#854 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday February 9)

Good morning,

SONGWRITING

I have difficulty understanding how two people can collaborate on a single song. How did Lennon and McCarthy share songwriting duties? That’s hard enough. But I really have never fully understood how two different people can divide the art of writing a song by splitting it into the songwriting itself and the creation of the lyrics for the song. In musical theatre, it is more common than not that one person, say a Richard Rogers, writes the music, while Oscar Hammerstein II writes the lyrics. The process must involve considerable interaction, as when they are finished, and if they have done their respective tasks well, it seems as if the words and the music “always” were meant to belong together.

SONGS ABOUT CHILDREN AND WHAT THEY LEARN

“Children Will Listen,” from Into the Woods, by Stephen Sondheim. This is a brilliant rendition by Bernadette Peters: Children Will Listen

“You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” from South Pacific, a brilliant and early cogitation about hate and racism. The lyrics are by Oscar Hammerstein II. It speaks to how hatred of the other is a learned belief. It doesn’t come naturally. It was deemed by some too controversial for the stage:

POETRY OF LYRICS

From “Children Will Listen,” a lesson to be heeded in these contentious times with the banning of books and the vilification of others:

Careful the things you say,
Children will listen.
Careful the things you do,
Children will see.
And learn.

Children may not obey,
But children will listen.
Children will look to you
For which way to turn,
To learn what to be.
Careful before you say,
Listen to me.
Children will listen.

And here are the controversial lyrics of “You’ve got to be Carefully Taught”:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

I was cheated before
And I’m cheated again
By a mean little world
Of mean little men.
And the one chance for me
Is the life I know best.

To be on an island
And to hell with the rest.
I will cling to this island
Like a tree or a stone,
I will cling to this island
And be free—and alone.

Have a great day,

Glenn