Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
Stephen SondheimRead
One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.
Interpretation
Crafting lyrics requires a seamless integration with music that feels natural and effortless.
This quote by Stephen Sondheim highlights the challenge of songwriting, particularly the need for lyrics to blend perfectly with the music. When done successfully, the listener should be oblivious to the effort invested in writing, creating an organic experience where the song feels entirely cohesive.
In practice
A songwriter discussing their creative process at a workshop.
Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
Let Pirelli's / Miracle Elixir / Activate your roots, sir... Keep it off your boots, sir- / Eats right through. Yes, get Pirelli's! / Use a bottle of it! / Ladies seem to love it... Flies do, too!
Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last Past what you can see And turn against you... Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.
You do the best job you can. You take it step by step. It's hard enough to make a movie. If it works, that's great. If it means something beyond the moment to somebody, they can take it and it lasts through the years, we'll see.
There is no room in music for the second-rate - it might just as well be the nineteenth-rate.
I think music is the greatest art form that exists, and I think people listen to music for different reasons, and it serves different purposes. Some of it is background music, and some of it is things that might affect a person's day, if not their life, or change an attitude. The best songs are the ones that make you feel something.
Can you appreciate music without playing it? Yes, you can. You can appreciate baseball without playing it. Many people attend a football game merely for the crowd, the excitement, the color.
The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere.
We are all instruments pulling the bows across our own lungs. Windmills, still startling in every storm. Have you ever seen a newborn blinking at the light? I wanna do that every day. I wanna know what the kite called itself when it got away, when it escaped into the night.
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