I had watched the entire movie Singin’ in the Rain at some point many years ago, and my memory of it was spotty. I remembered Gene Kelly’s description of his childhood and early career: “Dignity. Always dignity,” and of course the title song, and that the whole plot centered around the advent of talkies and the demise of silent movies. I also had this vague notion that the song had something to do with smiling in the face of adversity, sort of along the same lines as “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head.” (Rabbit trail alert: Of course I had to look up “Raindrops” and watch the clip of its occurrence in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for Sundance to take the time for this little romantic bike-riding interlude with Etta Place, his schoolteacher girlfriend, since he and Butch are on the run from the law, but there it is. Maybe someone decided that the story had been going on too long without any fun stuff. The song itself doesn’t advance the plot directly, but the director wanted something to go with the scene, and Burt Bacharach, who was writing the score, apparently had the first line in his head and wanted to use it. You can shoehorn the lyrics into the plot of the story somewhat, but it takes effort. I will point out, by the way, that this scene includes no rain. Sheesh.) But back to “Singin’,” which isn’t about adversity at all. Gene Kelly’s character is simply in love. He’s just said goodnight to his new girlfriend Kathy, and he’s so happy that he’s perfectly willing to dance through the storm. No angst at all is involved.
Yes, it has. But that’s what always happens. If successive generations couldn’t put their own stamp on sources, we’d be pretty limited in what we could read, see and hear. There’s a theory that there are only around seven plots that show up in every piece of fiction ever written. I’m not sure that I quite buy that, but it’s certainly true that the same themes show up over and over again. We never tire of true love’s triumph, for instance. And I am especially fond of fairy tales, having devoured so many of them when I was in grade school. How exciting it always was to go to the bookmobile with my mom and see what new choices were there. If a book had the word “fairy” in the title, I was game..png)
As I often say when writing these posts: Hoo boy. There ended up being lots to say about this supposedly simple song. My purpose in writing this post, as with all that I do, is to deepen your understanding of what you’re singing (or hearing, if you’re reading this post as an audience member). Along with the lighthearted words and fun arrangement of this piece there’s a darker background arising from its source material, both immediate and historical._(cropped).jpg)
I’m always interested in the origins of things: the why. So for the selection “The Impossible Dream” (titled “The Quest” in the actual script) from Man of La Mancha that I’ve sung with my own choir I wanted to know why on earth a popular Broadway show had been made from a 400-year-old, 700-page novel, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Doesn’t sound all that likely, does it? And yet it happened. (There are lots of other unlikely origins for Broadway musicals, though—Kiss Me, Kate is based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.)
you thought you were going to get a clear explication about this song, you’re going to have to just accept the fact that we live in an imperfect world. The lyrics of Toto’s “Africa” have a number of explanations that have been given by members of the band, notably by David Paich, a band keyboardist and vocalist.
When my choir the