Awards 2015.” YouTube video, 3:59.
July 18, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAuesRJm1E
Vicinus, Martha. 2004. Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778–­1928. Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press.
Wolf, Stacy. 2002. A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Wolf, Stacy. 2011. “Gender and Sexuality.” In The Oxford Handbook of the American
Musical, edited by Raymond Knapp, Mitchell Morris, and Stacy Wolf, 210–­24.
New York: Oxford University Press.
10 The Hip-­Hop History
of Hamilton
Robert Komaniecki

Introduction

It would be difficult to overstate the influence of hip-­hop on American

culture over the past nearly five decades. The genre that began in 1973 at a
humble Bronx apartment party hosted by DJ Kool Herc has since exploded
into a nationwide—­and eventually, worldwide—­phenomenon. I would
even argue that hip-­hop exemplifies the great American success story,
with successful rappers casting themselves as what Kajikawa calls “the
embodiment of American enterprise” (Kajikawa 2018, 474). The giants of
American hip-­hop, such as Jay-­Z , the Notorious B.I.G., and Eminem, have
embraced an image of the underdog hustler, obtaining fame and wealth
through raw talent and sheer will.
Hip-­hop was thus an ideal medium for Lin-­Manuel Miranda’s depic-
tion of the “young, scrappy, and hungry” American revolutionary Alex-
ander Hamilton, who starts his life with little more than his wit and
tenacity, and achieves greatness before his death at the hands of Aaron
Burr. Hamilton’s characters often rap their lines in a rapid hip-­hop style,
creating substantially greater lyrical density than in any previous musical.
FiveThirtyEight’s Leah Libresco details just how fast-­paced the lyrics in
Hamilton really are, stating that the musical’s 20,520 words are delivered at

/ 235 /
 236 / here for the hearing

an average pace of 144 words per minute, a pace nearly twice as fast as that
of the next-­fastest musical, Spring Awakening (Libresco 2015).
In an interview, cast member Daveed Diggs confessed that he was sur-
prised when listening to demos during the show’s original casting. Diggs,
an accomplished hip-­hop artist well before his successful run in Hamilton,
was caught off guard to discover that, despite being written for a musical
set in the eighteenth century, the rapping is excellent (Binelli 2016). This
echoes the experience of hearing the flows in Hamilton for the first time
for many other rap music lovers, myself included. The show is a jarring
juxtaposition of Broadway choreography, acting, and singing with sur-
prisingly authentic hip-­hop deliveries. The rapping in Hamilton includes
many markers of rap flows by the genre’s canonic “greats”: inventive poly-
syllabic rhymes, rhythmic precision and variation, and purposeful use of
vocal pitch combine with a clearly articulated story in Hamilton, making
it clear that Miranda was no casual hip-­hop fan, but a serious proponent
of the genre. Miranda explicitly draws on his knowledge of hip-­hop, with
regular quotations of and references to a wide variety of rappers (Wick-
man 2018). Miranda said, “my thesis is that Hamilton is this hip-­hop story,
and he’s just that good, so the lyrics also have to be that good. So I’d labor
over every couplet. . . . It wasn’t enough to rhyme at the end of the line,
every line had to have musical theatre references, it had to have other hip-­
hop references, it had to do what my favorite rappers do, which is packing
lyrics with so much density, and so much intricate double entendre, and
alliteration, and onomatopoeia, and all the things that I love about lan-
guage” (Fessler 2018).
Hamilton may be unusual in its incorporation of hip-­hop, but it is cer-
tainly not the only “history musical.” Elissa Harbert places such musicals
on a spectrum between realism and fictionalization, noting that true his-
torical realism is a misnomer in a genre in which characters spontaneously
burst into song. Harbert points to Titanic and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as
examples of musicals that cover historical events but add fictionalized
characters or elements, contrasting these with period pieces, such as Cab-
aret and Miss Saigon, that are “set in the context of real events but make no
claims of historical accuracy” (Harbert 2018, 414). Herbert Lindenberger
discusses the contradiction inherent in historical drama, stating that “the
very term ‘historical drama’ suggests the nature of this engagement, with
the first word qualifying the fictiveness of the second, the second ques-
tioning the reality of the first” (1975, x). Nonetheless, Hamilton eagerly
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 237

flaunts its historical credentials, quoting real writings and aspects of

real events that would normally be relegated to historical trivia (such as
whether Hamilton wore glasses in his final duel). In its sporadic inclusion
of historical detail, Hamilton creates a theatrical space in which characters
and stories of the American Revolution are seemingly reconciled with
modern-­day musical aesthetics and politics.
In this chapter, I delve into the various ways the music of Hamilton is
shaped by the historical events and characters being portrayed. I focus
specifically on the characters’ delivery of lyrics, or “flow.” In the analyses
that follow, I will demonstrate that while Hamilton is first and foremost a
Broadway musical, it is tied intimately to the musical idioms of rap flow,
which Miranda uses to achieve specific dramatic goals in telling his story
and realizing historical narratives.1 As discussed in Komaniecki (2019),
traditional English-­language rap flows are inflected by three parame-
ters: rhythm, rhyme, and vocal pitch. What follows is a description of
how Miranda and the performers of Hamilton manipulate two of these
parameters—­rhythm and rhyme—­to create a unique work of theater that
blends the idioms of both hip-­hop and Broadway musicals to convey real
historical events and characters.

Rhythm and Meter

Rap music typically sidelines harmony and melody to a great extent, argu-
ably making rhythm hip-­hop’s defining musical feature. Indeed, rhythm
is sometimes the only thing preventing us from hearing rapping as simply
amusical speech. As Condit-­Schultz (2016) says, “rap is made musical, as
opposed to poetic, by its rhythm.” Miranda’s rhythmic settings of lyrics in
Hamilton demonstrate a knowledge of how this parameter can shape an
audience’s perception of a character’s fluency and confidence.
One of numerous examples of rhythm as drama in Hamilton appears in
the early number “Aaron Burr, Sir.” After an exchange between main char-
acters Hamilton and Burr, the audience is introduced to secondary char-
acters John Laurens, Marquis de Lafayette, and Hercules Mulligan. Com-
pared to the relatively refined dialogue between Hamilton and Burr, these
secondary characters get a bawdy introduction, beginning with the cry of
“What time is it? Showtime!” often used by modern-­day street perform-
ers in the New York City subway system, and shouting their lines while
 238 / here for the hearing

swinging pints of ale. That these characters are less refined is conveyed
rhythmically as well: John Laurens raps in a distinctly old-­school flow as
he delivers his lines “I’m John Laurens in the place to be / Two pints of Sam
Adams, but I’m workin’ on three!”
The musical factors that contribute to the old-­school aesthetic of these
lines include metrically strong beats that are consistently emphasized,
eighth notes are swung, syncopation is minimal, and a limited range of
rhythmic durations is used.2 Compared to much of Hamilton, the rhym-
ing is also quite basic, with a simple quatrain, monosyllabic rhymes, and
rhymed syllables generally falling in the same metric locations. Miranda
acknowledges this explicitly old-­school flow in interviews, calling it a
“love letter to old school hip-­hop” (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 25). In
an interview, Miranda has called Laurens’s style “super-­beginner,” writ-
ten that way in order to contrast the character Hamilton, who uses “six
rhymes on a line, it’s insane polysyllabic internal assonance. He needs
to be like from the future” (Rose 2016). Later in this chapter, we see the
extent to which Miranda conveys this distinction.
Immediately following Laurens’s lines, the audience is introduced to
Lafayette, whose dramatic portrayal is inextricably tied to rhythm. At this
early point in the show, Lafayette is presented comically, struggling with
heavily accented English and frequently interjecting French phrases, as he
delivers his first couplets, beginning with his self-­introduction en français,
“Oui oui, mon ami, je m’appelle Lafayette!” and ending with the polyglot brag,
“Tell the King ‘Casse toi!’ Who’s the best? C’est moi!” Lafayette’s lines are
delivered in the same rhythmic style as those of John Laurens: laid-­back,
swung eighth notes, emphasis on strong beats, and with little rhythmic
diversity or syncopation. This rhythmic character, when combined with
Lafayette’s teasing lyrics and over-­t he-­top, Pepé Le Pew accent, contrib-
utes to the audience’s perception of the Frenchmen as more comedic than
threatening.
Historically informed audiences of Hamilton may have been surprised
to hear such a comedic interpretation of the historical figure of Gilbert du
Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. Indeed, as Le Héros des Deux Mondes (The
Hero of the Two Worlds), Lafayette is known for his tactical brilliance
and relentless devotion to not only the American Revolutionary War, but
the French Revolution of 1789. Born in 1757 to a distinguished family in
Auvergne, Lafayette sympathized with the American cause from a young
age. He sailed to the American colonies, learning English en route, and
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 239

was commissioned to serve as a major general in 1777, at the age of twenty.

Lafayette’s accomplishments in battle were numerous, and he displayed
both tenacity (by quickly recovering from a gunshot wound to the leg)
and cleverness (by tricking British troops into believing they were out-
numbered by ordering them to appear at strategic locations and fire on the
redcoats).
Later in act 1, in one of Lafayette’s final appearances onstage, his char-
acter’s evolution is demonstrated musically. In “Guns and Ships,” Lafay-
ette has grown from a young upstart to a bona fide commander, diplomat,
and insurgent. Historically speaking, at this point Lafayette has returned
from a brief trip back home to France, during which he has conscripted
additional military support, supplies, and personnel. Miranda demon-
strates the character’s prowess and aggression in an extremely efficient
fashion by writing him the fastest couplet in Broadway history (Libresco
2015). This narrative decision is made explicit by Miranda in Hamilton:
The Revolution, a collection of lyrics, essays, and reminiscences about the
show’s creation:

The speed at which Lafayette rhymes here was always meant to be a punch-
line: Here’s Lafayette, the Frenchman, who struggles with the word anar-
chy in “My Shot,” and he’s a speed demon. It’s also meant to demonstrate
how Lafayette flourished once he was put in command. He goes from
being one of Hamilton’s friends to a rap god/military superhero. Doesn’t
hurt that [actor] Daveed [Diggs] is one of the most technically gifted rap-
pers I’ve ever met, so I knew I could build him tapestries. (Miranda and
McCarter 2016, 118.)

Consider the first four measures from “Guns and Ships,” which shows the
degree to which Lafayette’s rapping has matured rhythmically. This excerpt
begins with the line “Lafayette, I’m takin’ this horse by the reins, makin’
redcoats redder with blood stains” and ends with “Lafayette, I go to France
for more funds. Lafayette, I come back with more guns.” Lafayette’s name is
called out by the full company and the rest of the lyrics are recited by Lafay-
ette himself. Speed aside, there is a greater diversity of rhythmic values, with
rhymes being placed in less predictable locations, as well as more fluent,
multisyllabic rhyming with none of Lafayette’s native French.3 As Miranda
mentions in the quote above, original Lafayette actor Daveed Diggs is an
exceptionally proficient rapper, and his performances with his avant-­garde
 240 / here for the hearing

Example 10.1. The evolution of Lafayette’s character is demonstrated rhythmically

in “Guns and Ships.”

hip-­hop group clipping often features blinding speed and even complex
asymmetrical meters. See example 10.1 for a sample of Lafayette’s rhythms.
Rhythm, rhyme, and vocal emphasis interact to add a tricky bit of
syncopation in Lafayette’s moment in the spotlight. In m. 3 of the above
transcription, there is scarcely a wasted syllable, as Miranda crams three
instances of a four-­syllable rhyme in a single measure.4 Performer Daveed
Diggs emphasizes the second syllable of each four-­syllable grouping, each
of which occurs in a slightly different metrical position. It’s as if Miranda is
taking a measure to impress upon the audience that not only can Lafayette
rap quickly, he can handle complex rhythmic dissonance with ease.
In addition to rhythm, it seems clear that Miranda also considered
meter (at least occasionally) when shaping narratives. Unsurprisingly,
duple/quadruple meters reign supreme in Hamilton, as is true for most
contemporary musicals and most rap music. However, at a crucial moment
in the narrative of the musical’s first act, this tacit metrical expectation is
subverted.
“Meet Me Inside” occurs immediately following a duel between Lieu-
tenant Colonel John Laurens and Major General Charles Lee. Alexander
Hamilton served as second for Laurens in this duel, which took place in
1778. According to Hamilton’s own description, Laurens insisted on the
duel after Lee cast aspersions on George Washington. Accounts of the cir-
cumstances surrounding the duel are marred by uncertainty, due in part to
Lee’s later denial that he had said anything overtly offensive about George
Washington, and that doing so would be “incompatible with the character
he would ever wish to sustain as a Gentleman” (Syrett 1961, 602–­4). The
duel itself was a bit of a mess, even by duel standards. Laurens shot Lee
in the side; Lee exclaimed that he was injured, and then later seemed to
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 241

Example 10.2. The off-­kilter nature of the septuple meter at the beginning of
“Meet Me Inside” underscores the chaotic nature of the scene.

retract this declaration by suggesting that the two fire a second time. John
Laurens, who had walked forward to assist Lee after shooting him, was
nevertheless amenable to the idea of shooting him a second time, but both
duelers were persuaded to end the affair by their seconds, Colonel Alexan-
der Hamilton and Major Evan Edwards.
Unsurprisingly, many of the details of the duel between Laurens and
Lee are lost in the musical staging, but Miranda still musically portrays

music shifts to  for the first and only time in the show, marking for the
much of the confusion and panic of the moment. Following the shot, the

audience how discombobulated the characters onstage must feel. See

example 10.2.
Miranda himself has commented on this moment, remarking that it is
hard to sustain and “feels chaotic, [and] messy.” (Miranda and McCarter
2016, 104.) While asymmetrical meters could be considered “marked” in
nearly any genre of music, they are especially so in hip-­hop, a genre that
is nearly always irremovable from dancing, clapping, and characteristic
snare hits on the second and fourth beats of a given bar in duple meter.
Oskar Eustis, artistic director for the Public Theater, where Hamilton pre-
miered, compared Miranda to Shakespeare in the way that “he takes the
language of the people, and heightens it by making it verse. It both enno-
bles the language, and the people saying the language.” The jagged meter
underscoring the lyrics at the beginning of “Meet Me Inside” undermines
the so-­called “language of the people,” underscoring the chaos and uncer-
tainty central to the musical’s plot at this point.
 242 / here for the hearing

Rhyme

Miranda frequently turns to rhyme when musically portraying the title

character of Hamilton as an intellectual, virtuoso, and a force to be reck-
oned with. More specifically, as I demonstrate in this section, Miranda’s
writing for the character Alexander Hamilton involves especially gener-
ous use of internal rhymes, and a lyrical texture that is densely scattered
with rhyme syllables. Miranda talks often of rhyme in his interviews and
writings, and cites many examples from hip-­hop and musical theater that
he considers to be inspirations. One can learn quite a lot about the type of
writing Miranda aspires to from a rhyme-­dense couplet cited by Miranda
as one of his favorites from Puerto Rican rapper Big Pun:

Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know

That we riddled some middlemen who didn’t do diddly.5

In Hamilton: The Revolution, Miranda discusses this specific couplet as a

moment of bonding between him and director Tommy Kail back in 2002,
when the two were laying the groundwork for Miranda’s earlier musical
In the Heights (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 22). The density of rhymes in
this couplet speaks to the type of writing that Miranda views as virtuosic—­
scarcely a syllable is used that doesn’t have multiple rhymes elsewhere in
the couplet.
Another rhyme that Miranda considers a favorite comes from the 1960
musical Bye Bye Birdie, which he mentions on his Twitter account (@Lin_
Manuel, October 2, 2018):

Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy, it’s not your style.
You’ll look so good that you’ll be glad ya decided to smile.6

This couplet contains an inventive internal rhyme, another technique

that Miranda highly prizes in his own writing. These examples from dis-
parate sources can help us to understand Miranda’s lyrical inspirations in
Hamilton.
While Hamilton contains instances of history stated rather plainly and
accurately, Miranda also faced the challenge of conveying complex histor-
ical attitudes, personalities, debates, and events in a matter of minutes.7
With respect to the character of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda often turns
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 243

specifically to rhyme when endeavoring to succinctly convey a character

who was ambitious, contentious, brave, confident, and a virtuoso with
the written word. The number “My Shot” contains some of Hamilton’s
extended rap soliloquies, each a depiction of the show’s protagonist as the
finest lyricist onstage: someone who effortlessly strings together multi-
syllabic rhymes and internal assonance, all while furthering the plot. The
lyric transcription below demonstrates the extent of Miranda’s rhyming
in this section.

