Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies) McHugh, Dominic (snow like ashes series txt) đ
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Initial Ideas and Cut Songs
The manuscripts of the songs discussed in this section all derive from the Frederick Loewe Collection. Some of them are fully completed songs that could be performed, while others are in the form of melodic outlines and, interesting though they are, reveal little information other than the shape of the melody. There are six melodic sketches with titles but no lyrics that are known to have been intended for the show. Two of them, âWhat is a Woman?â and âWho is the Lady?,â are almost identical and are probably different attempts to write some kind of song for Henry Higgins; âDear Little Foolâ is headed âHigginsâ and is therefore presumed to be for the same character; âOver Your Headâ was the original version of Elizaâs âShow Meâ; and âLimehouseâ and âThe Undeserving Poorâ were planned for the original opening scenes of the show, the latter intended for Doolittle.1
âDear Little Foolâ is a simple melody in E-flat major with very few accidentals or chromatic inflections; its many long, sustained notes suggest that it was an attempt at a love song of the kind that Higgins does not sing in the finished show. It is difficult to tell whether âLimehouseâ was intended as a solo or choral number, and indeed what its message might have been. However, there is some chromatic movement in the melody, which was probably an attempt to evoke the Chinese atmosphere of the projected opening scene at Limehouse in Outline 1 (see table 3.1). Similarly, the melody of âThe Undeserving Poorâ is simple, and since it was intended for Doolittle and his cronies it is probably reasonable to assume that it might have made a rousing song of the same ilk as âGet Me to the Church on Timeâ and âWith a Little Bit of Luck.â
In addition to these songs with a documented connection to Fair Lady, there are a few other manuscripts in the Loewe Collection, which may also be related to it. The title of âWhatâs To Become of Me?â mirrors so closely Elizaâs tortured speech after the ballââWhere am I to go? What am I to do? Whatâs to become of me?ââthat it is highly probable that it was a song for this position in the show.2 Underneath the short melody is a note, âThereâs Always One,â which probably refers to another sketch, âThereâs Always One You Canât Forget.â3 The latter is characterized by dotted rhythms and melodic leaps, but again it is difficult to infer much information from it; the same goes for âSay Hello For Me,â which is on the reverse of âWhatâs to Become of Me?â and has only a brief melodic sketch and a few chords to indicate a possible accompaniment pattern at the bottom. There is also another page of sketches for âWhatâs to Become of Me?,â the first four bars of which contain an outline harmonization.
Fascinating though these manuscripts are, they tell us only a little about the finished songs or the composer and lyricistâs intentions for the characters who were to sing them. Nevertheless, some observations can be made. In the extract of âWhat Is a Woman?â in example 4.1,4 for instance, we can see that part of the melody is familiar from a song that eventually made it into the show: bars 17â19 (and the similar patterns in 21â22 and 25â27) resemble the melodic line of Pickeringâs words âYou should get a medal, / Or be even made a knightâ in the second-act opener, âYou Did Itâ (ex. 4.2). On this evidence alone, the resemblance seems curious rather than significant. All it really tells us is that when Loewe had created music that was not ultimately put to use, he thought nothing of recycling it later in a different formâa reminder of how little, sometimes, the melody of a song is bound in meaning to its lyric.
More obviously illuminating are three draft melodies with both titles and lyrics, known as âlead sheets.â This time, the function, meaning, and content of all three is far more obvious here, though Loeweâs exact harmonization is unknown. Lerner sheds light on one of the songs in The Street Where I Live: âOur first attempt to dramatize Higginsâ misogyny resulted in a song called âPlease Donât Marry Me.ââ5 The song was the precursor to âIâm an Ordinary Man,â but with a slightly different context (see Outlines 1 and 2 in chap. 3). The original version of the scene had Higgins responding negatively to the suggestion that he should marry someone far from his liking, so the title âPlease Donât Marry Meâ referred specifically to Miss Eynsford Hill as well as being Higginsâs general credo (see ex. 4.3).6 By contrast, the replacement, âIâm an Ordinary Man,â comes in response to Pickeringâs question, âAre you a man of good character where women are concerned?â7 The focus in this song is on the perceived consequences of the repeated line, âLet a woman in your lifeâ; although marriage is mentioned briefly, the lyric is more about relationships between men and women in general than Eliza specifically. In addition to this lead sheet, a lyric sheet in Herman Levinâs papers contains the words to the second refrain, suggesting that the song was fully worked upon before Lerner and Loewe discarded it.8
Ex. 4.1. Extract from a melody âWhat Is a Woman?â
Ex. 4.2. Extract from âYou Did It.â
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