BWW EXCLUSIVE: 5 SONGS BY... Wayne & Karey Kirkpatrick On SOMETHING ROTTEN!

BroadwayWorld recently kicked off a brand new feature series spotlighting the best and brightest songwriters on Broadway and beyond with their own personally chosen quintet of songs that hold special meaning to them, titled 5 SONGS BY....

Today we are talking to the eminently talented and endlessly inventive twosome behind the music and lyrics of one of the most popular shows of the 2014-2015 season, multi-Tony Award-nominated new musical SOMETHING ROTTEN!'s Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick. Opening up about the extensive and exhaustive process in crafting the lovingly jesting and rib-tickling Shakespeare-flecked score, each of the real-life brothers espouse on how they came to create some of the biggest showstoppers in the standout-packed show as well as sharing some of their characteristic wit and humor all the while, too. Additionally, they discuss the rewriting process and hone in on sharing their specific thoughts on the ideal lyrical and musical expression for many memorable moments in the hit show as well as much, much more.

More information on SOMETHING ROTTEN! is available at the official site here.

WAYNE KIRKPATRICK

"Welcome To The Renaissance"

"This was one of the first song ideas written for the musical, way back when the story was merely a concept. I was sitting at the piano one day, thinking about what kind of songs we could do if we were to ever actually write this musical we had talked about writing now for several years. The chorus kind of came out of the ether somewhat effortlessly - I love it when that happens. (Because it doesn't happen often.) The original version, lyrically, had lines like "Welcome to the Renaissance/where the Queen gets whatever when she wants," and "Here you've got your peasants and your majesties/your tippling house, your chamber pots, your tapestries/with righteous indignation we take our reformation/and stick it to the Roman Catholic church". Ultimately, none of that had anything to do with our story. As the focus was honed, the lyrics took on many rewrites, but some of the originals still made it through to the end - "Welcome to the Renaissance/with poets, painters and bon vivants/and merry minstrels." The fun was always in trying to find clever rhymes for Renaissance. My favorite is "Welcome to the Renaissance/Well, our printing press has the fancy fonts. The rest, as they say is history. No, really... literally - it's history. All of it. We had to do research and everything...."

"Bottoms Gonna Be On Top"

"The first exploration of this idea came in the form of a peppy chorus based on the phrase "Bottoms To The Top". It was an early approach before the story was fully developed, so it was written somewhat in a vacuum with a broad assumption that Nick would be singing it to Nigel. As the story took shape, we thought maybe Nick should have a moment at the end of Act 1 that would show his angst and resolve to 'make it', much like Momma Rose in "Everything's Coming Up Roses". So we wrote an entire song like that called "Until The Bottoms Are On The Top". We felt pretty good about it, but when we played it for Casey Nicholaw, he commented that, while he liked the song, it was just too serious - not funny enough. Ugh! At that point, I went back and revisited "Bottoms To The Top" and suggested that, with some tweaks both melodically and lyrically, maybe it would be the right direction to go after all. It was then that we landed on "Bottoms Gonna Be On Top" and determined that Nick would sing it alone in a fantasy piece as he began his delusional descent into madness. The clincher was when we landed on the idea of a 'tap off' between Nick and Shakespeare. That was the missing piece of the puzzle and once we had that, everything fell into place. When we recorded the demo, we used metal measuring spoons to simulate the tap shoes."

"Hard To Be The Bard"

"This title existed early on as a concept for something to write about - the notion that William Shakespeare, just like any other writer, had to deal with the difficulties of writing, coming up with new ideas, trying to top the last good idea he had, staying relevant and so on. Initially, I had thought to approach the idea as a patter song and came up with a melody and some lyrics that lent itself to that, but that was before we had truly found the 'rock star' voice of Shakespeare. Once that was discovered, a patter song didn't seem right. Now we needed something where Shakespeare could groove - something where he could have a 'posse' grooving with him. My first thought was, 'It should be a shuffle' ala, Michael Jackson in 'The Way You Make Me Feel'. That was the early inspiration. I have a vivid memory of discussing this with Karey while on his patio in California, grilling meat on the Big|Brave Green Egg. Now, every time I hear this song in the show, I get hungry for steak."