Scratch that, this is not a moment, it’s the movement

Where all the hungriest brothers with something to prove went.
Foes oppose us, we take an honest stand,
We roll like Moses, claimin’ our promised land.
And? If we win our independence?
’Zat a guarantee of freedom for our descendants?
Or will the blood we shed begin an endless
Cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?
I know the action in the street is excitin’ but Jesus,
Between all the bleedin’ and fightin’ I’ve been readin’ and writin’
We need to handle our financial situation
Are we a nation of states? What’s the state of our nation?
I’m past patiently waiting I’m passionately smashin’
Every expectation, every action’s an act of creation
I’m laughin’ in the face of casualties and sorrow,
For the first time I’m thinking past tomorrow.

While rhymed couplets and quatrains remain supreme in the tran-

scribed section of “My Shot,” this is one of the only “basic” features of
Hamilton’s verse. There is not a single monosyllabic rhyme in the entire
section that is not a fragment of a larger rhyme chain—­instead, Miranda
pieces together series of multisyllabic rhymes and word combinations—­
sometimes chaining together rhymes that are as long as five syllables, such
as “streets is exciting,” “bleeding and fighting,” and “reading and writing.”
The following couplet offers another example of the dense writing in this
section.

Foes oppose us, we take an honest stand,

We roll like Moses, claimin’ our promised land.
 244 / here for the hearing

Miranda’s writing here is much more complex than rhyming the final sylla-
ble of each line, as we saw in the old school–­style rapping of John Laurens
in “Aaron Burr, Sir.” While there is indeed an end rhyme in “stand/land,” on
closer inspection, one can see that nearly the entirety of both lines rhyme
with one another:

“Foes oppose us”/“roll like Moses,”

“take an”/“claimin’,” and
“honest stand”/“promised land.”

Finally, Miranda allows the rhyme scheme to spill into the following mea-
sure with the lyric “and,” creating a moment of poetic enjambment that he
specifically points out in Hamilton: The Revolution, once again citing rapper
Big Pun as his inspiration. “Continuing the rhyme at the top of the next
line—­this is what Big Pun does so well. It knits all his rhymes together. I play
with it a lot in this show, and this is my favorite one” (Miranda and McCarter
2016, 29).
Two important expository scenes in Hamilton’s second act come in
the form of cabinet debates, presented as rap battles. Each of these scenes
is dramatized in such a way as to convey a rap “cypher,” or gathering, in
which emcees occasionally square off against one another in battles of lyr-
ical prowess. In both “Cabinet Battle #1” and “Cabinet Battle #2,” Hamil-
ton faces an antagonistic Thomas Jefferson, portrayed in the original cast
recording by Daveed Diggs, the same artist who assumed the role of the
swashbuckling Lafayette in the show’s first act. (Lafayette does not appear
in act 2 and Jefferson does not appear in act 1.)
These scenes are not only dense in historical and dramatic exposition,
but also in musical information about each of the characters. Through the
use of rhyme, Miranda weaves together scenes that successfully portray
Jefferson as the “man of the people” that he was, while also honoring the
intellectual capabilities of his rival, Hamilton (Miranda and McCarter
2016, 161). Below is the first volley by Jefferson in “Cabinet Battle #1”—­a
deluge of pointed barbs and sympathetic debate points regarding his
disapproval of Hamilton’s proposal to assume all state debts and form a
national bank (all rhymed syllables are italicized).

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,

We fought for these ideals; we shouldn’t settle for less.
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 245

These are wise words, enterprising men quote ’em.

Don’t act surprised, you guys, cuz I wrote ’em.
But Hamilton forgets
His plan would have the government assume states’ debts.
Now place your bets as to who that benefits,
The very seat of government where Hamilton sits.

The above excerpt from Jefferson’s rapping demonstrates several things,

namely the ability of the character to endear himself to those watching (“we
fought for these ideals”) and his tactic of presenting his argument plainly.
The uncomplicated nature of his argument is reflected in the construction
of the flow, which is not densely packed with multisyllabic rhymes. Instead,
the majority of rhymes in Jefferson’s argument are single-­syllable rhymes
that arrive predictably at the end of a line, with very little internal rhyme.
Miranda made a purposeful decision to contrast Hamilton’s rhyming
strategy with Jefferson’s. In Hamilton: The Revolution, Miranda states that
he wanted to portray Hamilton as a cold and efficient lyrical assassin, say-
ing “he rhymes the craziest when he is backed into a corner” (Miranda
and McCarter 2016, 162). The excerpt from Hamilton’s retort below (again
with rhymes italicized) demonstrates this—­the lyrics are riddled with
multisyllabic, partial, and internal rhymes. This serves two purposes: to
show that Hamilton is Jefferson’s intellectual superior, but also to demon-
strate Hamilton’s difficulty in endearing himself to his audience and por-
traying his arguments in an accessible manner.

And another thing, Mr. Age of Enlightenment,

Don’t lecture me about the war, you didn’t fight in it.
You think I’m frightened of you, man? We almost died in a trench,
While you were off getting high with the French.
Thomas Jefferson, always hesitant with the President
Reticent—­t here isn’t a plan he doesn’t jettison.
Madison, you’re as mad as a hatter, son, take your medicine.
Damn, you’re in worse shape than the national debt is in.
Sittin’ there useless as two shits,
Hey, turn around, bend over, I’ll show you where my shoe fits.

Perhaps the best musical representation of Alexander Hamilton’s tireless

nature and tendency to use prose to overwhelm his enemies comes in
 246 / here for the hearing

“Farmer Refuted,” the sixth song in Hamilton’s act 1. This moment, like many
in the musical, is an over-­the-­top dramatization of a real interaction—­in this
case, of Hamilton’s refutation of Bishop Samuel Seabury, a farmer.
The real history behind “Farmer Refuted” begins with Seabury writing
an open letter to New York farmers, under the pen name “A. W. Farmer”
(“A Westchester Farmer”).8 Seabury’s letter was a plea for stability and
compliance with British rule. Apparently distressed by a recent Congres-
sional agreement to halt trading of key goods with Great Britain and some
of her colonies, Seabury’s quarrel can be summarized in his own words:

The manufacturers of Great-­Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland, and of the

West-­Indies, have done us no injury. They have been no ways instrumen-
tal in bringing our distresses upon us. Shall we then revenge ourselves
upon them? Shall we endeavour to starve them into a compliance with our
humours? Shall we, without any provocation, tempt or force them into
riots and insurrections which must be attended with the ruin of many—­
probably with the death of some of them? Shall we attempt to unsettle the
whole British Government—­to throw all into confusion, because our self-­
will is not complied with? Because the ill-­projected, ill-­conducted, abom-
inable scheme of some of the colonists, to form a republican government
independent of Great-­Britain, cannot otherwise succeed?—­Good God! can
we look forward to the ruin, destruction, and desolation of the whole Brit-
ish Empire, without one relenting thought? Can we contemplate it with
pleasure; and promote it with all our might and vigour, and at the same
time call ourselves his Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects? Whatever
the Gentlemen of the Congress may think of the matter, the spirit that
dictated such a measure, was not the spirit of humanity. (Seabury 1774)

In total, Seabury’s complaint was around 9,000 words in length. This made
Hamilton’s response all the more noteworthy: a whopping 31,000-­word
essay abbreviated simply as “The Farmer Refuted,” published in February of
1775. To say that Hamilton spoke forcefully is an understatement. His open-
ing paragraphs speak for themselves:

Sir,
I resume my pen, in reply to the curious epistle, you have been pleased
to favour me with; and can assure you, that, notwithstanding, I am natu-
rally of a grave and phlegmatic disposition, it has been the source of abun-
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 247

dant merriment to me. The spirit that breathes throughout is so rancor-

ous, illiberal and imperious: The argumentative part of it so puerile and
fallacious: The misrepresentations of facts so palpable and flagrant: The
criticisms so illiterate, trifling and absurd: The conceits so low, sterile and
splenetic, that I will venture to pronounce it one of the most ludicrous per-
formances, which has been exhibited to public view, during all the present
controversy.
You have not even imposed the laborious task of pursuing you through
a labyrinth of subtilty. You have not had ability sufficient, however violent
your efforts, to try the depths of sophistry; but have barely skimmed along
its surface. I should, almost, deem the animadversions, I am going to make,
unnecessary, were it not, that, without them, you might exult in a fancied
victory, and arrogate to yourself imaginary trophies. (Hamilton 1775)

Hamilton goes on to exhaustively refute each of Seabury’s points in turn

in paragraph after overwhelming paragraph. While the written exchange is
remarkable, a protracted debate over the merits of exporting certain crops is
not exactly tailor-­made for the stage. One can imagine, then, that Miranda
approached his depiction of this exchange in Hamilton with the principal
goals of depicting the exchange quickly, clearly, and in an entertaining man-
ner. In figure 10.1, we can see the extraordinary steps taken by Miranda in
setting the lyrics of this scene to convey the character Hamilton’s prowess
with a pen.
The scene is set as a disjunct duet, in which Seabury croons his lyrics
in a posh British accent over a heavily embellished harpsichord accompa-
niment in a style and meter ( ) clearly meant to invoke an eighteenth-­
century dance. Contrasting the farmer’s sung delivery, Hamilton raps
nearly all his lyrics, delivering them in Lin-­Manuel Miranda’s native New
York accent after being urged to “tear this dude apart” by Hercules Mul-
ligan. The rhymes in either vocal part alone might seem relatively unim-
pressive, at least compared to other excerpts from the show. However,
“Farmer Refuted” features extraordinary interplay between Hamilton and
Seabury, which often includes simultaneous rhymes rather than normally
spaced couplets or quatrains.
In the first measure of the section diagrammed in figure 10.1, the
character Hamilton begins speaking over Seabury by rhyming (via homo-
phone) the word “he’d” with Seabury’s “heed,” delivered at the same time.
Doubling Seabury’s pace, Hamilton rushes forward to do this once more
 248 / here for the hearing

Figure 10.1. This table shows lyrics excerpted from “Farmer Refuted.” Each column
shows a series of words delivered on the downbeat of subsequent measures,
simultaneously by the characters of Hamilton and Seabury as they argue with
each other. Bolded lyrics indicate words that rhyme, either via conventional vowel
rhyming, homonym, or simply being the same word.

in the same measure, rhyming “(un)ravel” with Seabury’s “rabble.” In this

short dialogue, Hamilton achieves this effect numerous times—­sometimes
using the same word (e.g., “scream[s]” and “revolution” in m. 2), but also
occasionally using different lyrics that match Seabury’s vowel sounds.
These simultaneous, approximate vowel rhymes occur between “haunt/
not” (m. 6), “(sol)ution” and “you should(n’t)” (m. 6), and “strange(ly)”
and “game” (m. 12). Miranda’s musical setting of the exchange between
Seabury and Hamilton conveys the nature of the historical event on which
it is based—­Hamilton refutes each of Seabury’s points in turn, inserts
arguments of his own, and manages to insert several personal insults as
well.
Hamilton: The Revolution acknowledges previous hip-­hop artists for
the inspiration behind musical technique of vowel matching in “Farmer
Refuted.”
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 249

Lin had been listening to an ingenious tribute that Joell Ortiz had recorded
for the greatest Puerto Rican MC, Big Pun. Ortiz had kept all of the rhym-
ing syllables from a classic Pun song, but he incorporated them into new
lyrics that paid homage to the late rapper. “It was a weirdly casually bril-
liant way of doing a tribute,” Lin says. In “Farmer Refuted,” Lin weapon-
ized the idea . . . (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 47)

There is perhaps no better microcosm of the concept of Hamilton than

the confluence of inspirations and techniques used in “Farmer Refuted.”
Harbert states that in this scene, “Hamilton’s driving interjections disrupt
the simple galant-­sounding music and bring the quasi-­eighteenth-­century
minuet into an unmistakably twenty-­ first-­
century idiom, a musical
demonstration of Hamilton’s forward-­t hinking brilliance” (Harbert 2018,
424). Miranda draws inspiration from hip-­hop in order to stage a dramatic
scene based on real historical events—­all while using specific rapping
techniques to convey the relationships of the characters onstage.

Conclusion

When considering how characters in musicals are portrayed onstage, some

of the first things we think of are their lines, movements, costumes, props,
and most vitally, their song lyrics. However, Hamilton, with its lyrically
dense hip-­hop delivery, invites analysts to consider more. As I have shown
in this chapter, the very construction and delivery of rhythmic lyrics—­or
more simply, the flow—­of vocal performances in Miranda’s megahit musi-
cal point toward characters’ motivations, talents, flaws, and personality
traits. Ancillary characters demonstrate their uncomplicated involvement
in the show’s plot through simple, old-­school rap flows. Thomas Jefferson
often delivers his lyrics in an accessible, charismatic flow, endearing him-
self to his audiences. Lafayette’s rapping increases in rhythmic sophisti-
cation over time as he grows increasingly confident in his station. Finally,
the title character of Hamilton demonstrates his remarkable intellectual
prowess through rapped verses that are a notch above those of his cast-
mates in terms of rhythm, rhyme density, and rhyme complexity.
Hamilton belongs to a long line of history musicals that depict and
dramatize past events. What sets it apart is its reliance on idioms and
 250 / here for the hearing

techniques taken directly from hip-­hop. In setting his interpretation of

Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton (2004) to rap, Lin-­Manuel
Miranda invites audiences to engage with distant history using a medium
that is immediately present and heard everywhere. Hamilton takes a his-
torical narrative driven by the activities of white men in the eighteenth
century and allows it to be told using nonwhite performers and musical
idioms that are more representative of America at the time of the musi-
cal’s composition in 2015. Through the compositional choices made by
Miranda in writing each character’s rap flows, he shows that this contem-
porary genre is not just a novelty, but a cultural and musical force that can
be used to realign our perception of historical events, allowing past and
present to share the stage.

