Performer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Pippin | M. Butterfy | Ragtime
It's absurdly difficult to pick just one favorite love song from the vast Broadway canon. So here are two: "If I Loved You" from Carousel, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. A song of early love, where the singers are as yet too guarded to openly declare themselves to each other, so Hammerstein uses that magic "if" to try to hold the deeply romantic and prescient poetry at a distance, while Rodgers' gorgeous and poignant melody and harmonies are sweeping and passionate, far beyond the more hesitant words. The second is "Not A Day Goes By" from Merrily We Roll Along, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Here, the declaration of love is almost abrasive, obsessive; resentful, even -- so full and absorbing that it's almost painful, as reflected in the repeated and hammered "Day after day after day after day after day," and phrases like, "I keep thinking, 'when does it end?'" Still, the raw love expressed is heart-rending and true to the core.