When I was going to school I had a teacher, a realist, by all accounts, who once made the sarcastic quip when the focus of the class suddenly turned to musicals: “Hey, look: someone’s singing, and nobody called the police.”
It was funny to those of us in the room. And it was understandable: not everyone is required to enjoy musicals–not even other artists. They can be nonsensical at times, or overly dramatic at others. Or both. And, like all things, it just comes down to a matter of personal taste in the end. But I, for one, am a big fan of musical theater. I have been pretending my world was a stage for as long as I can remember, and how could I ever cross it without occasionally busting out a tune or doing a dance along the way? Growing up, the musical was always my favorite form of entertainment because it just seemed to give ordinary life a little something extra–though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was at the time.
And while I laughed about it with the rest of the class, I cannot help but disagree wholeheartedly with my professor’s take on the pointlessness of adding songs to a story. Maybe it’s because I am a sensitive person, and very possibly on the spectrum of neurodivergence, but I can’t be the only one who has “felt” that little something extra, that music, in day to day scenarios. Who out there hasn’t sung in the shower, or added an extra bounce to their step whenever they felt happy? Who cannot hear the subtle zing of violin strings during tense moments, or the pounding of drums or shredding electric guitar solos when something epic is occuring? Who doesn’t look back on a sad memory and hear low, melancholic piano chords playing like soft rainfall?
The music of life is all around us. So much so that we have long incorporated music into our media, even without the company of lyrics. So many movie scenes have soundtracks composed to fill in the gaps between dialogues–and if you ever watch the same scenes without music, the tone shifts. The illusion falls away. Whatever had previously tugged at an audience member’s heartstrings, or pumped them up for a fight, or lifted their spirits in a moment of triumph, is clearly absent. Without music, the scenes don’t ring as true to our emotions. Music in media helps show us what we need to feel.
But then, what about the use of lyrics? Why sing something when we can just use dialogue to explain the scenario, and let the music do the rest?
Well. Why leave your audience with a clunky, “My perspective on life has changed, and I’m happy about it,” when you could exclaim:
“Ask me how do I feel, little me with my quiet upbringing…
Well sir, all I can say is if I were a gate I’d be swinging
And if I were a watch, I’d start popping my spring
Or, if I were a bell, I’d go ‘ding, dong, ding, dong, ding!'” *
Yes, it’s silly. It’s nonsensical. Yet, we understand it. Within this pile of metaphors is a plethora of thoughts and ideas that bring a diverse audience’s focus down to a more unified theme. In other words, song lyrics are there when a character has too much to simply express with words. Especially words that may be too specific to reach a wider audience with.
As another example, why say, “I’m just not the person my father hoped I would grow up to be,” and leave it at that, when you could have the lyrics,
“Still couldn’t be the one
to echo what he’d done
And mirror what was not in me.” **
The lyrics give the audience a thousand different ways to identify with the feeling of just “not being enough,” and once they are paired with melancholic music that instills feelings of loneliness and sadness, you’ve got yourself a real tear-jerker of a moment.
If music expresses what we as an audience should feel, then the lyrics are there for us to understand what cannot merely be stated. Combined, it creates a powerful experience of empathy and awareness within an audience that you just can’t quite recreate through the printed word. While books and dialogues and poems have their own ways of reaching out to an audience, there’s nothing that immerses you quite like musical theater. It is the epitome of human expression.
And that, friends, is why I will always defend it.
Night Owls, what are your thoughts on musicals? What are your favorite musicals?
*Guys and Dolls, “If I Were A Bell”
**Kinky Boots, “Not My Father’s Son”