Notes
1. Conspicuously absent from this chapter are extended discussions of the
racial, political, and cultural dynamics of Hamilton. These discussions are omitted
not only due to space, but because several more-­qualified voices have raised such
issues elsewhere. Lyra D. Monteiro’s 2016 review essay details much of what is
racially problematic with the show, including the fact that actual Black and Indig-
enous characters from the late eighteenth century are absent, and that Hamilton’s
diversity comes from BIPOC actors playing white characters. Philip Gentry wrote
one of the early musicological treatments of Hamilton in 2017, considering issues of
race, gender, and sexuality. Elissa Harbert (2018) writes about the ways in which
Hamilton can be contextualized in the lineage of history musicals, and treads the
line between “historical credibility and fictionalization.” Justin Williams (2018)
frames the musical and ensuing Hamilton Mixtape in the broader context of immi-
gration discourse. Donatella Galella (2018) writes of the kind of “national neolib-
eral multicultural inclusion” in Hamilton that has contributed to the musical being
lauded by not only the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but also Dick
Cheney and Mike Pence. I highly recommend that readers of this chapter seek out
these sources to better understand the remarkable, problematic, and potentially
confusing dynamics that have contributed to Hamilton’s creation and reception.
2. For all references to the rhythm and full text of songs from Hamilton, please
see the vocal selections score (2016). The publisher, Alfred Music, demanded pro-
hibitive fees to print the examples in this volume.
3. Miranda notes that the decision to use triplets later in this verse (not
shown) was suggested by actor Daveed Diggs himself (Miranda and McCarter
2016, 118).
4. Rhyme is a surprisingly subjective parameter of music. My designation of
this series of rhymes as four-­syllable rhymes is thus a subjective one, and a sound
 The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton / 251

argument could be made for the exclusion of the final two syllables (“-­in’ ’em”) in
each rhymed group due to repetition.
5. This couplet is from “Twinz” by Big Pun (1998).
6. The referenced number is “Put on a Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie, by
Charles Strouse and Lee Adams.
7. For an example of plainly and mostly accurately stated history in Hamil-
ton, consider Burr’s monologue on The Federalist Papers in “Non-­Stop”: “Alexander
joins forces with James Madison and John Jay to write a series of essays defending
the new United States Constitution, entitled The Federalist Papers. The plan was
to write a total of twenty-­five essays, the work divided evenly among the three
men. In the end, they wrote eighty-­five essays, in the span of six months. John Jay
got sick after writing five. James Madison wrote twenty-­nine. Hamilton wrote the
other fifty-­one!”
8. Seabury’s letter has a characteristically protracted eighteenth-­century
title, but is typically abbreviated as “Free Thoughts, on the Proceedings of the
Congress at Philadelphia, &c.”

Works Cited
Binelli, Mark. 2016. “‘Hamilton’ Creator Lin-­Manuel Miranda: The Rolling Stone
Interview.” Rolling Stone (June 1). https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/cultu​
re-news/hamilton-creator-lin-manuel-miranda-the-rolling-stone-interview-42​
607/
Chernow, Ron. 2004. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Press.
Condit-­Schultz, Nathaniel. 2016. “MCFlow: A Digital Corpus of Rap Transcrip-
tions.” Empirical Musicology Review 11 (2): 124–­47.
Fessler, Leah. 2018. “A Tweet Lin-­Manuel Miranda Wrote in 2009 Shows the Strug-
gle Behind His Genius.” Quartz (November 18). https://qz.com/work/1467163/ha​
milton-creator-lin-manuel-miranda-shared-the-struggle-behind-his-genius/
Galella, Donatella. 2018. “Being in ‘The Room Where It Happens’: Hamilton, Obama,
and Nationalist Neoliberal Multicultural Inclusion.” Theatre Survey 59 (3): 363–­
85.
Gentry, Philip. 2017. “Hamilton’s Ghosts.” American Music 35 (2): 271–­80.
Hamilton, Alexander. 1775. “The Farmer Refuted: Or, A More Impartial and Com-
prehensive View of the Dispute between Great-­ Britain and the Colonies,
Intended as a Further Vindication of the Congress: In Answer to a Letter from
A. W. Farmer, Intitled A View of the Controversy between Great-­Britain and Her
Colonies: Including, a Mode of Determining the Present Disputes Finally and
Effectually, &c.” New York: James Rivington. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32​
435018260331
Harbert, Elissa. 2018. “Hamilton and History Musicals.” American Music 36 (4): 412–­
28.
 252 / here for the hearing

Kajikawa, Loren. 2018. “‘Young, Scrappy, and Hungry’: Hamilton, Hip Hop, and
Race.” American Music 36 (4): 467–­86.
Komaniecki, Robert. 2019. “Analyzing the Parameters of Flow in Rap Music.” PhD
diss., Indiana University.
Libresco, Leah. 2015. “‘Hamilton’ Would Last 4 to 6 Hours If It Were Sung at the Pace
of Other Broadway Shows.” FiveThirtyEight, October 5, 2015. https://fivethirtyeig​
ht.com/features/hamilton-is-the-very-model-of-a-modern-fast-paced-musical/
Lindenberger, Herbert. 1975. Historical Drama: The Relation of Literature and Reality.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Miranda, Lin Manuel, and Jeremy McCarter. 2016. Hamilton: The Revolution. New
York: Grand Central Publishing.
Monteiro, Lyra D. 2016. “Review Essay: Race-­Conscious Casting and the Erasure of
the Black Past in Lin-­Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.” Public Historian 38 (1): 89–­98.
https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2016.38.1.89
Rose, Pete. 2016. “Hamilton.” 60 Minutes. Aired June 12, 2016, on CBS. https://www​
.cbsnews.com/news/hamilton-encore-60-minutes-charlie-rose/
Seabury, Samuel. [1774] 1775. “Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental
Congress, Held at Philadelphia, Sept. 5, 1774 Wherein Their Errors Are Exhibited,
Their Reasonings Confuted, and the Fatal Tendency of Their Non-­Importation,
Non-­Exportation, and Non-­Consumption Measures, Are Laid Open to the
Plainest Understandings; and the Only Means Pointed out for Preserving and
Securing Our Present Happy Constitution: In a Letter to the Farmers, and Other
Inhabitants of North America in General, and to Those of the Province of New-­
York in Particular.” London: reprinted for Richardson and Urquhart. http://hdl​
.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t1ng5785k
Syrett, Harold C., ed. 1961. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Vol. 1, 1768–­1778. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Wickman, Forrest. 2018. “All the Hip-­Hop References in Hamilton: A Track-­by-­Track
Guide.” Slate, September 24, 2015. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015​
/09/24/hamilton_s_hip_hop_references_all_the_rap_and_r_b_allusions_in_lin​
_manuel.html
Williams, Justin A. 2018. “‘We Get the Job Done’: Immigrant Discourse and Mixtape
Authenticity in The Hamilton Mixtape.” American Music 36 (4): 487–­506.
11 “Isn’t It Queer?”
The Kinsey Sicks and the
Art of Broadway Parody

J. Daniel Jenkins

Introduction

The Kinsey Sicks, four men who perform in drag, self-­styled as “Ameri-
ca’s Favorite Dragapella Beauty Shop Quartet®,” have been harmonizing
together and making queer art for over twenty-­five years.1 The formation
of the group dates to 1993 when five friends dressed in drag to attend a
Bette Midler concert in San Francisco. When implored by other concert
goers to sing them something, the men laughed it off, but later that eve-
ning, after the concert, they found that in fact they could sing. From this
group of five, a quartet was formed, and they began performing as an a
cappella group in 1994. In their countless performances around the world,
on their multiple albums, and in their concert films, the Kinseys perform
both original compositions and parodies of everything from light opera
to jazz standards to Top 40 pop from a variety of eras. Parodies of songs
written for or adapted to the musical theater stage make up no small part
of their output.

/ 253 /
 254 / here for the hearing

In this chapter, I lay out the hallmarks of the Kinseys’ typical parody
practice. I adopt methodologies from Kurt Mosser (2008), Lawrence Zbi-
kowski (2002), and Linda Hutcheon (1985) to create an analytical frame-
work for discussing particular examples. After applying the framework to
a couple of Kinsey Broadway parodies to demonstrate its utility, I provide
a close reading of “Send in the Clones,” the Kinseys’ parody of Stephen
Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music (1973)—­one of
very few examples in which the Kinseys completely reimagine the musical
components of a song in their parody process. This analysis will show that
by diverging from their typical process and changing musical parameters
usually associated with the number, the Kinseys create distance from the
original in multiple ways, turning their parody into a satire and simulta-
neously evoking a musical-­performance style and era that bolsters and
shades their critique.

Kinsey Parody Practice

Many reviewers have commented on the Kinseys’ ability to write “dead-­on

song parodies” (Lamble 2007), “right on the money, striking a balance
between humor and homage” (Shapiro 2003, 24). To achieve this effect,
the Kinseys rely quite explicitly on a listener’s familiarity with the original
song being parodied. “The goal is to see how little we can change the orig-
inal words to make the biggest and most disturbing change in meaning,”
quipped Ben Schatz, a founding member who performed with the group
for many years and remains its lyricist (Boyz 2013, 12). Examples of these
clever turns of phrase are littered throughout the Kinsey Sicks oeuvre. For
example, Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” becomes a song about
herpes “in the corners of my mouth” (Kinsey Sicks 2004, track 9). A bal-
lad from Showboat becomes a song about masturbation: “Can’t help loving
that hand of mine” (Kinsey Sicks 2004, track 6). The chorus of “Mamma
Mia” from the ABBA-­inspired jukebox musical of the same name turns
into . . . “Gonorrhea / Here I go again” (Kinsey Sicks 2010, track 8). Schatz
says, “We have ruined many favorite songs for people, and when we hear
that complaint, we know our work is done” (Boyz 2013, 12).
Schatz’s propensity to change the words of a song as little as possi-
ble extends to the vocal arrangements as well, which also rarely diverge
from the source material. Melismatic alterations of the melody, common-
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 255

place in a cappella arrangements, are sometimes present, but they are

not a frequent part of the Kinseys’ practice. In fact, pitch fidelity seems
to be very important to Irwin Keller, a former member of the group and
erstwhile arranger. Keller’s sister, Lynn, used to play bass for Diana Ross.
When writing a parody of a Supremes song, Keller, who sings bass, asked
his sister what notes she played, just to make sure his vocal part was right
(Woods 2003, 28).
Of course, there are limitations. Only so much verisimilitude is pos-
sible when arranging for four singers a composition for full orchestra, or
a piece of electronic dance music. But within these confines, it is striking
how close to the original the Kinseys often come. In “MCI,” the Kinseys’
parody of “Bali Hai,” for example, the final strain of the chorus includes
background vocals that call to mind the frilly turns and runs that Robert
Russell Bennett wrote for flute, strings, and harp in his original orches-
tration. Commentators seem to react to the effectiveness of the Kinseys’
arrangements; Fertig (1997) wrote “their vocal harmonies make instru-
ments extraneous” (23).
Sometimes the Kinseys also use mimicry to try to replicate the vocal
timbre of the original singer. This approach is most clearly heard in their
parody of “We Are the World” called “We Arm the World,” in which the
Kinseys attempt their best vocal impressions of everyone from Bob Dylan
and Cyndi Lauper to Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, and Bruce Spring-
steen. In some arrangements, particularly those for which electronic and
synthesized sounds are essential to the original, the Kinseys take advan-
tage of vocal percussion and other sounds. On the track “Can You Believe
I’ve Lasted This Long?,” a parody of Cher’s “Believe,” they make swoosh-
ing sounds to replicate the song’s ethereal opening, and on “Botoxic,” a
parody of Britney Spears’s “Toxic,” they sing through their noses to imi-
tate electronic sounds. Even sounds from the original tracks that some
might not consider part of the music can become fodder for a Kinsey par-
ody. In “The Day We Were,” a parody of Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” a
purposeful, loud gasp can be heard in the wordless vocal introduction—­an
exaggeration of the audible breath that was preserved in Streisand’s orig-
inal recording.
This practice of musical mimicry is a function of how the Kinseys com-
municate with their audience. When Schatz says that his intention is to
change the lyrics as little as possible, he is assuming that his audience will
know the original lyrics. The effect of his parody depends, to some extent,
 256 / here for the hearing

on the listeners’ expectations from having heard the original song and real-
izing how the parody lyrics subvert or recontextualize the source material.
Providing a musical arrangement that also matches listeners’ expectations
increases the chances that the new lyrics will stick out, making the par-
ody more effective. Analyzing a parody, then, would entail discussing the
process of “encoding” (on the part of the Kinseys) and “decoding” (on the
part of the listener) to better understand and interpret its intended effect
(Hutcheon 1985, chapter 5).

