Great songs in flops
Great songs in flops
Josh Freilich
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/17/06
#1Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:17pm
There are some flops with music that is, well, mediocre. Let's talk about the flops and the songs that stand out as one of the best (especially if the entire score is the best part of the show).
CARRIE - I'm Not Alone, Heaven, Carrie, And Eve Was Weak (very WICKED-like)
THE MAGIC SHOW - Goldfarb Variations, West End Avenue, Two's Company, Lion Tamer
HIGH FIDELITY - Top 5 Breakups, Nine Percent Chance, Conflict Resolutions, Turn the World Off
MY FAVORITE YEAR - everything!
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE - Everybody Says Don't
ALL AMERICAN - We Speak the Same Language, What a Country, Melt Us!
IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE, IT'S SUPERMAN - You've Got Possibilities
CHESS - One Night in Bangkok, The Arbiter, Merano, Quartet, Pity the Child, and the "Chess" theme - such a good song to play on piano
SMILE - Until Tomorrow Night, A Typical High School Senior, Disneyland
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS - The Column, Dirt, Welcome To The Night, and others
METROPOLIS - Nothing Really Matters
"How could she just suddenly, completely disappear into thin water?" - The Little Mermaid
#2re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:24pmThere is more than 1 great song in ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, I think.
"If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy."
-Charlie Manson
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#2re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:27pm
I think you picked some of the weakest songs from Chess. I think Where I Want to Be, Endgame, and The Deal all stand out a lot more than songs like The Arbiter and Merano.
Also, I think Turn the World Off (or whatever the song was called) from High Fidelity was incredibly weak; Number Five with a Bullet and She Goes both deserve to make your list.
Julian2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/10/06
#3re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:29pm
IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE, IT'S SUPERMAN's entire score is amazing, not just "Possibilities".
I have several names, one is Julian2. I am also The Opps Girl. But cross me, and I become Bitch Dooku!
Fenchurch
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/16/06
#4re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:31pm
Mr. President - The Secret Service, They Love Me
Nick and Nora - Boom Chicka Boom, Men, Anything better than Dancing
By Jeeves - It's a Pig, That was Nearly Us, Travel Hopefully
1600 - Just about everything in the score is stellar, but especially Take Care of This House, Sonatina and the Monroviad
Allegro - Gentleman is a dope
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Travelin', Lament for ten men, Quiet Coffee, Home for Wayward Girls, When Daddy Came Home, You've Never kisse her, Stay with Me, grade A treatment
The Entire Score of Candide, as well as The Capeman (you can see im going in alphabetical order now)
Celebration - Somebody, Not my problem
Do I Hear a Waltz - Moon in my window
Magic Show - Solid Silver Platform Shoes, Three Company
Martin Guerre - Live with Somebody you Love
Merrily - almost the whole damned thing
Minnie's Boys - Mama a Rainbow
Yeston's Phantom - Home
Dear World - I've never said I love you
The Rink - Colored Lights, Don't Aah Ma Me, The Apple Doesn't Fall, Wallflower
Romance, Romance - Words he Doesn't Say,
Snoopy - Poor Baby
That's all I can think of right now..
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual."
-Keen on Kean
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual." - muscle23ftl
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual." - muscle23ftl
#5re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:33pmThe Magic Show ran for four-and-a-half years. By no definition is that a flop...
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Josh Freilich
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/17/06
#6re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:46pm
BY JEEVES - Travel Hopefully, It's a Pig (I agree with you on that)
CAPEMAN - Everything
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG - Everything
STEEL PIER - Everything
DEAR WORLD - I've Never Said I Love You
THE GRAND TOUR - You I Like
HIGH FIDELITY - She Goes, Number Five With a Bullet (maybe you're right)
BIG - Fun, Cross The Line, Coffee Black, Dancing All The Time
MERLIN - Beyond My Wildest Dreams
A BROADWAY MUSICAL - Smashing New York Times (they cut that from "Applause" the first time)
DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES - Eternity, Logic, There's Never Been a Night Like This, For Sarah, Carpe Noctem
"How could she just suddenly, completely disappear into thin water?" - The Little Mermaid
philcrosby
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/17/04
#7re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 2:53pm
I HAD A BALL - Title Song
BALLROOM - Fifty Percent
BAJOUR - I'm Mean
CARMELINA - One More Walk Around the Garden
THE GRAND TOUR - Marianne, You I Like
MACK AND MABEL - Movies Were Movies, I Won't Send Roses, Time Heals Everything
Dirty Rotten Scoundrel
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/26/05
#8re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:00pmHIGH FIDELITY had a beautiful song that was sung on the demo by Sherie Rene Scott titled "Perfect." You can hear it as sung by Julia Murney on her solo CD, "I'm Not Waiting."
#9re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:03pm
Just about every song on all four of the Unsung Musicals cds.
From the shows you mentioned Josh I also love:
The Sun - Metropolis
He Who Knows The Way - Merlin
Don't Know Where You Leave Off - Sweet Smell
More and More/Less and Less - Grand Tour
And also
All of Dance A Little Closer and Rags
....but the world goes 'round
#10re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:07pm
CANDIDE- "Glitter and Be Gay"
THE RINK- "Don't Ah Ma Me"
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE-It'd be easier to list which songs aren't great in this brilliant show.
