Last night I had the chance to see a PBS documentary about the career of Broadway tunesman Jerry Herman. Little heard from in recent years, Herman was the composer and lyricist who triumphed twice in the sixties (Hello, Dolly! and Mame), got shuffled aside in the Sondheim seventies and reemerged for a while, just before the agony of AIDS, to reclaim his popular stature with La Cage Aux Folles.
It’s fashionable in theatre song circles to pooh-pooh Herman as nostalgic, superficial, naïve. Even I, Barnaby to many a Dolly in my acting days, have long dismissed him as second-drawer. I remember my righteous indignation when his La Cage trumped Sunday in the Park with George for most of the theatre awards of 1985 (thank God for the Pulitzer).
But watching last night, hearing songs I haven’t thought of in years, my admiration shot through the ceiling and, God forbid, inspired me to finish one or two things I’ve started. Amazing songs. “If He Walked Into My Life”. “I Don’t Want To Know”. “Ribbons Down My Back”. The perfect “Time Heals Everything”.
To master-lyricist Sondheim’s opposite, much has been made of Herman’s gift with a melody. But it is in his words that I find something inspiring and special. Consider the way he uses ideas and senses in this bit from The Grand Tour:
“Don’t speak or garnets
or pearls from Manila,
forget them as fast as you can.
Don’t talk of ginger,
or lime or vanilla,
Until you have met Marianne.”
That’s lovely stuff. And tucked away in a tiny reprise in Mack and Mabel (my favorite Herman score) is a lyric so right and so lovely it makes me shiver every time I hear it:
“…and if he calls me,
and it’s collect,
Sir Walter Raleigh
I don’t expect.
And though I know I may be left
out on a limb…
so who needs roses
that didn’t
come
from
him?”
It’s fashionable in theatre song circles to pooh-pooh Herman as nostalgic, superficial, naïve. Even I, Barnaby to many a Dolly in my acting days, have long dismissed him as second-drawer. I remember my righteous indignation when his La Cage trumped Sunday in the Park with George for most of the theatre awards of 1985 (thank God for the Pulitzer).
But watching last night, hearing songs I haven’t thought of in years, my admiration shot through the ceiling and, God forbid, inspired me to finish one or two things I’ve started. Amazing songs. “If He Walked Into My Life”. “I Don’t Want To Know”. “Ribbons Down My Back”. The perfect “Time Heals Everything”.
To master-lyricist Sondheim’s opposite, much has been made of Herman’s gift with a melody. But it is in his words that I find something inspiring and special. Consider the way he uses ideas and senses in this bit from The Grand Tour:
“Don’t speak or garnets
or pearls from Manila,
forget them as fast as you can.
Don’t talk of ginger,
or lime or vanilla,
Until you have met Marianne.”
That’s lovely stuff. And tucked away in a tiny reprise in Mack and Mabel (my favorite Herman score) is a lyric so right and so lovely it makes me shiver every time I hear it:
“…and if he calls me,
and it’s collect,
Sir Walter Raleigh
I don’t expect.
And though I know I may be left
out on a limb…
so who needs roses
that didn’t
come
from
him?”
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