Analyzing Parody

The Kinseys insist: “we don’t do any covers, but we love doing parody”
(Boyz 2013, 12). Nonetheless, song covers provide a good starting point for
discussing how the Kinseys approach parody. Kurt Mosser (2008) divides
cover songs into two categories: reduplication covers and interpretative
covers. He lists four subtypes of interpretative covers: (a) minor interpre-
tations (the homage), (b) major interpretations, (c) send-­up (ironic) cov-
ers, and (d) parody covers.
Mosser uses the term “base song” to refer to a song “that, due to its
status, popularity, or possibly other reasons, is taken to be paradigmatic”
(2008, I, paragraph 2). For Mosser, the relationship between this referent
and the cover version, and how faithfully the base song is preserved in the
cover song, places a cover on a continuum, with reduplication and minor
interpretations on one end and send-­up and parody covers on the other.
An example of a reduplication cover would be one performed by a tribute
band, in which the musicians try to reproduce the sound of the original in
every way: same lyrics, same melodies, same rhythms, same harmonies,
same instrumentation, same vocal delivery. In contrast, the parody cover
“simply uses the base song as a reference, in order to produce a distinct
version that may have little, if anything, to do with the lyrical or general
musical content of its base” (Mosser 2008, II d, paragraph 3).
According to Mosser, Weird Al Yankovich’s parodies, including titles
such as “Eat It” (a parody of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”), “Amish Paradise”
(a parody of Coolio’s “Gangster’s Paradise”), and “Girls Just Want to Have
Lunch” (a parody of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”), are
examples of parody covers (2008, II d, paragraph 4). Just like Kinsey lyr-
icist Schatz, Yankovich often writes parody lyrics that hew closely to the
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 257

rhyme scheme of the original song, preserving the original words when
possible. In keeping with Mosser’s definition of parody cover, the content
of the lyrics has nothing to do with the original song. Musically, however,
Yankovich and his band often work hard to reproduce the songs they
are parodying (Crouch 2014). For example, when working on “Inactive,”
his parody of “Radioactive” by the band Imagine Dragons, Yankovich
accepted the band’s help in making his parody version of their song sound
as authentic as possible (Graff 2014).
With four a cappella voices, the Kinseys can never come close to the
timbral similarity that Yankovich and his band often achieve. However,
the Kinseys’ usual approach, attempting to match the overall sound of
the original musical material they are parodying, is very similar to Yan-
kovich’s. They often retain the meter, rhythmic character, pitch content,
tempo, and form of the original songs they are parodying, and have con-
sulted performers who recorded the original songs (as when Keller called
his sister). If, as Mosser argues, covers fall on a continuum between repro-
ductions and parodies, Yankovich’s (and the Kinseys’) lyrics are clearly
parody, but the music is often more in the spirit of a reproduction cover or
minor interpretation.
In regard to the Kinseys’ Broadway parodies specifically, a base song
is often quite easy to identify. It is often the version heard as part of the
original cast album, the soundtrack of the film adaptation, or, in the case
of a jukebox musical, a version of the song by the recording artist whose
version is being referenced within the musical. These are often iconic
performances, so identified with one performer that the referent is quite
specific. But sometimes a single, paradigmatic referent can be difficult to
determine. In such cases, we can turn to what Zbikowski (2002) calls a
conceptual model. Conceptual models rest on the principle that humans
categorize items from most to least typical. Zbikowski calls those items
that are “securely inside the category” Type-­1 examples, while those that
are “in danger of being excluded” are called Type-­2 . Consider birds as
a category: Type-­1 examples would include robins and sparrows, while
emus and penguins would be Type-­2 examples (2002, 39). These types
represent opposing poles on a continuum rather than clear points of
demarcation, and the line between Type-­1 and Type-­2 might be different
for each listener.
The analysis of parodies of songs composed before Broadway’s golden
age (roughly 1940 to 1960) often requires a conceptual model rather than a
 258 / here for the hearing

base song. Before the golden age, original cast recordings were uncommon
and the distinction between popular music and Broadway show tune was
not as clear as it would later become. “I Got Rhythm” by George Gersh-
win is a case in point. When writing about “I’ve Got Rhythm,” Zbikowski
analyzes a number of different recordings, showing how the very idea of a
performance of “I Got Rhythm” changed over time, as the song went from
show tune to jazz standard to a basis of improvisation. Zbikowski’s analy-
sis strongly suggests that listening to and categorizing a performance of “I
Got Rhythm” relies not on a reference to a single, base performance, but
much more on the comparison to conceptual models of the song. “When
people share the conceptual model for a song (realizing that all such
sharing is approximate), they will tend to make similar judgments about
what counts as a typical or an atypical rendering of the song (or whether a
succession of sound should even be counted as an instance of the song)”
(Zbikowksi 2002, 216). “I’ve Got Rhythm,” and the eponymous “rhythm
changes” it spurred, is an extreme case to be sure, but the general princi-
ple holds that for many songs of that era the referent is not a single, base
performance, but rather a conceptual model of what is “typical,” probably
informed by a number of performances.
Linda Hutcheon’s (1985) work further informs the analysis and inter-
pretation of parody. Hutcheon defines parody “as a formal synthesis, an
incorporation of a backgrounded text into itself” (1985, 53). Hutcheon
notes that with respect to music, parody has sometimes been defined “as
repetition, but repetition with difference: . . . there is a distance between
the model and the parody” (1985, 65–­67). As the discussion of the Kinseys’
general parody practice showed, they, too, see parody as repetition—­for
example, changing words as little as possible and insisting on the same
bass line as the original recording—­as a way to accentuate and bring
greater attention to the moments of difference.
In Hutcheon’s theory, parody does not necessarily connote ridicule.
Rather, parody has an unmarked ethos. It can, at times, be respectful or
even reverential, as when “Prokofiev paid tribute to the wit and urban-
ity of Haydn and others in his ‘Classical’ Symphony” (Hutcheon 1985,
67). This unmarked ethos distinguishes parody from satire, a genre with
which it is often confused. The difference between the two is that “the
aim of parody is intramural and that of satire is extramural” (Hutcheon
1985, 62). In other words, the targets of parody are the original artworks
themselves, while the targets of satire are “the vices and follies of man-
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 259

kind” (Hutcheon 1985, 43). “Modern parody . . . rarely has . . . an evaluative

or intentional limitation,” while satire is specifically oriented “toward a
negative evaluation and a corrective intent” (Hutcheon 1985, 54). Satire
is marked by a “scornful or disdainful ethos” that is a “kind of encoded
anger, communicated to the decoder through invective. . . . Satire should
not be confused with simple invective, however, for the corrective aim of
satire’s scornful ridicule is central to its identity” (Hutcheon, 1985, 56).
Both the genres of parody and satire can employ irony, which is marked
by a mocking ethos (Hutcheon 1985, 63). Ironic parody evokes a “know-
ing smile,” ironic satire a “disdainful laugh” (Hutcheon 1985, 61). Addi-
tionally, in Hutcheon’s model, satire may be used in the service of parody,
and vice versa. The former is called satiric parody, “whose target is still
another form of coded discourse,” and the latter parodic satire, “which
aims at something outside the text” (Hutcheon 1985, 62). Finally, Hutch-
eon’s work is particularly helpful in this context because her discussions
of texted music, including Orpheus in the Underworld (1985, 60) and The Rise
and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1985, 62–­63), elucidate how parody can
function and contribute differently in the musical and textual domains
within a single artwork.

The Kinsey Sicks On (and Off-)Broadway

Kinsey parodies of songs that have been performed as part of Broad-

way musicals include examples from the Great American Songbook by
Jerome Kern and George Gershwin; golden-age musicals such as West
Side Story and The Sound of Music; later hits such as Hair and Chicago; and
jukebox or “screen-­to-­stage” musicals including Mamma Mia, Beautiful:
The Carole King Musical, and Aladdin. Since the release of their first CD,
Dragapella!, in 1997, each of their eleven albums has included at least one
Broadway song parody, and Broadway parodies were part of their cabaret
show, Dragapella!, which opened Off-Broadway on October 17, 2001, as
the inaugural offering of Upstairs at Studio 54, a smaller venue above the
famous Studio 54.2
Two Kinsey Broadway parodies, “Anal Warts: A Sing-­ A long” and
“When You’re Good to Dubya,” are representative of their parody practice.
“Anal Warts: A Sing-­A long” is a parody of “Edelweiss” from The Sound of
Music, released on their album Boyz to Girlz (1999). The original song has
 260 / here for the hearing

been covered numerous times, not to mention the countless amateur and
professional productions of the musical that are produced each year. Of all
these performances, the one by Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews
near the end of the 1965 film has perhaps become the paradigmatic, base
song, which is certainly better known than the performance by Theodore
Bickel and Mary Martin on the original Broadway cast recording.
The musical arrangement of “Anal Warts” is in keeping with the con-
ventions of tempo (moderately slow), meter ( ), harmony, and melody that
listeners have come to expect from watching the film. During much of the
recording the music sounds “unmarked,” even respectful. This is not, how-
ever, one of those Kinsey arrangements that seeks to observe every nuance
of the original: overwrought changes in dynamics and tempo (particularly
ritardando), an exaggerated fermata, and pretending to cry while singing
give the performance the mocking ethos of irony. This ironic musical tone
supports an even more pronounced irony in the lyrics, which recast Oscar
Hammerstein’s sentimental song of nostalgia as a ballad about anal warts:
“soft and pink” “blossoms of cauliflower” that “bloom and grow.”
The Kinseys intensify the distance between the original song and
ironic parody by willfully misreading the original context. The recorded
track begins with a monologue by the character Trixie, who has just seen
a fictitious movie starring “radical feminist actress . . . Julie Andrews” in
which she plays a “Nazi spy who disguised herself as a nun so she could get
this hunky Australian [not Austrian] sea captain into bed.” As the others
begin humming the melody, Trixie says that the captain sang about jus-
tice, freedom, and love, and that that there was one song that “must have
been an aboriginal song that they have been singing in Salzburg for thou-
sands of years because they all knew it” and because it was “so beautiful”
that she wants to sing it for the audience (Kinsey Sicks 1999, track 19).
With this ironic monologue to set the context, Trixie sings the opening
melodic phrase to “anal warts” rather than the expected “edelweiss.” The
others eventually provide accompaniment, and after completing the thirty-­
two-­bar song form once, they beckon the audience to sing it with them
the second time. As the audience complies, Schatz, in character as Rachel,
shouts over them: “fight the Nazis,” “sing for freedom,” “stop the Anschluss,”
mocking the parallel moment in the film (Kinsey Sicks 1999, track 19). The
performance yields an ironic parody that uses the “knowing smile” of ironic
distance to lampoon the sentimentality of the original song.
In “When You’re Good to Dubya,” the Kinseys’ parody of “When You’re
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 261

Good to Mama,” from the musical Chicago, the musical arrangement is

as close to a reproduction as they could manage within the confines of
their ensemble. Technically, the base song here is probably Mary McCa-
rty’s 1975 performance on the original Broadway cast recording because it
came first, but even if listeners are more familiar with Marcia Lewis’s 1996
performance on the Broadway revival cast recording, or Queen Latifah’s
2002 performance on the film soundtrack, it will not matter. The perfor-
mances are quite similar, and listeners will have similar expectations for
the song regardless of which recording they know best. The Kinseys’ vocal
arrangement follows the original to a T. In Hutcheon’s terms, the music is
“unmarked,” in keeping with the ethos of parody.
Like the lyrics of “Anal Warts,” the lyrics of “When You’re Good to
Dubya” are the kind of lyrics Schatz likes to write—­t hey diverge as little
as possible from the original in order to change the meaning of a song. For
example, the only change Schatz makes to the first stanza of the song is
to replace the word “Mama” with the word “Dubya.” In keeping with the
Kinseys’ general parody practice, limiting the number of differences actu-
ally brings greater attention to what is different, heightening the effect of
the parody.
Under Hutcheon’s definition, “When You’re Good to Dubya” is prop-
erly called satire rather than parody, because unlike in the case of “Anal
Warts,” the target here is not the original song itself but the eponymous
“Dubya,” President George W. Bush. The lyrics mock him, accusing him of
trading political favors for campaign contributions and starting wars both
to deflect from domestic problems and to create economic activity that
will benefit the very wealthy. They are scornful of him and seek to correct
his behavior. In Hutcheon’s model, this song is perhaps best thought of as
“parodic satire (a type of the genre satire) which aims at something outside
the text, but which employs parody as a vehicle to achieve its satiric or
corrective end” (1985, 62).3

Send in the Clones

Whereas “Anal Warts” and “When You’re Good to Dubya” are representa-
tive of the Kinseys’ typical parody practice of minimizing musical differ-
ence to maximize parodic effect, “Send in the Clones,” the Kinsey parody
of “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music, is one of the very few
 262 / here for the hearing

Kinsey parodies in which the musical arrangement rejects the expecta-

tions presented in the source material. As this analysis will suggest, the
musical changes, while at first potentially disorienting to the listener,
encode additional information and work in tandem with the lyrics to
underscore the parody and satire the Kinseys intend.
Few, if any, numbers written expressly for Broadway after the golden
age have blurred the line between show tune and popular song as success-
fully as “Send in the Clowns.” Recorded by Glynis Johns in 1973 for the
original Broadway cast album, it was immediately covered by Frank Sina-
tra, and became one of his signature songs. Judy Collins’s 1975 recording
spent multiple weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in both 1975 and 1977, and
received the Grammy for Song of the Year. The song has also become a jazz
standard, recorded by Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, and others. It has been
covered over 900 times (Nachman 2016, 263).
As with most Kinsey Broadway parodies, it would be natural to think
of the version on the original cast recording as the base song,4 and that
would probably be the end of the story were it not for the fact that the
song has had such tremendous success outside the context of the Broad-
way show. Under Mosser’s definition, Judy Collins’s version was so suc-
cessful that it might be the base song even though it came after Johns’s
rendition. Rather than having to choose between these performances, we
can note that Collins’s cover is faithful to Sondheim’s original, and that
they are both quite similar to another performance Kinsey fans are likely
to have heard, Barbra Streisand’s rendition on The Broadway Album (1985).
Taken together, these performances inform a conceptual model of the
typical performance of “Send in the Clowns,” shown in figure 11.1. But
these recordings are not the only basis for the model. The expectations
of rhythm, melody, harmony, etc., in the model are also memorialized in
the piano-­vocal score of the musical and in various published sheet-­music
versions. Accordingly, performances of the song in coffee shops, cabarets,
beauty pageants, singing competitions, elevators, and elsewhere are likely
to align with this conceptual model. The more listeners hear the song per-
formed in this way, the more likely they are to adopt the figure 11.1 con-
ceptual model.
Listeners can categorize performances of “Send in the Clowns” as
more Type-­1-­like or more Type-­2-­like based on their similarity to this
model. Sarah Vaughan’s recording fulfills many of the expectations of
the model, and I would put it clearly in the Type-­1 category, but the much
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 263

Figure 11.1. Conceptual model of “Send in the Clowns.”