SONG & DANCE- "English Girls," "Come Back Wih the Same Look In Your Eyes"
THE ACT-"Arthur in the Afternoon"
CAROLINE OR CHANGE-The whole show
MACK & MABEL-"Wherever He Ain't," "Time Heals Everything," "Look What Happened to Mabel"
SEESAW-"Nobody Does It Like Me," "He's Good for Me," "I'm Way Ahead."
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
Josh Freilich
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/17/06
#11re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:09pm
BAJOUR - Words, Words, Words
BALLROOM - More of the Same
URBAN COWBOY - That's How Texas Was Born, It Don't Get Better Than This, Mr. Hopalong Heartbreak
SNOOPY - Don't Be Anything Less Than Everything You Can Be, Edgar Allan Poe (that one's a laugh riot!), Just One Person
LATE NITE COMIC - It's Such a Different World, Nothing's Changing This Love
BRING BACK BIRDIE - Well I'm Not
BEN FRANKLIN IN PARIS - Half the Battle
BAKER'S WIFE - Any-Day-Now Day, Chanson, Merci Madame, Meadowlark, Proud Lady
"How could she just suddenly, completely disappear into thin water?" - The Little Mermaid
#12re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:11pmGlad I'm not the only one who loves "More of the Same" from BALLROOM, though it sounds like it could belong in MAMMA MIA.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#13re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:12pm
HIGH FIDELITY - I really liked a good bit of the music, oops? Especially "It's No Problem" (and its reprise), "She Goes", and "Goodbye and Goodluck". All deserve being mentioned.
IN MY LIFE - "I Am My Mother's Son" and "When I Sing"
MARTIN GUERRE - "I'm Martin Gurre", "Dear Louison" (shut up, I like this song), and I liked the majority of this musical.
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' - It's Bob Dylan music sang by Michael Arden, Lisa Brescia, and Thom Sesma... enough said. Whatever its faults, the music was never one of them.
Keep smiling, it makes people wonder what you're up to
Sant
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/12/04
#14re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:25pm
CARRIE - And Eve Was Weak, Unsuspecting Hearts
THE ACT - The Money Tree
DRACULA - Life After Life
MARTIN GUERRE - Working On The Land, I Will Make You Proud, The Imposter Is Here, Bethlehem
JEEVES - Half A Moment (Before it lost a part of the melody to SUNSET BLVD's "As If We..."), It's A Pig
THE BEAUTIFUL GAME - God's Own Country
#15re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:28pmTHE MAGIC SHOW played on Broadway for nearly four years, and I believe it made money. Kindly explain why you consider it a flop.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
sweeedboy
Stand-by Joined: 10/31/03
#16re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:35pm
I don't quite get how Carrie is anything like Wicked. The music in Carrie (at least mother/daughter songs) is quite darker and more grandiose in scale, while Wicked tends to go for more of a pop sound.
Lennon - Had some great vocal arrangements for all songs
Brooklyn - the score was generic but 'raven' was good and 'once
upon a time' was impressive in what Eden did 8 times a week (without killing herself)
Merrily - Our Time, Good Thing Going, Not a Day Goes By
sweeedboy
Stand-by Joined: 10/31/03
#18re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:39pm
HOW NOW, DOW JONES- "Step to the Rear", "Shakespeare Lied"
SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING- "Once in a Lifetime", "I'm Just Taking My Time"
THE MAGIC SHOW most certainly wasn't a flop. Ran for over 1,900 performances, was the fifth longest running musical from the 1970s (After A CHORUS LINE, GREASE, ANNIE and PIPPIN) and was Stephen Schwartz's third hit show in a row (After GODSPELL and PIPPIN)
Praying Decca Broadway will put "Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope" on CD!
#19re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:44pm
Once Upon a Time from All American.
Sappy but beautiful.
#20re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 3:48pm
Definitely agree with the scores of "Sweet Small of Success" and "Steel Pier" but i think "At the Fountain" and "Running in Place" from the respective shows deserve special mention.
Also, the Little Women score was VERY hit or miss but i think "Here Alone" and "The Fire Within Me" were spectacular.
And Side Show. That score is banging. Except "Rare Songbirds..." and if you've seen or been in that show the "double hot dog" part of "Beautiful Day For A Wedding" is wow. beyond ridiculous. But i love that show. Ok, I'm done.
"...and in a bed."
#21re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 4:09pmpersonally, i think the woman in white had some good songs in it.
Can, can I have it?
Miss.Vanessi
Stand-by Joined: 1/1/07
#22re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 4:56pmMack And Mabel: I Won't Send Roses
It's like writing "Norma Shearer for the win!" in a Joan Crawford biography.
#23re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 5:38pm
The No-Tell Motel from Prettybelle
Not On Your Nellie -- Darling of the Day
Two great show stopping numbers!
"Love the Art in Yourself. Not Yourself in the Art." -- Stanislavski
Rentaholic2
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/14/04
#24re: Great songs in flops
Posted: 3/20/07 at 5:41pm
"Also, the Little Women score was VERY hit or miss but i think "Here Alone" and "The Fire Within Me" were spectacular."
Dito - I loved Astonishing and The Fire Within Me, and I thinkg "Here Alone" was simply gorgeous and heartbreaking.
Actually, although I find the score overall a little dull, it's very pretty (with a few standouts) and seems very appropriate for Little Women.
