SONDHEIMThe following are «wo excerpts from FINISHING THE HAT Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. ‘The first excerpt comprises the Foreword, which follows the Introduction to the book (the Introduction deals with the differences between poetry, light verse, theater lyrics and pop lyrics). The second excerpt is the Introduction to the chapter on the lyrics (and commentaries thereon) of “Pacific Overtures.” NN. B. Throughout che book “yes” means theater Ite, unles specified diferent. FOREWORD RHYME AND ITS REASONS. “dhyme," Lmean true rhyme. A true (aka perfect) rhyme consists of two words or phrases whose final accented syllables sound alike except for the consonant sounds which precede them. The accent ean be on the last syllable (home/roam,convey/dismay), which 4s called a masculine thyme, or on the penultl- mate syllable (never/forever), called a feminine lyme, pethaps because the fal-ofT after the ac cont gives it abit of added grace. The accent can even be on an earlier syllable (rational/national, simulator/stimulator), but the sounds which fol Stephen Sondheim i an American composer and yri- cist for stage and film. He & the winner of an Acad- omy Award, multiple Tony Awards (nine, more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, and «Pulser Prize, His works include (as composerlyr: ‘int A Fanny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Muste, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins a well ar the rics for WestSide Story and Gypsy May/June 2010 [1516 | The Dramasit tow must be the same wile the accented conso nants must be diferent. An tdontity matches not only the fea sy Iubles but also the consonants that introduce them (motton/premotion). What dstingvishess shyme fom an identity isthe accented yale “mustache rhymes with “ust ash” the acents are on “nist” and “just if the accents are on “ache” and “ash?” they're identities A near (ase) tyme comes two favors a sonance and consonance. Inassonance the vowel sounds ar ale, the subsequent consonants dif ferent (home/alone, together/frever). Conso rance is the reverse: the consonant sounds are (bud alike, but the accented vowels ae difere Ay/bod})~thisis sometimes called «slant rhyme. ‘There is nothing “wrong” with near rhymes: two generations of listeners brought up on pop and rack songs have gotten so accustomed to approximate rhyming that they neither care nor notice If the liymes are perfect or not. To thele eats near rhymes are not only acceptable, but preferable; asin all populae art, familiaity breeds content. In fact, pop listeners are suspl cious of perfect rhymes, associating neatness with a stifling traditionalism and sloppy sym: ing with emotional directness and the defiance of restrictions. Here is the rationale for that ‘Regional accents em confuse the issue. To me, native New Yorker, “devm” rhymes with “lawn and “gone” with “on.” When I worked with Leon- ard Bernstein, who was born near Boston, he in sisted, to my horror, that all four words rhymed with each other. Fora musical version of The Late George Apley, that might have been acceptable. For a show about New York treet gangs, it was not iow, as offered by one of pop music's most sue ‘cessful lyricists, whom I shall discreetly refrain from naming and refer to imaginatively as X. X ‘ventured out of pop into musical theater once — and with & hit show, I might add. Shortly before the show opened on Brosdsay, a television in terviower commented to X that "Some theater cities might get picky about the fact that your rhymes are not always “true” ones. How do your feel about that?” replied: “hate all true rhymes. I think they only al low youa certain limited range... 'm not a great believer in perfect ehymes. Pm just a believer in feelings that come across. [Fthe craft gets in the way ofthe feelings then I'll take the feelings any dey L don sit with a rhyming dictionary: And 1 don’ tlook for big words to be clever. To me, they take away from the medium I'm most comfort able with, which is Today..." Allowing for X’s dismissal of every first-rate lyricist from Berlin to Hammerstein as having a Iinited range, X Is nevertheless not the only songuaiter to voice this defense of laziness; 1 reprint it slimply because t's the most artieu- late one that I've come across. The notion that {good rhymes and the expression of emotion are contradictory, that neatness equals lifelessness {s, to borrow a disapproving phrase from my old counterpoint text, “the refuge of the destitute.” Glatming that true rhyme is the enemy of sub stance is the sustalning excuse of Iyrietsts who are unable to rhyme well with any consistency. “UF the craft gets in the way of the feelings, then P'l take the feelings any day” The point which X overlooks is that the craft fs supposed to serve the feeling. A good Iyrtc should not only have something to say but a way of saying:as in all popular art, eT) ETL am dae ky content it as clearly and forcefully as possible ~ and that involves chyming cleanly. A perfect rhyme can make a mediocre line bright and a good one bril: liant, A near hyme only dampens the impact. “1 don't sit with a rhyming dictionary” The Implication is that using a rhyming dictionary is somehow a cheat, asif the only words which ate genuine in feeling andl expression are those you ‘an think of without any outside assistance, The fact is that Iyric writers who don’t use a chym ing dict ry have, to use X's phrase, “a limited range": I's easy to think of rhymes for “love,” May/June 2010 |18 | The Dramaust there being so few, but who can think of all the useful rhymes for “day” without using a ehyming diettonary? “And I don't look for big words to be clewes” What are “big