"God I Hate Shakespeare"

"It was Karey who suggested that we have a song that said, 'I hate Shakepeare,' and our main character, Nick Bottom, should sing it. I loved the idea immediately. It was ripe with possibilities. At home in Nashville, I began to explore where it could go. It needed to have a certain amount of anger in it, so a pulsating rock guitar seemed appropriate. I also felt that the melody should have classical undertones as a way to represent the intellectual haughtiness that Nick was complaining about. With that, I came up with the beginning stages of what would be 'God, I Hate Shakespeare'. It was a couple of months later that I went out to LA for one of many writing sessions with Karey. I showed him what I had come up with so far and he suggested that we have a section where the Shakespeare-loving troupe could be involved as a way to be the counter voice to Nick's hatred for The Bard. Out of that, a chorus was written that contained the phrase "don't be a penis, the man is a genius". (Not a perfect rhyme, but a funny imperfect one. And comedy trumps imperfection). 'Can we go there?' I asked. 'Why not?' he said. And thus the lyrical floodgates were opened, establishing the tone for future lines of the same ilk throughout our show. Yes, I believe it was then that the monster was created...."

"Make An Omelette"

"The bane of our existence. The thorn in our side. The albatross around our necks. We had sort of painted ourselves into a corner with a plot that required a musical within a musical to be written and it needed to be called OMELETTE, which was predicted by a not-so-accurate soothsayer to be Shakespeare's greatest idea. Art imitated life as we struggled to make sense of this idea, just as the Bottom Brothers were doing in the show. They, too, needed to write a musical called OMELETTE. We wrote 10 different versions of this song. We drew from any and every Shakespeare reference we could and tried to meld them with many a musical theatre nod, but each time we tried, we failed miserably. By the ninth time around, I felt pretty deflated. I wondered if maybe we had met our match and questioned if we would ever be able to slay this dragon. We took the day off and I went for a walk by the Santa Monica pier. It was on that walk that I came up with a possible idea, which I recorded into my iPhone. It was based on discussions Karey and I had been having about a direction that included dancing eggs. That's right, dancing eggs. In those absurd conversations it was also determined that maybe the prince in our story would sing about the advice he had received from his dead father, The Phantom. The advice? 'When life gives you eggs, make an omelette.' And that was the idea that made it. We had finally 'cracked' the egg dilemma. (Sorry, had to go there). Once we wrote the song, the absurdity baton was handed off to Casey who ran even further with it. By the end of it all, we had dancing eggs engaging in a skillet fight and being transformed into human sized omelettes. It was just stupid enough to be smart. Or we were just smart enough to be stupid..."

KAREY KIRKPATRICK

"A Musical"

"Way back in the stone ages when we first came up with the idea for SOMETHING ROTTEN! (which at the time was called THAT SHAKESPEARE MUSICAL and, then, later, THE BOTTOM BROTHERS), we would pitch the story and say, 'They go to a soothsayer who predicts that the future of theater is musicals where the dialogue stops and the plot is conveyed through song,' and then we'd say, 'So, an actor is just saying his lines and then out of nowhere he stops singing? Well, that is the (singing) stupidest thing that I have ever heard...." It always seemed like a funny idea, so the first bit of music I ever wrote for this was sitting down at the piano and starting with that same melody that we had always pitched and then adding 'You're doing a play, got something to say - so you sing it? It's absurd!' etc.. And I went on to write a chorus that was much more laid back. When we played it for Casey, he said this was our chance to do a really huge production number and he jumped up and started doing dance moves and improvising a big Broadway razzmatazz melody and we sort of went 'Oh, yeah - okay. We can do that.' Then Wayne went off and came up with the melody to the chorus and we merged that with my verse and another bit that I had started which was the 'Let's just say it's a Saturday night and you want to go out on the town...' verse. We got together in Nashville, having those different elements, and then finished the song - adding the recitative parts that lampoon LES MISERABLES. We then did the 'dance break' section - which was only about 16-32 bars long - and then wrote the finale that lead to a kick-line and the lyric 'For some unexplainable reason/the crowd goes wild every time/when dancers kick/in unison/in one big wonderful line.' We knew we wanted to reference that idea because it's like some unwritten yet well understood musical theatre commandment - 'Thou shalt applaud the kick line.' This song was actually a lot of fun to write because we got to poke fun of the form while being in love with the form. And we also got to make up some 'oozical' rhymes. We turned it over to Casey who got together with Glen Kelly to expand the dance break section - and expand it they did! They added a lot of the other musical theatre references like SOUTH PACIFIC and ANNIE and RENT and then gave it back to us to adjust the lyrics. It was a fantastic collaboration that produced a song that just puts a smile on my face each night I watch it and see people literally doubling over with laughter and slapping their knees in delight. The reaction this song gets in the theater is something none of us expected."