slower tempo (about 30 bpm) is a noticeable difference. Cleo Lane’s version

also fulfills many of the model’s expectations, but the accompaniment is

tad quick, eliminates rubato, and turns the  measures into  measures by
in simple rather than compound division. Shirley Bassey’s version seems a

extending the second beat. Neither of these versions is as close to a Type-­1

version as Vaughan’s, but I also don’t perceive them as Type-­2 . Interest-
ingly, although “Send in the Clowns” was a signature song for Frank Sina-
tra, the orchestration of his 1973 cover is somewhat different from Sond-
heim’s original. His later, live recording with solo piano, which came after
Judy Collins’s successful cover, hews much closer to a Type-­1 expectation
of the conceptual model.
There are plenty of Type-­2 versions of “Send in the Clowns.” Although
they mostly preserve Sondheim’s melody and lyrics, both Mel Tormé’s
hard-­swinging, big-­band version and Grace Jones’s disco interpretation

are faster, in  , introduce new harmonies, and maintain a consistent tempo
retain little of the song’s other identifying characteristics. Both versions

throughout. As Zbikowski argues, because of their atypicality, these ver-

sions may be in danger of being excluded from the category “Send in the
Clowns” by some listeners.
Figure 11.2 provides the lyrics for “Send in the Clones” and some ana-
 264 / here for the hearing

lytical annotations. As the Kinseys begin their performance, they fulfill

many of the expectations of the conceptual model in figure 11.1. Though
the tempo is a bit brisk (as fast as 68 bpm), the melody and harmony are

and there is a hint of rubato by the lead singer at the end of the  mea-
consistent with the original, the arpeggiated accompaniment is present,

sure. The one element of the first verse that clearly does not conform to the
model is the lyrics. The lyrics preserve the rhyme scheme of the original,
maintain the words “rich” and “on the ground,” and treat the opening line
as an interrogative, but the textual differences make it quite clear to listen-
ers that this is a parody, not a true performance of the song itself. None-
theless, listeners—­especially listeners familiar with the Kinseys’ parody
practice—­w ill listen to the first verse and probably match the arrangement
to the conceptual model, classifying this as a Type-­1 rather than a Type-­2
version of the song.
As figure 11.2 shows, in the lead-­in to the second verse, the Kinseys
sing triplet groupings on nonsense syllables that maintain the speed of
the prior groups of three eighth notes, but are altered in dynamics (from
piano to forte) and in articulation (from legato to marcato). These changes
imbue the triplets with a different character, and as the transcription in
example 11.1 shows, by the time the Kinseys sing the lyrics of the second

from 𝅘𝅥𝅼 = 68 bpm to 𝅘𝅥 = 136 bpm, and material that took one measure in  in
verse, listeners probably perceive that the level of the tactus has changed

the original now takes two measures in  . The introduction of a new, faster
tempo disrupts the confirmation of the Kinseys’ typical parody practice by
veering away from a Type-­1 version of the song toward a Type-­2 version.
The Type-­2 arrangement changes listener expectations about the genre
of this song. This is no longer a ballad. The references in the lyrics to men
“dancing to Cher” might create an expectation for the kind of dance-­pop

clubs in the late 1990s.5 “Believe” is in  , 133 beats per minute, has no per-
heard in Cher songs such as “Believe,” which gay men were dancing to in

ceivable tempo fluctuations, and includes common rhythms and instru-

music, within a measure of  listeners are likely to hear bass drum on each
mental associations of “four-­on-­the-­floor” dance music. In this style of

beat, hi-­hat on each upbeat, and sometimes snare drum or handclaps on

beats 2 and 4 (Butler 2006, 82). A conceptual model of the meter, tempo,
rhythms, and instrumental associations in Mark Butler’s description of
“four-­on-­the-­floor” style is shown in figure 11.3.
The new tempo and meter shown in example 11.1 suggest at least
Figure 11.2. Annotated lyrics to “Send in the Clones,” used by kind permission of Benjamin Schatz.
 266 / here for the hearing

Figure 11.3. Conceptual model of four-­on-­the-­floor dance music, after Butler 2006.

the possibility that the Type-­2 part of the arrangement will conform to
a four-­on-­the-­floor style. As the music continues, however, this concep-
tual model would not seem to be the best fit for what listeners hear. There
is vocal percussion on beats 2 and 4, but since it sounds more like a hi-­
hat than a snare drum, the rhythmic pattern and timbre do not match.
Furthermore, the hi-­hat sound is expected to occur on every upbeat, and
when it occurs only on beats 2 and 4, it is perceived to be twice as slow as
it is “supposed to be.” Because of this “dragging” hi-­hat, and the “missing”
bass drum sound to clearly articulate each beat, the arrangement lacks the
drive one expects from dance-­pop.
There is a broad conceptual category to which the up-­tempo part of
the arrangement would belong that might be called “music you can dance
to.” In other words, this is dance music, it’s just not the right kind of dance
music. As listeners ponder the category that fits what they are hearing,
they may come to settle on doo-­wop. According to Gribin and Schiff, key
characteristics of doo-­wop include (1) vocal music sung by groups, (2) a
vocal range from bass to falsetto, (3) nonsense syllables, (4) a simple beat,
and (5) low-­key instrumentals (2009, 17). The Kinseys fulfill most if not all
of these characteristics in their up-­tempo version of “Send in the Clones.”
Their group-­vocal, a capella arrangement features a wide vocal range; the
background vocals repeat the syllable “doo” on an eighth-­quarter-­eighth
pattern (see example 11.1); and the instrumentals are so low key, they’re
nonexistent. All of these factors would finally lead listeners to the more
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 267

Example 11.1. Rhythmic transcription of “Send in the Clones,” opening of verse 2.

specific categorization of doo-­wop or perhaps the doo-­wop-­influenced

sound heard in American popular music in the early 1960s. Hearing this
version as belonging to doo-­wop and related musical genres has important
implications for the critique the Kinseys offer in this number.
Unlike in “Anal Warts,” the distortion of the expected musical content
heard in this Type-­2 rendition is not intended to poke fun at Sondheim’s
most popular song. Rather, the musical arrangement is a vehicle to attack
the Kinseys’ true target—­a group of gay men they call “clones.” Thus, this
is not merely parody, but parodic satire. As shown in figure 11.2, the lyrics
give the listener a clearer picture of who the Kinseys think the clones are.
Laden with irony and satire directed at the clones, the lyrics do not flatter.
The clones are gay men who are concerned with their physical appearance.
They are (or at least aspire to be) upper middle class or upper class, super-
ficial, and have ulterior motives for engaging in philanthropy. They are
recreational drug users, and while they are homosexual, they do not want
to be viewed as effeminate. Therefore, in certain ways their behavior and
performativity reinforce gender stereotypes. The clones clearly see them-
selves as occupying a position of privilege relative to those who are not as
wealthy, not as fit, and not as straight-­acting, and they tell them so.
Interpreting the up-­tempo music as doo-­wop, or at least doo-­wop-­
adjacent, amplifies the lyrics’ ironic and satirical tone. The music we actu-
ally hear supplants the style of music first suggested by the lyrics—­late
1990s dance-­pop—­w ith an older, cornier style of music. Since the lyrics
are sung from the perspective of the clones, the idea that they might think
 268 / here for the hearing

they are “dancing to Cher,” but clearly are not, makes them seem fool-
ish. But the satire goes much deeper than this surface incongruity. Doo-­
wop and its successors come from a time when gender roles could not be
questioned without severe societal consequences. It conjures up images
of identically styled singers performing in-­sync choreography, with little
to no expression of individual identity. By implying a similarity between
the gay clones and doo-­wop performers, the Kinseys confront the suppo-
sition that heteronormative ideals should be replicated in the queer com-
munity, what Lisa Duggan (2003) calls “homonormativity.” They explic-
itly call attention to this by accusing the clones of admonishing others
for acting “nelly,” or girly, and placing “straight-­acting” in opposition to
“queer.” Through their parodic lyrics, the Kinseys echo again and again
Duggan’s diagnosis that the urge to gain acceptance, by reinscribing the
norms of a predominately heterosexual society, is grounded in the neo-
liberal impulses of the dominant culture (“shopped all the right stores,”
“don’t you own land?,” and “black-­tie dinners . . . help my career”). In so
doing, the Kinseys cleverly question the very idea that there is only one
acceptable way to be a gay man in America. In the Kinseys’ eyes, the fact
that the clones believe their way is the only way, or at least the preferred
way, make them, quite literally, out of step.

original version in  , groups of three eighth notes fit neatly into a beat.
Certain musical factors align with the satirical interpretation. In the

In the up-­tempo version, the triplets are spread over two beats, becom-
ing what Krebs (1999) calls a metrical dissonance. As example 11.1 shows,
this dissonance against the prevailing rhythmic texture is all the more
pronounced because all the performers interrupt the eighth-­note-­based
rhythmic flow to perform the triplets in unison. Consequently, the groove
takes a while to be established, and there is something clumsy about the

Tormé’s and Jones’s up-­tempo versions, which remain in  through-

way the melody fits into its new rhythmic context. Additionally, unlike

out, the Kinseys render  measures at the original tempo as a measure of
 and an appended measure of  in the up-­tempo section. Interpolated
 measures would not be commonplace in dance music, which often main-
tains  time. Furthermore, the loops and cycles of four-­measure groups
that can be combined to create larger hypermetric structures in much
dance music never materialize (Butler 2006, 193). In deciding to main-
tain Sondheim’s meter changes, the Kinseys are able to remain, in one
aspect, faithful to the original song—­in keeping with their typical par-
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 269

ody practice—­and yet, since those meter changes are inconsistent with
the overall metric context they have chosen for this parody, they have
musically recontextualized this material to make it sound awkward and
clumsy, making their satire all the more biting.
The relationship between tonality and form solidifies this parody as
a send-­up. “Send in the Clowns,” as it is performed in concert or in most
covers, is in AABAA form. (In some performances, as in the original musi-
cal, there is an instrumental interlude between the final two verses.) The
Kinseys kitsch-­up their arrangement by marking the beginning of this last
verse with a “pump-­up” modulation that raises the key a half step. This
rise in pitch comes on the text, “don’t act nelly here, dear,” evoking femi-
nized behavior or mannerisms that are devalued (or worse) by the clones.

Conclusion

“Send in the Clones” is one of four Kinsey Broadway parodies that encour-
age the gay community to reflect on itself in some introspective way. The
other three are “You’re Scaring Us” (“Aquarius” from Hair), “Buy My Pride”
(“By My Side” from Godspell), and “Ad Nauseum” (“Maria” from West Side
Story). “Buy My Pride” and “Ad Nauseum” are similar in that they both
focus on how corporations try to get gays to buy their products. “Ad Nau-
seum” refers specifically to a 1994 television ad from IKEA that was the
first mainstream American ad to feature a same-­sex male couple.6 Though
unremarkable today, the ad was quite progressive for its time. “Buy My
Pride” begins with banter about corporate sponsorships of the Gay Games
and Gay Pride events. Like “Send in the Clones,” these parodic satires
raise consciousness about the trappings of neoliberalism and highlight the
tensions between greater acceptance by the mainstream culture and the
desire to continue to be “queer” (in the broadest sense of the word). Unlike
“Send in the Clones,” however, these satires appear to be directed at cor-
porations for their encroachment, not at the gay community or some sub-
set of it. “You’re Scaring Us” takes on ageism in the gay community, but
not head on. It is written from the perspective of an older gay man unsuc-
cessfully cruising younger men. Rather than taking the gay community to
task for its ageism, the satire, which uses the Fifth Dimension’s medley of
“Aquarius” and “Let the Sunshine In” as the base song, is directed at the
older man and what he can do to remedy his situation. The lyrics reminds
 270 / here for the hearing

listeners that “sunshine ages skin” and soon “plastic surgery begins on all
your chins” (Kinsey Sicks 2002, track 1).
“Send in the Clones” is the one parody in this group in which the Kin-
seys’ biting satire, often reserved for conservative politicians, is directed
squarely at a segment of the gay community itself. Notably, it is one of
very few Kinsey parodies that eschews Type-­1 classification. In fact, the
only other recorded Kinsey parody I could find that unequivocally avoids
a Type-­1 classification is “Gentle Loving People” from the album Draga-
pella!. The song is a parody of “Singing for Our Lives,” which Holly Near
wrote in response to the assassination of Harvey Milk in San Francisco in
1978, and which many consider an anthem for the queer community. The
Kinseys begin their parody in chorale-­style harmony, very much in keep-
ing with the fact that the song has been included as no. 170 in the hymnal
of the Unitarian Universalist Church as “We Are a Gentle, Angry People.”
Much like in “Send in the Clones,” however, after the first verse of “Gen-
tle Loving People,” the Kinseys’ arrangement gives way to an up-­tempo
version, this time producing something less appropriate for church and
more appropriate for a kick line. They use this Type-­2 version of “Singing
for Our Lives” to describe gay people as “vicious,” “catty,” “sexually com-
pulsive,” “materialistic,” “vapid,” and “shallow” (Kinsey Sicks 1997, track
2). The Type-­2 versions of source material heard in “Gentle Loving People”
and “Send in the Clones” suggest that when the Kinseys want to pillory
their own audience, they may choose to make considerable changes to the
musical material of the original song.
Returning to “Send in the Clowns” specifically, the Kinseys also have
the advantage that many people do not seem to understand what Sond-
heim’s original lyrics actually mean. In fact, for her recording Streisand
even convinced Sondheim to write new lyrics for an additional B section
in an attempt to clarify the song’s meaning. As Sondheim has explained,
he was referencing an old theater saying, “send in the clowns,” which
means, when the show isn’t going well, do some jokes to try to get the
audience engaged. Sondheim said, “As I think of it now, the song could
have been called ‘Send in the Fools’” (Gussow 2003).
As the last verse of the Kinseys’ “Send in the Clones” comes to its final
line, the group reverts to a Type-­1 version of “Send in the Clowns,” com-
plete with slower tempo and arpeggiated outro, somewhat softening the
blow. Rather than the line Sondheim originally wrote, “well, maybe next
year,” the Kinseys, following Streisand, borrow their final line of the orig-
 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 271

inal third verse, “Don’t bother, they’re here,” which, according to Sond-
heim, means “we are the fools.” With this final line, delivered while look-
ing their own audience square in the face, the Kinseys ask their fans to
reflect on their own behavior. They might be apt to say, “But, isn’t it queer?”

Notes
1. I wish to thank the staff at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco,
where I accessed their Kinsey Sicks collection; the University of South Carolina
School of Music for providing financial support for my research trips; and Bruno
Alcalde, Nathan Beary Blustein, Clifton Boyd, and the editors for their helpful feed-
back on earlier drafts of this chapter. The name Kinsey Sicks is a pun on “Kinsey
six,” a colloquialism for someone who identifies as gay. The term refers to the Kinsey
scale, developed by Alfred Kinsey, which postulates that people fall on a continuum
between “0,” exclusively heterosexual, and “6,” exclusively homosexual.
2. The show closed prematurely on December 16, 2001, but not before the
Kinseys got to perform alongside the casts of Aida, Chicago, Cabaret, and other
Broadway shows as part of that year’s “Gypsy of the Year,” an annual fundraiser
that supports Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The show was nominated for
a Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, and Schatz received a Drama Desk Award
nomination for Best Lyrics, alongside the likes of Jason Robert Brown and Jona-
than Larson.
3. Noriko Manabe (2022) shows how Kuwata Keisuke cleverly parodies
Beatles songs by retaining as much content at the phonemic level of the English-­
language lyrics as possible while rendering them in Japanese at the syntactic and
semantic level. Since the target of these parodies was prime minister Shinzo Abe
rather than the Beatles songs themselves, this would also be parodic satire under
Hutcheon’s definition.
4. In regard to distinctions between original Broadway-­c ast-­album and film-­
soundtrack performances of a song and how this might determine the base song,
in some cases, as with “When You’re Good to Mama,” the performances are so
similar that for many listeners they meld together. When the film is very success-
ful, as in the case of “Edelweiss,” it all but erases the original Broadway recording
from consideration as the base song. In this particular case, Elizabeth Taylor’s per-
formance in the film is, at best, forgettable, and at worst, a subject of ridicule, and
it would probably not occur to most listeners that it could be the base song.
5. Although “Send in the Clones” was not released until 2008, very similar
lyrics for the song, copyrighted 2000, are included in the Kinsey Sicks collection
at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, and so the reference to music
from the late 1990s is apt. The suggestion that “cell phones” would be something
that marks the clones as distinct would certainly predate 2008, and would have
been truer in the late 1990s than at the time the song was recorded.
 272 / here for the hearing

6. The punny title, “Ad Nauseum,” conceals how the Kinseys use “IKEA” in
place of “Maria” in their parody.

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Zbikowski, Lawrence M. 2002. Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and
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 “Isn’t It Queer?” / 273

Discogr aphy
The Kinsey Sicks. 2020. Quarantunes. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 2018. GreatesTits. Digital download. https://kinseysicks.com/great​
estits-the-25th-anniversary-collection
The Kinsey Sicks. 2016. Eight Is Enough: The 9th Album. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 2012. Electile Dysfunction. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 2010. Each Hit & I. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 2008. Sicks! Sicks! Sicks!. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 2005. Oy Vey in a Manger: Christmas Carols and Other Jewish Music.
Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 2004. I Wanna Be a Republican. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 2002. Sicks in the City. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 1999. Boyz2Girlz. Compact disc.
The Kinsey Sicks. 1997. Dragapella! Compact disc.
Contributors

Nathan Beary Blustein is a professorial lecturer in the Theatre/Musical

Theatre program at American University. His research focuses on the drama
of Broadway song form, particularly in the musicals of Stephen Sondheim.
He has published in Studies of Musical Theatre and the Journal of Music The-
ory Pedagogy. He is a practicing theatre pianist, music director, dance/vocal
arranger, and orchestrator.