words” for this yicist, those over three spllables? And are they used to be ortohe precise and nuanced, to let the language's variety lover and fulfill itself? The ides that “big” words are cobwebbed and stutifying (to use a word that X would probably disapprove of) is another line of defense for the tell itlikeitis songwriters, daoming them to tell i like every. body else does. Oscar Hammerstein wrote simple Iypies with “feelings that come across" and every rhyme he used was « perfect one or an identity But then, he wrote forthe theater and, more tell: ingly, he worked hard. Craig Carmela, «first-rate composer/iyricist, put texactly: "true rhyming is a necessity in the theater, as guide for the ear toknow what ithas just heard, Our language isso complex and difficult, and there are so many sim: lar words and sounds that mean different things, that W'S confusing enough without using near rhymes that only acquaint the ear with a vowel, [A near rhyme is} not useful to the primary pur- pose of alyric, whichisto be heard, andit teaches the ear to not trust or to dsrogard a lyri, to not listen to simply let the musie wash over yous.” ‘There is something about the conscious use of form Inany at that saysto the customer, “This Is worth saying. Without form the idea, the tn tention, most important the effect, no matter how small in ambition, becomes flaccid; as the old Communist dich proclaims, “If tsar, it isn't propaganda." The more random and im: precise, the more writing becomes blather, a let ter to the editor. God knous the woods are fll of blather, and God knows a lot of people enjoy it, partly because listeners today have even lazier fears than those of my generation: pop music has encouraged them to welcome vagueness and fuzziness, to exalt the poetic yearnings of ran- dom images. There are wonderful lines in pop lyrics, but they tend to be isolated from what surrounds them, They are rarely part of a dra- matic progression; the meaning of their succes sion doesn't matter as much as their individual Impact, and therefore the rhyming the glue that holds the song together -isless important than it ‘would be in a theater song. Pop music may hve many values, including the immediacy of feeling that X refers to, but specific of language, « sine qua non of good writing, isn’t one of them. All thymes, even the farthest affeld of the near ones (home/dope) draw attention to the shymed word; if you don"t want itto be spotlight. ced, you'd better not rhyme it. A perfect rhyme snaps the word, and with t the thought, vigor- ously into place, rendering it easily intelligible; 44 neat rhyme blurs it, A word like “together” leu the ear to expect a hyme like “weather” ot thas to pause a split second to bring the word into focus. Like « note that’s bit off pitch, a false rhyme doesn't destroy the meaning, but it weakens i An Identity makes the word cleat, but blunts the line's snap because the accented sound Is not & fresh one, And both identities and false rhymes are death on wit. Take, for example, the Dorothy Parker verse I mentioned in the Introduction," substituting an identity for the rhyme: (Oh, lifes a glorious eycle of song, Arevel that verges on mania;And love isa thing that can never go wrongs And Lam Marie of Roumania, Or try it with a near rhyme: Oh, ife is glorious eycle of song, An endless euphoric fentasia: And love isa thing that can never go wrongs And Lam Marte of Roumania Close, but no cigar; in each case, te punch Med thud. Jokes work best ‘with perfect rhymes. Emotional statements are line lands with a x sometimes effective using identities, because the repetition of the sound parallels the inten sity of the feeling; Is a technique particularly favored by Hammerstein (“Younger than spring lume am /Gayer than laughter am 1°), I've never come across. near rhyme that works better than perfect one would There ate, of course, numerous ressons to rhyme apart from emphasizing « word, chic among them being the sheer pleasure of verbal playftiness, such as the use of inner rhymes and trick rhymes (and alliterative self-referential phrases like “rhyme and its reasons”), especially as practiced by the rare likes of E, Y. Harburg and Cole Porter. (More ofthat in the following pages.) There are reasons not to rhyme, too: not only not to rhyme but to keep the consonant and vowel sounds as different from each otheras pos sible. In fact, songs without shymes, whose * Ed, Note: The poem called “Comment Oh, life is a glorious eycle of song, A medley of extemporanes; Andlove isa thing that can never go wrong; And [am Marie of Roumania, fend with sounds completely unlike each other, ‘can invigorate the non-rhymed words more than approximate rhymes. (More ofthat later, t00.) Using near rhymes is like juggling clumsily: st can be fan to watch an #8 geting, but t's nowhere near as much pleasure for an zudience 1s seeing all the balls ~or inthe case of the best 3, IW torches and sstords ~ being kept sloft with grace and precision. In the the- Iyricists, kn ater, rue shyme works best on every level, and since this is a book about theater Iyrics that’s what the word “rhyme” will mean, CHAPTER 11 PACIFIG OVERTURES 1976) Book by John Weidman, THE NOTION Chronicle of Japanese history, begin: ning with the 1853 incursion of Ameri an warships, under the command of Admiral Matthew Galbraith Perry, into Japanese waters in order to open up trade with a nation that had been closed to foreigners for centurtes, In particular, t concerns the relationship during the next fiftecn years hetween Kayama, a minor samurai rolegatedito order the ships toleave, and Manjiro, a |apanese fisherman recently returned from the United States. May/June 2010 [19