"Will Power"

"I like this song because it really helped us to define Shakespeare's character. We used to always say that Shakespeare in Tudor England was like a rock star - but some of the first songs we wrote for him weren't rock songs, they were clever ditties. But one day, Wayne sent me a demo this blues-rock riff with the chorus that went "Will power/I am the will of the people now" - which I really liked. From there, we got the idea that he could do a recitation in the park that would be like his version of a rock concert and if he's doing his 'hits' then they would be sonnets and famous lines from his plays. This one was fun to write because I can just remember sort of singing out to Wayne, 'SHALL I COMPARE THEE!...' and then the crowd answers 'TO A SUMMERS DAY!' And we really got into the fun of the call and response nature of the verses... like a star holding out the microphone to an audience to finish lines of a song. It just felt so wonderfully cheesy and vain... and funny that these are very formal elegant lines of Renaissance poetry that we are doing as if it's Bon Jovi. Then, one day, I thought it might be fun to have a slowed down section - the love song portion of the concert - and I had done ROMEO & JULIET in high school and could still recite from memory the 'But soft what light through yonder window breaks...' speech. And this melody just popped into my head and I did a little demo of it and sent it off to Wayne, and he liked it so we added that into the song as well - which gave it a nice new flavor musically. Then we got together not long after that at my little studio in my house and put the whole song together... and that's when we added all the background vocals which we really had a lot of fun with. That's when the song really came to life for us. And it also established a way that we would start working together which was coming up with a basic track on Pro Tools and then sitting together around the microphone and improvising on-the-fly how the ensemble vocals could enhance the comedy. So on this song, we came up with the whole section that goes "I AM THE WILL.../(HE IS THE WILL).I AM THE WILL (HE IS THE WILL).../I AM THE SWAN (BEAUTIFUL SWAN!)/OF THE AVON (THE ONE IN STRATFORD)/THE CHOSEN ONE THAT GOD IN HEAVEN SMILED UPON (THANK YOU GOD!)' Those are my favorite moments in the writing process because they don't involve staring into space trying to think up lyrics. They were organic and in-the-moment. We're just trying to one-up each other and make the other one laugh. When that happens, we know we're on to something."

"I Love The Way"

"I think what I love most about this song is the way we wrote it - which was really one of the first ones where we were together in the room when the song started. Since we live in separate cities, we often start songs and make demos and send to each other with 'What do you think?' written somewhere in the email. But on this one, we were in Nashville and on our 'to do' list was to write a song for Portia that spoke to her love of poetry. We used to always say that Nigel and Portia were like two comic book geeks only instead of comic books, they're love is for poetry and poets. That's what brings them together. We also knew Portia would become the inspiration and vote of confidence Nigel so desperately needed. So we both noodled around on two separate pianos in Wayne's studio and at one point saying 'Maybe it should be in 3/4 time... we don't have anything in 3/4 yet.' So we landed on this waltz feel and we just tossed musical ideas back and forth and came up with something that we really liked in about half a day. Then we set out to write the lyrics at another session (in L.A.) and that, too, was a lot of back-and-forth while in the same room. Our other book writing partner, John O'Farrell, had this idea that maybe Portia in the song could be listing all the things she loves and gets carried away and almost says 'I love you!' but instead, realizes what has come over her then stops herself and says 'AND I LOVE... being a Puritan...and reading scripture...and going to church on Sunday....' So the first versions of the song had that idea in there, but it didn't play as funny as we originally thought it would. So we cut that part out and the only vestigial that remains is the part where she sings 'AND I LOVE...youuuuu are really doing something to me, Mr. Poetry man.' But I can remember while writing lyrics, Wayne was laying on a couch (as is often the case... all lyric writing somehow ends with Wayne on a couch) and he came up with the line 'I find pleasure perusing those writings and musings so often I pleasure myself...,' and then I sang 'Wait, that didn't sound right....' And we both laughed... and when that happens, it must go into the song. I also remember going to the bathroom (TMI?) and coming back with the line 'I love a lilting line of lyrical alliteration,' to which Wayne added 'And then I'm like whoa/when the phrases come together like a consummation.' So the collaboration on this one was really satisfying and less painful than most. And I just love the song. It's so sweet and innocent and does so much for both characters. And there's something about a waltz that just puts a smile on your face."