Nicole Biamonte is associate professor of music theory at McGill Univer-

sity. She has published research on the theory and analysis of popular music,
nineteenth-­ century musical historicism, and music theory pedagogy,
including her edited collection Pop-­Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom.
She is a past editor of the journal Music Theory Online.

Michael Buchler is professor of music theory at the Florida State University

College of Music. He is currently president of the Society for Music Theory.
His work appears in Music Theory Spectrum, Perspectives of New Music, Journal
of Music Theory, Music Theory Online, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, Journal
of the Society for American Music, and other journals and edited collections.

Gregory J. Decker is associate professor of music theory and assistant dean

for graduate studies at the Bowling Green State University College of Musi-
cal Arts in Ohio. His publications can be found in Music Theory Online, The
Opera Journal, Intégral, A Cole Porter Companion (University of Illinois Press

/ 275 /
 276 / Contributors

2016), and Singing in Signs: New Semiotic Explorations of Opera (Oxford Uni-
versity Press 2020), a volume of essays that he coedited with Matthew Shaf-
tel, which won the Society for Music Theory’s Citation of Special Merit Pub-
lication Award.

Jonathan De Souza is associate professor in the Don Wright Faculty of

Music at the University of Western Ontario. His research combines music
theory, cognitive science, and philosophy. He is the author of Music at Hand:
Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition (Oxford University Press 2017) and coed-
itor, with Benjamin Steege and Jessica Wiskus, of the forthcoming Oxford
Handbook of the Phenomenology of Music.

J. Daniel Jenkins is associate professor of music theory at the University of

South Carolina and is a past program committee chair for the Society for
Music Theory. His articles appear in Music Theory Online, Intégral, Theory and
Practice, and elsewhere. He is editor of Schoenberg’s Program Notes and Musi-
cal Analyses (Oxford University Press 2016), and the forthcoming Oxford
Handbook of Public Music Theory.

Robert Komaniecki is an instructor of music theory and musicology at the

University of British Columbia. His research focuses on hip-­hop, rap, popu-
lar music, and music theory pedagogy; his article “Analyzing Collaborative
Flow in Rap Music” appears in Music Theory Online.

Rachel Lumsden is associate professor of music theory at Florida State Uni-

versity. She is coeditor of The Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory (W. W.
Norton 2018). Her peer-­reviewed articles have been published in American
Music, Black Music Research Journal, Feminist Studies, Music Theory Online,
and Studies in American Humor, among others.

Drew Nobile is associate professor of music theory at the University of Ore-

gon, where he specializes in the theory and analysis of popular music. His
book Form as Harmony in Rock Music (Oxford University Press 2020) received
the Emerging Scholar Book Award from the Society for Music Theory.

Richard Plotkin is a music theorist (PhD, University of Chicago), musical

theater composer, and computer scientist. He has published in Music Theory
Online and the Journal of Mathematics and Music, and served on the theory
 Contributors / 277

faculty at SUNY Buffalo for nine years. He is currently a writer in the BMI
Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City and a software
architect for United Healthcare.

Rachel Short is associate professor of music theory at Shenandoah Con-

servatory. Her research specialties are choreomusical analysis, rhythm and
meter, American musical theater, and theory pedagogy. She is co-authoring
a chapter for the forthcoming edited collection Routledge Companion to Cho-
reomusicology and has a forthcoming article “Interactions between Music
and Dance in Two Musical Theatre Tap Breaks” in SMT-V.
Index

Songs from musicals are indexed under the musical they appear in. Page
references in italics refer to illustrative material.

AABA form accompaniment

association with African American electric guitar, 176
music, 136n14 falling apart, 203–­4, 209n19
bridges in, 114 harpsichord, 247
modulation and, 21–­22 sustained chords in, 219
rag form and, 12 shows: in Hamilton, 247; in Into the
rhythmic density and, 127, 138n27 Woods, 54–­56; in Sweeney Todd,
in Tin Pan Alley songs, 135n5 75; in The Last Five Years, 200–­201,
songs: “A Summer in Ohio” (The 203–­4
Last Five Years), 205; “Days” (Fun A Chorus Line (Hamlisch, Kleban)
Home), 133; “Far From the Home I auditions in, 194
Love” (Fiddler on the Roof), 127; “If I songs: “Music and the Mirror,”
Loved You” (Carousel), 126, 138n27; 137n20, 138n21; “What I Did For
“Maybe” (Annie), 21–­22; “Soon It’s Love,” 138n21
Gonna Rain” (The Fantasticks), 126; Adams, Charles, 231n3
“Still Hurting” (The Last Five Years), affect, 11, 206, 216
191; “This Nearly Was Mine” (South Ahrens, Lynn. See Ragtime; Seussical
Pacific), 125; “What a Game” (Rag- A Little Night Music (Sondheim): “Send
time), 12; “Younger than Spring- in the Clowns,” 254, 261–­70. See
time” (South Pacific), 119–­20 also The Kinsey Sicks
See also form Allanbrook, Wye Jamison, 64, 77–­78
accent: hemiola, 93; linguistic, 247 Allegro (Rodgers, Hammerstein), 194

/ 279 /
 280 / index

Altman, Rick, 190 bass lines: ascending, 219–­20, 226–­28,

anachronic temporality (Genette), 230; chord progressions dictated
194–­95, 198–­200, 207. See also by, 50; chromatic, 206; descending,
temporality 230; lament, 71; in Sondheim’s
Anderson-­Lopez, Kristen. See Frozen music, 39–­41
Andrews, Julie, 260 Bechdel, Alison, 213–­14, 231n2–­3,
androgyny, 170 232n12. See also Fun Home
And the World Goes Round (Kander, belting, compositional considerations,
Ebb), 32n16 16, 32n9. See also singability
Annie (Strouse, Charnin): “Maybe,” Benjamin, Neil. See Legally Blonde
21–­22 Bennett, Russell, 255
Appen, Ralf von, 136n14 Berlant, Lauren, 206–­8
Arlen, Harold. See The Wizard of Oz Bernstein, Leonard, 32n18. See also On
arrangers, 18–­21, 30–­31, 32n15, 37–­38 the Town; West Side Story
articulation, 132 Biamonte, Nicole: chapter by, 169–­89;
Asare, Masi, 11 referenced, 3
Ashford, Annaleigh, 32n13 Big Pun, 242, 244, 249, 251n5
Assassins (Sondheim): “Another Black music, 64–­66
National Anthem,” 41, 45–­46; Blackness, 84n6
“Unworthy of Your Love,” 23–­25 Block, Geoffrey, 136n7
associational landscapes (Hanninen), blues music, 136n14
155–­57, 159–­60 Blustein, Nathan: chapter by, 9–­34; ref-
A Strange Loop (Jackson): “Intermission erenced, 5, 169, 186n17, 186n17–­18
Song,” 26–­29, 33n20; as single Bock, Jerry. See Fiddler on the Roof
author show, 88; whiteness of book musicals, 120
Broadway and, 29 Bordman, Gerald, 146
Atkinson, Brooks, 165, 165n1 Boubil, Alain. See Les Misérables
audiences, communication with, Bowery waltzes, 74–­75. See also
255–­56 waltzes
auditions, 193–­94 bridges: overview, 113–­116; in AABA
Auslander, Philip, 170 form, 114; cadences and, 136n9;
Avenue Q (Lopez, Marx): “Fine, Fine harmonic contrast in, 135n7;
Line,” 129–­30 rhythm and, 115; transitions out of,
17–­18; of “This Nearly Was Mine”
BaileyShea, Matthew, 225 (South Pacific), 125. See also rhythm
ballads: about, 134n1; as emotional jour- The Bridges of Madison County (Brown):
neys, 114; syncopation in, 129; “I’m “It All Fades Away,” 92, 94
Going Home” (Rocky Horror Show), Brohn, William, 18–­19
182; “Younger than Springtime” Brooks, Mel. See The Producers
(South Pacific), 119, 124 Brown, Jason Robert, 202–­4. See also
Banfield, Stephen, 35–­36, 51, 136n14 Songs for a New World; The Bridges of
base songs, 256–­57, 262 Madison County; The Last Five Years
Bassey, Shirley, 263 Buchler, Michael: chapter by, 145–­68;
 index / 281

referenced, 3, 10–­11, 136n7, 169, pared with, 36–­37, 43, 59n3, 70–­71,
184n2, 186n17, 209n15, 210n22 146–­48, 176, 183, 185n14, 203
Burrows, Abe, 151. See also How to clichés, 9
Succeed in Business without Really clones. See also The Kinsey Sicks: songs:
Trying “Send in the Clones”
Butler, Mark, 132, 264 codas, reprises as, 201
Bye Bye Birdie (Strouse, Adams), 242 cognition, 203
Coleman, Bud, 137n19
Cabaret (Kander, Ebb): as a period piece, Collins, Judy, 262–­63
236; “Cabaret,” 93, 94 colored chords ((0148) sonority), 43–­47;
cadences: bridges and, 136n9; deceptive, as “Herrmann” chord, 60n10; in
204; lack of, 216, 220–­21; lyrics in, Assassins, 45, 46; in Into the Woods,
154; modulation and, 12; rhythm 46, 52–­58; in Passion, 45–­47, 48; in
and, 89; shifts (Lehman), 17; in Sunday in the Park with George, 49–­
Sondheim, 42–­43 52, 52; in Sweeney Todd, 44–­45
Callahan, Michael, 225, 232n10 comedic timing, 109–­10
camp, 171 Company (Sondheim), 36
Caplin, William, 89, 111n9 allusions to in A Strange Loop, 27
Carousel (Rodgers, Hammerstein): “If chords in, 41–­42
I Loved You,” 124, 126–­27, 136n7, songs: “Being Alive,” 39–­40, 119–­20,
138n27 120–­21, 137n21; “Company,” 27,
cast recordings, 31, 261–­62, 271n4 41; “Sorry-­Grateful,” 41, 44; “The
Chapman, John, 145 Ladies Who Lunch,” 41
Charnin, Martin. See Annie composer-­lyricists, 35, 88, 194
Cher, “Believe,” 264 concept musicals, 36, 120
Chernow, Ron, 250 conceptual blending (Fauconnier,
Chicago (Kander, Ebb), parodies of, Turner), 155
260–­61 conceptual models, 257–­58, 263, 266
chords: added-­ninth, 42, 52; aug- Condit-­Schultz, Nat, 237
mented sixth, 204, 210n20; bass consonance to dissonance, 37, 128
lines and, 40; colored, 37, 43–­47; consumerism, 269
dominant, 42–­43; polychords, 47; contredanse, 67–­71, 77–­78. See also
progressions, 176–­77, 201, 202; in dances and dancing
Sondheim’s music, 38–­39, 41–­43; Cornell, Julian, 174, 177
from stacked thirds and fifths, 41; counterpoint, 192, 203
sustained, 219; thirdless, 54–­56; in Culler, Jonathan, 193
The Fantasticks, 78 Cvetkovich, Ann, 213–­14, 231
choruses: breakout (Doll), 17, 178,
186n16; dramatic use of, 221 dances and dancing
chromaticism: in bass lines, 206; from accompaniment alluding to, 247
colored chords, 43; into diatoni- class symbolized through, 67–­68
cism, 51–­52; motives in, 176, 185n14 four-­on-­the-­floor style, 264–­66
classical music, musical theater com- meter in, 268
 282 / index

dances and dancing (continued) Today” (Guys and Dolls), 149; “The
in specific shows: in The Fantasticks, Farmer Refuted” (Hamilton), 247;
79; in The Secret Garden, 71–­72; in “The Next Ten Minutes” (The Last
Sweeney Todd, 77–­78 Five Years), 195, 207; “They Were
death, 182–­83 You” (The Fantasticks), 81; “Too
Decker, Gregory J.: chapter by, 63–­87; Many Mornings” (Follies), 29–­30;
referenced, 4–­5, 184n2, 223 “You Are Love” (Show Boat), 65;
Decker, Todd, 64 “Unworthy of Your Love” (Assas-
De Souza, Jonathan: chapter by, 190–­ sins), 23–­25
211; referenced, 3–­4 Duggan, Lisa, 268
diatonicism, 49, 51–­52
diegesis, 193 Easley, David, 169
Diggs, Daveed, 236, 239–­40, 244, 250n3 Ebb, Frank. See And the World Goes
dissonance: to consonance, 37, 128; Round; Cabaret; Chicago; The Rink
diatonicism and, 49; metric, 268; ellipses, 216
musical topics highlighting, 77; Ellis, Sarah Taylor, 214
rhythmic, 240; in Sondheim’s empathy, 222–­23
music, 35–­62; tonality within, 39–­ Engel, Lehman, 151, 165n2
40; tritones, 230. See also tonality eroticism, 223
Doll, Christopher, 17, 186n16 Eustis, Oskar, 241
dominant function, 60n8 Everett, Walter, 226
doo-­wop, 266–­67 Everett, William A., 138n29
drag. See also The Kinsey Sicks Ewen, David, 146
drama: chords as carrying, 41; cho- expression markings, 230
ruses as conveying, 221; dramatic
function, 147; genre and, 206–­207; Falsettos (Finn, Lapine): history, 137n18;
historical, 236; musicalization of, “What More Can I Say,” 119, 121–­22
37; musical topics and, 65; rhyme The Fantasticks (Schmidt, Jones), 78–­82
used for, 244–­45; rhythm used for, dance and dancing in, 79, 81
131; in Guys and Dolls, 146–­51 musical topics in, 67, 78–­80
The Drowsy Chaperone: “Show Off,” 9, plot details, 81
19–­20, 30–­31 songs: “I Can See It,” 78–­79, 80;
duets “It Depends on What You Pay,”
argumentative vs. consecutive, 161 80; “Never Say No,” 79; “Plant a
as cliché, 9 Radish,” 79; “Round and Round,”
consecutive, 162 80–­81; “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” 124,
as formal markers, 161–­65 126; “They Were You,” 81–­82; “Try
modulations in, 25, 29, 30, 31n3 to Remember,” 80–­81
oppositional love, 147 Fauconnier, Gilles, 155
songs: “A Girl in the Valley” (The female gaze, 222–­23. See also gaze
Secret Garden), 71; “I’ll Know” (Guys femininity, normative, 214, 218, 221
and Dolls), 148–­49; “Marry the Man Fertig, Jack, 255
 index / 283

