I was going to back into this by pointing out my deep catalogue of indie artists, literate lyricists, classic blues and contemporary jazz - but here it is...
I have show tunes on my iPod.
And I don't skip past them on Shuffle.
And they make me smile.
Not just show tunes folks, we're talking Cats, Phantom, Chorus Line, Full Monty and Wicked. I will admit to seeing many, many more shows than these- but they are the ones I keep close.
Having just surrendered any illusion of pretense or sophistication, let me explain that purchasing the original CDs occured over many years and adventures - and it's those times and places I cherish with the music.
"Chorus Line" was the first play I saw on Broadway. I snuck away from campus by myself on a BlueBird bus, found the TCKTS booth and double counted to make sure I had enough money for the late bus ticket back before handing over the cash for the ticket.
I was 19 and as exhiliarated by my escape as the play's energy. I couldn't afford the album then, but bought the CD just a few years ago after getting the chance to work with Marvin Hamlisch when he came to Buffalo for symphony performances.
Marvin is at once charming and irascible. His mind goes so quickly, he often can't understand why it's taking so long for the others to catch up.
I was handling the arrangements for a publicity appearance at a local elemnetary school - wondering as we drove there whether anyone would relate to music that didn't have a video game or MTV tie in.
By that point I had seen him conduct and play piano many times, but never "the" songs - the ones for which he collected statues.
It didn't surprise me when the hairs the back of my neck stood at attention for the first notes of "One." I didn't have to close my eyes to go back to the songs I hummed all the way back to Olean on the bus that night.
Still it caught me unaware to see the children on the edge of their seats and clapping wildly at the end of the song. When I listen today, I smile for that moment as much as my original adventure.
Their combined glow couldn't shadow the look in my daughter Jessica's eyes as she perched expectantly in her party dress at the orchestra's first notes - only to see Rum Tom Tugger approach her from the aisle.
Cats had her completely from that moment. She crawled on my lap with tears streaming down her face for Grizabella, but never took her eyes off the stage. She was lost in wonder - and I was lost in her.
Any track from the show gently delivers that moment again.
Twelve years later we saw Chicago on Broadway for her 18th birthday - great show, great time. But Cats will always be Jessica's show, so it makes the cut.
Charlie and Jen own Phantom. It was the first show the four of us saw in New York. While Jen was already in her early teens, she had the same surrender to the show that Jess had with Cats. We bought her a snow globe with the music box at one of overpriced trinket shops on Broadway - and it was worth twice the price. Charlie played the soundtrack for years in his car, and dressed as the Phantom on more than one Halloween. Those scenes appear unbidden when those tracks pop up.
In 2001, my September 12 business trip was delayed two weeks. Late September New York was painful from the barricades and luggage scan at the Waldorf, to the few scattered Red Cross workers at my favorite formerly bustling restaurants. The city was a deflated baloon. Once my appointments were complete, I walked as far south as I could before the bus shelters plastered, layer upon layer, with handwritten "Missing" posters deflated me too. I walked back up to Times Square only to get caught in a protest whose signs told me we had attacked Afghanistan.
My only question at the TCKTS window was "Any comedies?"
I knew nothing about Full Monty, so was immediately pleased with the Buffalo setting and inside jokes. Despite the mood outside, the audience laughed extra hard in a communal escape.
It was very good to hum that night.
The last several years have not offered much respite or relaxation. The other tunes had been loaded on my iPod for months when my cousin-pal-sister-I-shoulda-had Cheryl suggested she and her daughter wanted to go see Wicked when the company came to Toronto this fall.
We bought tickets for a weekend when Jen would be here visiting. I downloaded the soundtrack in advance just to keep up with Rachel and Cheryl who already knew all the words.
At the show I watched Rachel, as beautiful as her mother was at that just-teen age, giving Cheryl sideways looks begging her not to sing along. I looked down the rest of the aisle and saw Jen and Charlie, my Texas/ St. Louis family contigent, perfectly blended with the hometeam from Buffalo - sitting in a Canadian balcony -- and the tunes I had heard before took a new magic.
Guess who sings "Popular" and "Defying Gravity"in the shower now?
The tunes have little in common with their 6000 neighbors on my iPod. Yet, I know all the music in all these plays by heart, and my mind resets the staging beautifully every time they are played.



Copyright 2006 Judi Griggs