"Welcome To The Renaissance'

"I do remember vividly Wayne sitting at a piano at my house and playing me the chorus idea he had for this song - and I remember thinking, 'That's catchy - but it doesn't sound like Sondheim...,' meaning, it didn't sound like a musical theatre song to me... or at least how I imagined the songs from this musical should sound. But as art imitates life, it's actually hard to to practice the 'to thine own self be true' philosophy (the theme of our musical) and to have faith that whatever that thing you do is - it's worthy. This is another one where Wayne had a chorus and I had another piece of music I was working on - and my piece surprisingly worked well in the place where the song needed to break out and get a little more groovy... which led to us writing the 'Hey, look it's Francis Bacon...,' section. Then we wrote the rest of the song together (and as Wayne said, chased many '...ahnce' rhymes). Opening numbers are hard and are often the last thing to be written in a show. But this is actually one of the first songs we wrote and I'm very proud of it because it sets the tone of the show and lets the audience know they are in for a good time. I have had many people come to me and say that somewhere in the middle of this song, they sit back and relax and think to themselves 'This is going to be fun and I'm in good hands' - and that is such a nice compliment. It's also the one song that people consistently say they can't get out of their heads because the hook is so catchy (kudos to Wayne for writing a catchy chorus, something he's quite good at doing)."

"We See The Light"

"Again, it's hard for me to separate my feelings for a song from the way in which the song was written. So not only do I love this song for all of the reasons one normally likes a song - good music, catchy hook, fun lyrics, etc. - but also because of how the song came about. This is the last song we wrote before rehearsals started in February of 2015. We had done a lab in the fall of 2014 and in December of 2014, Wayne and I were in NY with Casey trying to figure out what was missing from Act 2. The answer was another upbeat production number. From NY, I went to London to do some writing on the book with John O'Farrell. We were all trying to figure out what that upbeat number should be. We knew it should involve Nigel and Portia. Then John came up with the idea that it could involve the Puritans and that maybe they could break out into some sort of 'Summer of Love'-feeling fantasy number - that it would be fun and funny so see Puritans 'getting down,' as it were. So we Skyped with Wayne, and he liked that idea, and we talked about it having a sort of 70s Osmond Brothers feel. Once again, we started working on separate musical ideas...and once again, those ideas merged together remarkably well. We got together in L.A. in January of 2015. We had the opening verse idea and the 'We See the Light' chorus and we put those down on Pro Tools and just kept plowing forward. Two days later, we heard that Brooks Ashmanskas had been cast to play Brother Jeremiah. We both looked him up on YouTube and saw what he could do and how funny he was and we both said, 'We've got to take advantage of this guy's talent and give him more to do,' - so we added that character into the song which gave us more things to explore comically. We would write a few lines, record them and then say, 'Okay, what next? What could be funny?" and then we came up with the 'Bretheren, I say unto you... say what?...daughter of a preacher man,' section. It was fun to write and also made us feel like, after four years and 45 songs, we were finally starting to figure a few things out. Wayne has often said this process has been like four years of college to which I add, "And the songs in our senior year got easier to write than the ones in our freshman year.' We finished it in a week and the song we wrote is the song that's on stage."

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