My Top 5 Optimistic Songs from Musicals

I Have Confidence – The Sound Of Music

Optimistically confident, as ever.

The Sound of Music was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s opus 11, final collaboration and is possibly the most popular. It was already old-fashioned in 1959 but now and always will be a timeless classic. Lyricist Hammerstein was dying from cancer and crystallised his simple, nature-inspired style and Rodgers rose to the occasion with an arc of light and dark. I Have Confidence, however, was written for the movie some 5 years after Hammerstein’s passing and despite lacking his precision it’s about as optimistic as you can get!

A mish-mash of deleted tunes from the original stage show, the song was the work of unnamed backroom boys at 20th Century Fox with Rodgers credited. As the ‘life-force’, ‘light feminine’ character we travel with Maria on her call to adventure. In this clip, Family Guy’s Stuie joins her.

There’s Got To Be Something Better Than This – Sweet Charity

Cy Coleman’s jazzy 60’s score for Sweet Charity is an absolute joy. The dark and often depressing world that Charity inhabits is made brighter by all those brass stabs, onto which director/choreographer Bob Fosse placed shapes with bodies and hands. Our love for the central character is due to her optimistic voice best illustrated in this song.

Oh What A Beautiful Morning – Oklahoma!

We can’t imagine how powerful this song would have been when it was first heard in the darkest days of World War II in 1943. The show won a Pulitzer Prize. The bond of character, in this case Curly the cowboy, and this, the opening song, is so tight – no other character could sing it. It broke the tradition of shows opening with a chorus of girls and is considered by many to be the original book musical ushering in the “Golden Age” of American musical theatre.

I Got The Sun In The Morning – Annie Get Your Gun

The combination of Ethel Merman (the trumpet of Broadway) and Irving Berlin (the King of Tin Pan Alley) always made for an optimistic experience. Annie was written especially for Merman and when the show opened on Broadway in 1946 it was an instant hit. In post- war America this song was a reminder of the value of the simpler things in life. No film exists of Merman in the show and she was considered to old and hammy for the 1950 MGM movie, but this later TV special gives us a strong sense of what La Merm was like in action.

Somewhere – West Side Story

The show marked a turning point in the American Musical and was Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway debut. Based on Romeo and Juliet the show is full of social tension and Leonard Bernstein’s score is one of Broadway’s greatest. Taking its opening phrase from the slow movement of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto, the song flutters beautifully between high and popular art. Maria reprises the song briefly as Tony dies in her arms. Optimistic? Kind of.

This post was inspired by Paul Smith’s new fragrance ‘Optimistic’.
http://www.facebook.com/PaulSmithOptimistic

Advertisement