Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies) McHugh, Dominic (snow like ashes series txt) đ
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The lyrics to the draft versions are reproduced in Appendix 1. Put next to the published version, they show that the lyric was both refined and reduced in length. The number contains three key pieces of musical material: the jaunty main theme, concluding in âwithout youâ each time (A); the smoother âYou dear friendâ theme on the flattened submediant (B); and the âWithout your pulling itâ themeâa kind of âslow teaseâ in which the tempo broadens before a sudden accelerationâin the subdominant (C). The first version follows the formal pattern ABACABA, with the second version foreshortening the penultimate return to the A melody and the final version dropping the second AB section. This excision left the song in a nicely rounded ABACA form (allowing for the fact that the later occurrences of A are not complete). It works particularly well because the most irate and harmonically twisted section (C) comes almost at the end, allowing Elizaâs anger to climax before being interrupted by Higgins; originally, the complete return to the A and B themes dissipated the anger.
It is also amusing to see Lernerâs alternative suggestions for all the things that Eliza could do without Higgins. As ever, the journey to the published version involved strong self-criticism; in most cases, the original lyric could easily have stayed in the show without anyone thinking amiss of it. Still, one can see why âI can thrill to a play without youâ was deemed uncompelling, and âI can still have a dream / and itâs liable to seem / even more like a dream without youâ is weakened by the repetition of the word âdream.â Likewise, âThe world without your smiling faceâ does not have the impact of the equivalent section in the published version (starting âYou dear friendâ), because the melody is drawn out into half notes rather than quarter and eighth notes, thereby slowing down the progress of the melody.
By contrast, the âYou dear friendâ part works brilliantly because it is topped off by a quotation from Elizaâs lesson about âHartford, Hereford and Hampshire,â a strong rejection of Higgins and his methods. This little stanza was also in the original version, where it appeared much later on. Some of the wording was modified, again to the enhancement of the overall effect. The original has âYou, dear friend, can jolly well / Plumb go straight toâŠâ but the final version makes both lines start with the same word, a strong verse technique known as anaphora. It is also significant that Lerner worked the issue of language into the published versionââYou ⊠who talk so wellââand it was an undeniable improvement to remove the rather antiquated âPlumbâ from the lyric. The part about âfogâ was weak merely because it was not particularly funny, while ânicheâ and âitchâ make a glaring half-rhyme. Conversely, most of the stanza dealing with âlaughing till it hurtsâ is fine and was probably removed simply to shorten the song. But the excision of â[I can] Be the mother of five without youâ is surely significant. Here again there is irrefutable evidence of Lerner removing a reference to Eliza as Higginsâs loverâin this case, the bearer of his children, tooâand therefore pushing the relationship in a deliberately ambiguous direction.
HIGGINSâS CHARM, HIGGINSâS ARROGANCE
Higginsâs four solo songs also portray different aspects of his character. Yet his songs often seem more layered and ambiguous than hers, largely because he can be both charming and dislikeable at the same time. For instance, âAn Ordinary Manâ and âA Hymn to Himâ are repulsively misogynistic but also have a charismatic element to them, perhaps because it is difficult to resist feeling amused by Higginsâs unquestioning faith in himself.33 His position is so extreme that we assume he cannot quite mean it. Loeweâs musical portrayal of Higgins inclines to the elegant, too, especially in contrast to the earthier music associated with Elizaâs fury or Doolittleâs drunkenness. Apparently, this complexity was hard to come by. For example, no song from the show underwent as much modification during the compositional period as âWhy Canât the English?â At least four distinct versions survive, offering us an unusual insight into Lerner and Loeweâs thought processes, for instance, the use of a âlooseâ form in the verse to convey Higginsâs message, the depiction of several key aspects of Higginsâs character, the use of stylistic gestures to suggest location and mood, and, finally, the way in which this was achieved with relative brevity.
It comes as no surprise to learn that the song was extensively rewritten. In The Street Where I Live, Lerner describes how Rex Harrison was not happy with the original version, because âhe said he felt he sounded like an inferior NoĂ«l Coward.â Lerner put the problem down to the rhyme scheme.34 Harrison confirms the story and specifies that it was âtoo reminiscent of âMad Dogs and Englishmenâ; it needed breaking down and changing, it had a too familiar tang. Well, that song was worked on and worked on. Right through rehearsal Fritz was still playing with it.â35 The sources confirm this description of the composition period, but Lernerâs explanation of the modification of the rhyme scheme does not account for several intermediate versions; nor does he mention the musical changes alluded to by Harrison.
However, he expanded on the subject of the song in a letter to Harrison on November 29, 1955. After promising to ârewrite it completely in a way that will be not only simpatico with you, but with the character of Higgins,â he explained his general attitude to musical theater songs:
There are âsong songsâ and
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