Feuer, Cy, 165n3, 166n13 Genette, Gérard, 4, 194, 200

Fiddler on the Roof (Bock, Harnick): “Far genres, 63–­64, 135n2, 206–­7, 236
From the Home I Love,” 124, 127; Gentry, Philip, 250n1
“If I Were a Rich Man,” 137 Gershwin, George: “I Got Rhythm,” 258.
Finn, William. See Falsettos See also Oh, Kay!
Flaherty, Stephen. See Ragtime; Gershwin, Ira. See Oh, Kay!
Seussical glam music, 170
folk music, 67–­69, 84n9. See also dances Godspell (Schwartz), 16. See also
and dancing Schwartz, Stephen
Follies (Sondheim): “In Buddy’s Eyes,” golden age of musical theater, 137n15,
42, 44; “Too Many Mornings,” 257–­58
29–­30 Gordon, Joanne, 49, 52
form: analytical methods, 156; duets Grant, Mark N., 135n1, 136n13, 137n16
as markers of, 161–­65; modula- Graziano, John, 135n7
tion and, 25–­30; rags, 12, 14, 205; Great American Songbook tradition,
rhymes and, 97–­98; scholarship 225, 259
on, 146; song, 5; terminology for, Gribin, Anthony J., 266
135n4; tonality and, 269. See also Griffiths, Dai, 10, 12, 31n7
AABA form the grotesque, 77, 81, 85n15, 85n18
Forte, Allen, 135n4, 135n7, 137n16 Guys and Dolls (Loesser), 145–­68
Foster, Sutton, 9–­10 dichotomies in, 151–­60
Francis, Ben, 57 drama in, 146–­51
Frei-­Hauenschild, 136n14 dramatic framework, 147–­51
Frozen (Anderson-­Lopez, Lopez): “In duets in, 161–­65
Summer,” 101–­105, 106–­7 film adaptation, 167n21
Fun Home (Tesori, Kron), 212–­33 compared to Mozart, 146–­47
overview, 213 reception, 145–­47
anachronic temporality in, 194–­95 religiosity in, 151–­60
meter changes in, 132–­33 revival, 162
plot details, 228 syncopation in, 155
queer sexuality in, 231 songs: “Adelaide,” 150; “Adelaide
queer temporalities in, 213–­14 Meets Sarah,” 161; “Adelaide’s
temporality in, 3, 196 Lament,” 161; “Follow the Fold,”
songs: “Changing My Major,” 132, 152, 156–­57; “Fugue for Tinhorns,”
212–­13, 221–­30; “Days,” 132–­33; 151–­52, 153, 154, 166n12; “Guys and
“Edges of the World,” 229, 230; Dolls,” 155; “Home Sweet Home,”
“Ring of Keys,” 212–­21; “Telephone 166n14; “If I Were A Bell,” 157; “I’ll
Wire,” 132–­33 Know,” 148, 157, 161–­62; “I’ve Never
Been In Love Before,” 148, 157,
Galella, Donatella, 250n1 162; “Luck Be a Lady,” 150, 154–­55;
gay characters, 231n1 “Marry the Man Today,” 149, 161,
gaze, 215, 222–­23, 232n9 163, 167n21; “More I Cannot Wish
 284 / index

Guys and Dolls, songs: (continued) Harnick, Sheldon. See Fiddler on the
You,” 149–­50, 157; “My Time of Roof
Day,” 154, 162; “Runyonland,” 151; Harrison, Daniel, 37–­39, 43, 60n9
“Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Hatten, Robert S., 139n34
Boat,” 154–­55, 157, 166n11; “Sue hemiola, 93
Me,” 161; “The Oldest Established,” Herrmann, Bernard, 60n10
154–­55; “Traveling Light,” 163–­65 heteronormativity, 183–­84, 212, 221,
230–­31, 268
Halberstam, Jack, 214, 216 Hindemith, Paul, 39, 43
Hamilton (Miranda), 235–­51 hip-­hop, 235–­51
overview, 249 historiography, 213
history in, 236237, 240–­42, 246–­47, history musicals, 236, 249
249–­50, 251n7 Hoffman, Brian, 10, 12
parody in, 210n21 Holzman, Winnie. See Wicked
rap flows in, 235–­37 homonormativity, 268. See also
rhyme in, 242–­49 heteronormativity
rhythm and meter in, 237–­41 Horowitz, Mark Eden, 59n7
scholarship on, 250n1 How to Succeed in Business without Really
songs: “Aaron Burr, Sir,” 237–­39, 244; Trying (Loesser, Burrows): “Broth-
“Cabinet Battle #1” and “Cabi- erhood of Man,” 166n11; “I Believe
net Battle #2,” 244–­45; “Farmer in You,” 132, 133–­34
Refuted,” 10, 246–­49; “Guns and Huebner, Stephen, 169
Ships,” 239–­40; “Hurricane,” 129, Hutcheon, Linda, 254, 258–­59, 261
131–­32, 134; “Meet Me Inside,”
240–­41; “My Shot,” 239, 243–­44; icon, 71, 83n2. See also semiotics
“Satisfied,” 194 imitation, 204
Hamlisch, Martin. See A Chorus Line impersonations, 255
Hamm, Charles, 114, 135n2, 135n4–­ indexes, 71, 83n2. See also semiotics
135n5, 135n7 integrated musicals, 36
Hammerstein, Oscar, II. See Allegro; intensity, 105
Carousel; Oklahoma!; Show Boat; interludes, 209n18
South Pacific; The Sound of Music intertextuality, 27, 192
Hanenberg, Scott, 11 In the Heights (Miranda), 129–­31, 242
Hanninen, Dora, 155 Into the Woods (Sondheim), 52–­58
Harbert, Elissa, 236, 250n1 4 to 3 in, 37
Harburg, E. Y. See The Wizard of Oz accompaniment in, 54–­56
harmonic language, 206 colored chords ((0148) sonority) in,
harmonic rhythm, 136n7, 225–­26. See 45, 46
also rhythm morality in, 51–­56
Harmon, William, 92, 96–­97 plot details, 2, 6, 52–­54
harmony: bass lines and, 39–­41; slippage songs: “Agony,” 41, 44; “Children Will
of (in Fun Home), 226–­28; Sond- Listen,” 56–­58; “Giants in the Sky,”
heim on, 36. See also chords 54, 55; “I Know Things Now,” 54,
 index / 285

55; “No More,” 56, 57; “No One is You’re Good to Dubya,” 259–­61;
Alone,” 56, 57; “On the Steps of the “You’re Scaring Us,” 269
Palace,” 55, 56; “Opening (Part III),” Kleban, Edward. See Chorus Line
46; “Your Fault,” 45, 46 Knapp, Raymond, 166n10, 174
“I Want” songs, 15 Komaniecki, Robert: chapter by, 235–­52;
referenced, 4, 184n2
Jackson, Michael R. See A Strange Loop Krebs, Harald, 268
Jaidin, Hilmi, 32n11 Kron, Lisa, 195, 213. See also Fun Home
Jameson, Frederic, 204–­5
Jarvis, Brian, 15, 135n7 Lacamoire, Alex, 18–­19
Jenkins, J. Daniel: chapter by, 253–­73; Lafayette, Marquis de, 238–­39
referenced, 3 Laird, Paul, 83n3, 136n7, 169
Jesus Christ Superstar (Lloyd Webber, lament, 71, 84n10
Rice), 205 Lane, Cleo, 263
Jewishness, 206 Lapine, James. See Falsettos
Johns, Glynis, 262 Larson, Steve, 135n7
Jolson, Al, 135n1 The Last Five Years (Brown), 190–­211
Jones, Grace, 263 book aspects, 208n3
Jones, Tom. See The Fantasticks genre in, 207
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream plot details, 190, 194, 197, 199
Coat (Lloyd Webber, Rice), 205 repetition in, 197–­203
as single author show, 88
Kail, Tommy, 242 symbolism in, 208n5
Kajikawa, Loren, 235 temporality in, 196–­97
Kander, John. See And the World Goes time frame of, 209n12
Round; Cabaret; Chicago; The Rink songs: “A Miracle Would Happen,”
Keller, Irwin, 255 206; “A Part of That,” 201–­3, 205–­6;
Kern, Jerome. See Show Boat “A Summer in Ohio,” 201, 203;
Kessler, Kelly, 182 “Audition Sequence,” 205; “I Can
Key Largo (Huston), 32n12 Do Better than That,” 199, 201, 203;
keys: changes of, 29–­30; dramatic asso- “I Could Never Rescue You,” 200;
ciations, 169–­70, 232n13; flat vs. “If I Didn’t Believe in You,” 201–­3,
sharp, 169, 172–­77, 179; minor, 172, 207; “Moving Too Fast,” 201–­3, 206;
178; safe, 155; structure, 3. See also “Nobody Needs to Know,” 197–­98,
modulation 207; “See, I’m Smiling,” 199–­200;
The Kinsey Sicks, 253–­72 “Shiksa Goddess,” 198, 206; “Still
discography, 259 Hurting,” 190–­92, 194, 197, 200–­
parody pratice of, 254–­56 203, 205; “The Next Ten Minutes,”
songs: “Ad Nauseum,” 269; “Anal 195, 207; “The Schmuel Song,” 192–­
Warts: A Sing-­Along,” 259–­60; 93, 206; “When You Come Home
“Buy My Pride,” 269; “Gentle to Me,” 193–­94
Loving People,” 270; “Send in the Latham, Edward, 169
Clones,” 254, 261–­71, 271n5; “When Lawton, David, 169
 286 / index

leading tones, 60n8 Miranda on, 236; parody, 256–­57;

Legally Blonde (O’Keefe, Benjamin): text painting, 220; textural aspects,
arranging and orchestration, 30–­31; 242
“Omigod You Guys,” 20–­21, 25; “So
Much Better,” 17, 25 Malin, Yonatan, 132
Lehman, Frank, 17, 32n12 Manabe, Noriko, 271n3
Lerner, Alan Jay. See My Fair Lady Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth, 203
lesbian women and identity, 222–­23, markedness, 139n34, 241
228–­29 Marx, Jeff. See Avenue Q
Les Misérables (Schönberg, Boubil) masculine gaze, 215, 222. See also gaze
set numbers in, 138n29 McCarty, Mary, 261
temporality in, 209n7 McClary, Susan, 183
songs: “Prologue: What Have I McClelland, Clive, 76
Done?,” 128; “Soliloquy/Javert’s McGill, Craig, 45, 60n10
Suicide,” 128–­29, 134; “Who Am I,” McHugh, Dominic, 32n15
139n30 McMillin, Scott, 114, 135n5, 169
Levene, Sam, 163 megamusicals, 127–­28, 138n28
Lewin, David, 99 memory, 195, 203–­4
Libresco, Leah, 235 Merrily We Roll Along (Sondheim)
Lindenberger, Herbert, 236 anachronic temporality in, 195
Lindsay-­Abaire, David, 194 reprise in, 199–­200
The Lion King (Mecchi, Allers): “Hakuna temporality in, 196
Matata,” 194 songs: “Merrily We Roll Along,” 45;
Lloyd Webber, Andrew. See Jesus Christ “Not a Day Goes By,” 200; “Old
Superstar; Joseph and the Amazing Friends,” 41; “Opening Doors,” 35
Technicolor Dream Coat; Phantom of meter: asymmetrical, 241; changes,
the Opera (Lloyd Webber) 132–­33, 193; in dance music, 268;
Loesser, Frank: duets in music of, 161; dissonance, 268; duple, 220, 240;
topics in music of, 165; on Guys and hemiola, 93; rhythm and, 237–­41
Dolls, 147. See also Guys and Dolls; Miranda, Lin-­Manuel: on his work, 236,
How to Succeed in Business without 238–­39, 241, 245; influences on,
Really Trying; The Most Happy Fella; 242, 244, 248–­49; rap knowledge,
Where’s Charley? 236; reception of work, 241. See
Loewe, Frederick. See My Fair Lady also Hamilton; In the Heights
Lopez, Robert. See Avenue Q; Frozen Mirka, Danuta, 63–­64, 83n2, 85n16
Lumsden, Rachel: chapter by, 212–­34; mistakes, written in, 204–­5, 209n19
referenced, 3, 209n9 modal music, 68–­69, 84n9
lyrics: about, 89; during bridges, 114; modulation: anger and, 199; cadences
diegetic vs. nondiegetic, 193; and, 12; to consonance, 128; down-
fragmented, 216; importance of for ward, 22; dramatic use of, 16–­17,
analysis, 249; irony in, 205; lyrical 22–­23; form and, 25–­30; by half-­
rhyme, 91–­98; per minute, 235–­36; step, 186n17, 226–­28; of melodic
 index / 287

motives, 201; notation of, 22; pump O’Brien, Richard. See The Rocky Horror
up, 5, 10–­11, 17–­18, 21, 28, 31n6, 178, Show
186n17, 201, 226, 230, 269; in rock Oh, Kay! (Gershwin, Gershwin): “Some-
music, 11; singers, considerations one to Watch Over Me,” 119, 122–­23
for, 24; songs about, 9–­10, 31n4; O’Keefe, Laurence, 32n13. See also
stepwise, 9–­33; as surprising, 15; Legally Blonde
to tonic in final choruses, 12–­18; Oklahoma! (Rodgers, Hammerstein)
unexpected, 204. See also keys; as integrated musical, 36
tonality reprise in, 199
Monelle, Raymond, 83n2 temporality in, 194
Monteiro, Lyra D., 250n1 songs: “Oh, What a Beautiful
morality, 52–­56 Mornin’,” 152; “People Will Say
Mosser, Kurt, 254, 256 We’re in Love,” 199
The Most Happy Fella (Loesser), 209n15 ombra topics, 76. See also topics
motives, 101, 120–­21, 156 On the Town (Bernstein): “I Can Cook,
Mulvey, Laura, 222, 232n9 Too,” 26–­27; “Some Other Time,”
Murray, Stuart, 84n7 93, 95
musical expectation, 204 opera, 70–­71, 84n10, 171–­72. See also
musical-­hall songs, 84n13. See also classical music, musical theater
songs compared with
musical sentences, 216–­18, 224–­25, orchestrators and orchestration, 18, 37–­
232n10 38, 49, 263
musical theater, analysis on, 1–­2 Oremus, Stephen, 18–­19
musical topics. See topics Ortiz, Joell, 249
music theory and musical theater, 1 otherness, 183
My Fair Lady (Loewe, Lerner): “On the overtures, 151, 209n14
Street Where You Live,” 116–­19,
137n16 Pacific Overtures (Sondheim): “The
Advantages of Floating in the Mid-
narrative: diegesis vs. nondiegesis, dle of the Sea,” 41
208n4; keys as signifying, 232n13; parody, 253–­72; analysis of, 256–­59;
narrators, functions of, 184n6, pastiche and, 204–­5; rhymes in,
185n7; reprise and, 198–­199; 264; satire and, 258–­59; scholarship
structure, 190; temporality and, 4, on, 258; in Hamilton, 210n21; in The
193, 196; in Fun Home, 213. See also Last Five Years, 203–­7
story; temporality part preparation, 37–­38. See also
Neal, Jocelyn, 11 arrangers
neoliberalism, 250n1, 269 Passion (Sondheim): colored chords
Nobile, Drew: chapter by, 35–­62; refer- ((0148) sonority) in, 45–­47; “Fare-
enced, 5–­6 well Letter,” 47, 48; “Happiness
Norman, Marsha, 88. See also The Secret (Part I),” 48; “No One Has Ever
Garden Loved Me,” 47, 48
 288 / index

pastiche, 59n5, 192, 203–­7 temporality and, 192, 199–­200, 207;

pedal tones, 39–­42, 59n7 in Rocky Horror Show, 180; in The
Peirce, Charles Sanders, 83n2. See also Last Five Years, 202; in The Sound of
semiotics Music, 209n14. See also repetition
Penner, Nina, 169, 184n6, 185n7 revivals, 162
Peterson, John, 15, 135n7 rhymes, 88–­111; dramatic use of, 244–­45;
Phantom of the Opera (Lloyd Webber), end rhymes, 92–­93, 244; expecta-
138n29 tions for, 111n8; form and, 97–­98;
phenomenology of rhyme, 88–­109 interior, 93, 99; internal, 242;
phrases: beginnings of, 119–­23; frag- lyrical, 91–­98; Miranda on, 236,
mented, 216; front-­vs. back-­loaded, 238–­39; in parody, 264; phenom-
123–­24; queer analysis of, 226; enology of, 88–­109; preferences
repetition of, 208; structure of, 89, for, 96–­102; resolution of, 90–­91;
224, 228 subjectivity of, 250n4; types of, 91–­
piano accompaniment. See 92; unexpected, 239; in Hamilton,
accompaniment 242–­49
Pippin (Schwartz), 16 rhythm: bridges and, 115; cadences
plot. See narrative; story and, 89; contrast in, 134; density
Plotkin, Richard: chapter by, 88–­112; of, 115–­119; distribution of, 115–­16,
referenced, 4–­5 123–­28; diversity of, 239; dramatic
polychords, 47. See also chords use of, 131; foxtrot, 135n1, 136n13;
Prece, Paul, 138n29 front-­vs. back-­loaded, 127; groups
Prince, Hal, 27 and, 97; harmonic, 136n7, 225–­26;
The Producers (Brooks): “’Til Him,” 19 in hip-­hop, 237; meter and, 237–­41;
Prokofiev, Sergei, 43 motives, 120; phrase beginnings,
115, 119–­23; in polkas, 79; repetition
Queen Latifah, 261 of, 139n30; in Sondheim’s music,
queerness, 3 121; tension and, 132; as unifying,
queer temporalities, 209n9, 213–­14, 231. 135n7. See also bridges; syncopation
See also temporality rhythmic dissonance, 240
Ricci, Adam, 12, 31n6
Ragtime (Ahrens, Flaherty), 205; “What Rice, Tim. See Jesus Christ Superstar;
a Game,” 12–­14 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
rap, 236, 238, 244. See also Hamilton Dreamcoat
Ratner, Leonard, 60n8 Ricoeur, Paul, 4, 196
Ravel, Maurice, 43 Riis, Thomas, 165n1, 166n8
religiosity, 151–­160, 220 The Rink (Kander, Ebb): “Colored
repetition, 197–­203, 208, 258. See also Lights,” 21
reprises Robinson, Danielle, 14
reprises: as codas, 201; limited use of, The Rocky Horror Show (O’Brien), 169–­89
166n13; narrative and, 198–­99; film adaptation, 170
reverse, 202; within story, 209n14; gender dichotomies in, 3
 index / 289

operatic conventions in, 171–­72 scores, 37–­38, 262. See also arrangers
plot details, 171–­72 The Secret Garden (Simon, Norman),
set, 170 67–­73
songs: “Damn It, Janet,” 171, 174, 176; class in, 67–­68, 70
“Don’t Dream It, Be It,” 180, 182; compositional process, 88
“Eddie’s Teddy,” 172, 178; “Floor contredanse in, 67–­71, 77–­78
Show,” 179–­82; “I Can Make You musical topics in, 66
a Man,” 171, 176–­77; “I’m Going plot details, 72
Home,” 172, 182; “Once in a While,” songs: “A Fine White Horse,” 69,
172, 178; “Over at the Franken- 84n8; “A Girl in the Valley,” 71;
stein Place,” 171, 174, 176; “Planet “Come Spirit, Come Charm,” 72;
Schmanet,” 172, 178–­79; “Rose Tint “I Heard Someone Crying,” 71–­72;
My World/Don’t Dream It/Wild “It’s a Maze”, 72; “Show Me the
and Untamed Thing,” 172, 179–­ Key,” 72; “The Girl I Mean To Be,”
180, 180–­81, 182; “Science Fiction 72; “The Letter Song,” 72; “Where
Double Feature,” 171, 174, 180, 182, in the World,” 71; “Wick,” 72; “Win-
185n10–­11; “Super Heroes,” 172, ter’s on the Wing,” 70
182; “Sweet Transvestite,” 171, 173, semiotics, 71, 83n2. See also topics
176; “The Sword of Damocles,” 171, sentences. See musical sentences
176; “Time Warp,” 171, 174, 176–­78, sentimentality and affect, 11
185n12; “Touch-­a Touch-­a Touch-­a set numbers, 138n29
Touch Me,” 172, 177–­78, 179; “What- Seurat, George, 49
ever Happened to Saturday Night/ Seussical (Ahrens, Flaherty), 205
Hot Patootie,” 171, 177–­78 sexuality, 169, 172–­73, 221–­22, 229,
Rodgers, Richard, 35. See also Allegro; 231
Carousel; Oklahoma!; South Pacific; Sheik, Duncan, 236
The Sound of Music Sheinberg, Esti, 77, 85n18
Rodgers, Stephen, 110n1 Shelley, Braxton, 11
Rohy, Valerie, 213 Short, Rachel: chapter by, 113–­41; refer-
Rosenberg, Deena, 123 enced, 5
Runyon, Damon, 147 Show Boat (Kern, Hammerstein)
parody about, 254
Sallinger, Elizabeth, 169 plot details, 65–­66
Sater, Steven, 236 race and privilege in, 64, 83n6
satire, 182, 258–­59, 261, 267–­68 representation in, 136n7
Schatz, Ben, 254, 261 songs: “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,”
Schiff, Matthew M., 266 116–­17, 118; “Where’s the Mate for
Schmidt, Harvey. See The Fantasticks Me,” 136n7; “You Are Love,” 65
Schönberg, Claude-­Michel. See Les show time vs. story time, 209n7
Misérables Shrek: The Musical (Tesori, Lindsay-­
Schwartz, Stephen, 16, 32n9. See also Abaire): “I Know It’s Today,” 194
Wicked signification, 63–­64
 290 / index

Simon, Lucy, 88. See also The Secret enteen,” 89–­91; “Edelweiss,” 259;
Garden “My Favorite Things,” 93, 95
Sinatra, Frank, 262–­63 South Pacific (Rodgers, Hammerstein):
singability: belting passages, 16, 32n9; ballads in, 124; parodies of, 255;
range, 163; of Sondheim’s music, 35 “Some Enchanted Evening,” 35,
social class: in The Secret Garden, 67–­68, 124–­25; “This Nearly Was Mine,”
70; topics and, 71–­72 124–­25; “Younger than Spring-
Society for Music Theory (SMT), 1 time,” 119, 124
solo numbers, 222. See also The Last Five Spamalot, 9
Years Spicer, Mark, 60n9
Soloway, Joey, 222 spirituality, 220
Sondheim, Stephen: overview, in this Spring Awakening (Sheik, Sater), 236
book, 5–­6; 3–­4 alteration in, 54; 3–4 staging, 215
oscillation in, 56, 57; 4–­3 oscilla- Starobin, Michael, 49
tion in, 50; accompaniment in, 75; Steiner, Max, 32n12
bass zone in, 38–­41; cadences in, Sternfeld, Jessica, 138n28–­29
42–­43; chords in, 38–­39, 41–­47; as Stitt, Georgia: “I Get To Show You the
composer and collaborator, 35–­37, Ocean,” 92, 94, 105, 108–­109
58–­59, 59n3, 88; dissonance in story: chronological order, 194; dis-
music of, 35–­62; on harmony, 36; course vs., 193, 208n4; show time
on interpretation of lyrics, 270; vs., 209n7. See also narrative
melodic zone in, 38–­39; parodies Streisand, Barbara, 254–­55, 262, 270
of, 261–­69; pastiche in, 59n5; on Strouse, Charles. See Annie
reprise, 198–­200; on rhyme, 92, style, function of, 4, 204–­5
110n7; rhythm in music of, 121; Summach, Jay, 135n5
scholarship on, 36; tonality system Sunday in the Park with George
in, 47. See also A Little Night Music; (Sondheim)
Assassins; Company; Follies; Into colored chords ((0148) sonority) in,
the Woods; Merrily We Roll Along; 49–­52, 53
Pacific Overtures; Passion; Sunday in dissonance to consonance in, 37
the Park with George; Sweeney Todd; songs: “Finishing the Hat,” 49, 51;
West Side Story “Sunday,” 53; “Sunday in the Park
songs: chord progressions shared across, with George,” 50–­51; “Sunday”
202; form, 5; of identification, 215; theme, 49, 52; “The Day Off,” 51–­52;
musical-­hall, 84n13; types of, 256; “We Do Not Belong Together,” 41
underscore vs., 42. See also rhyme; surprise, 204
The Kinsey Sicks; The Last Five Suskin, Stephen, 32n15
Years Swain, Joseph, 136n7, 136n14, 137n19,
Songs for a New World (Brown): tempo- 138n29
rality in, 194 Swaney, Sue, 32n10
The Sound of Music (Rodgers, Hammer- Swayne, Steve, 36–­37, 59n3
stein): parodies of, 259–­60; reprise Sweeney Todd (Sondheim), 73–­78
in, 209n14; “Sixteen Going On Sev- accompaniment in, 75
 index / 291

colored chords ((0148) sonority) in, music, 165; ombra, 76; in opera,
44–­45 84n10; as particularizing, 73, 80,
dances and dancing in, 77–­78 82; social class and, 71–­72; in The
musical topics in, 66 Fantasticks, 78–­80
plot details, 74, 78 Tormé, Mel, 263
waltzes in, 74–­77 triplets and tuplets, 133, 250n3, 264, 268
songs: “A Little Priest,” 74–­75; “God, Tsur, Reuven, 96–­97
That’s Good,” 38; “Johanna” (Judge Turner, Mark, 155
Turpin), 75–­77, 85n25; “Johanna”
(Todd), 39–­40, 42; “Ladies in Their underscore vs. songs, 42
Sensitivities,” 77; “Poor Thing,” 74;
“Pretty Women, Part 1,” 77; “The Vaughan, Sarah, 262–­63
Worst Pies in London,” 73, 85n15; Vicinus, Martha, 216
“Wait,” 41 vulnerability, 223
Swerling, Jo, 147, 165n3
symbols, 83n2. See also semiotics waltzes
syncopation, 116, 120, 129–­32, 155, 240. accent in, 75
See also rhythm associations with, 66
Bowery, 74–­75
Taylor, Elizabeth, 271n4 love/romance and, 209n16, 224
temporality, 192–­97; as term, 208n2; as rhythmic characteristic, 83n5
of music analysis, 208; narrative social contexts of, 74
and, 193, 196; queer temporalities, shows: in The Fantasticks, 67, 80–­81;
209n9; reprise and, 207; unusual, in Fun Home, 132, 223–­24, 226; in
3–­4 The Last Five Years, 200, 207; in The
Tesori, Jeanine, 215. See also Fun Home; Secret Garden, 71–­72; in Show Boat,
Shrek: The Musical 65; in Sweeney Todd, 74–­77, 85n15
text painting, 220. See also lyrics See also topics
thematic return, 16 Wang, Oliver, 11
Tin Pan Alley music, 135n5 Waters, Keith, 135n7
tonality: emotional aspects, 11; form Weird Al Yankovich, 256–­57
and, 269; scholarship on, 37; in The Weston, Paul, 209n19
Rocky Horror Show, 169. See also dis- West Side Story (Bernstein, Sondheim)
sonance; modulation; Sondheim, musical styles within, 64
Stephen songs: “America,” 10; “Balcony
tonic return: in “Omigod You Guys” Song,” 96, 99–­102; “Gee, Officer
(Legally Blonde), 21; in “What a Krumpke!,” 12; “One Hand, One
Game” (Ragtime), 14 Heart,” 93, 94; “Something’s Com-
Tony Awards, 9–­10, 215 ing,” 60n13, 93, 95
topics: overview, 4, 63, 65, 82; elevated, Where’s Charley? (Loesser), 165n4
71; “exotic”/“othered,” 80–­81; as white music vs. Black music, 65–­66
generalizing, 65, 67, 72, 78, 80, 82; whiteness of Broadway, 29
as iconic signs, 63–­64; in Loesser’s Whitesell, Lloyd, 184n3
 292 / index

Wicked (Schwartz, Holzman) Wolf, Stacy, 146, 165n1, 166n17, 212,

creative team, 18 230–­31, 231n1
temporality in, 196, 209n8 Wonderful Town (Bernstein): “A Little
songs: “Defying Gravity,” 25; “The Bit in Love,” 22, 26
Wizard and I,” 14–­17, 19, 25, 32n9; Wright, Trudi, 169
“Wonderful,” 210n21
Wilder, Alec, 123, 135n4, 135n7 “Yankee Doodle,” 84n7
Williams, Justin, 250n1 youth, 80
The Wizard of Oz (Arlen, Harburg):
“(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow,” Zbikowski, Lawrence, 254, 257, 263
15, 116–­17, 118, 134