"As If We Never Said Goodbye" plagiarized?

Lloyd Webber starts the song with Sondheim's "Stay With Me" from Into the Woods, and ends it with Hamlisch's "What I Did for Love" from A Chorus Line. Hmmm

CATSNYrevival said: "Technically, he borrowed it from his own work. It was originally "Half a Moment" in the 1975 Jeeves."

You may well know all this, but only the bridge ("I don't want to be alone..." is recycled from "Half a Moment." The rest of "As If..." actually dates back to a much earlier, abortive attempt (maybe in the 1970s?) to musicalize Sunset Blvd.

ETA: How does one cancel the emojification of the end quote followed by the closing parenthesis? Very annoying when that happens.

Updated On: 1/28/25 at 05:18 PM

CATSNYrevival said: "I did not know there was an earlier attempt to musicalize Sunset by Webber.I did know there were talks of a Sondheim Sunset with Lansbury but nothing ever came of that. I'd love to know more of an earlier attempt by Webber."

Apparently "Memory" was written for this earlier attempt at a Sunset musical. It was called "One Star"or something like that.

Dirty Chestnut said: "With One Look was written for The Little Mermaid. It was supposed to be Ariel’s I want song. Disney ended up going with Menken instead."

Little known fact: "The Lady's Paying" was written for Flotsam and Jetsam.

From what I recall, Lansbury agreed to a ten-month U.S. tour of SWEENEY TODD with the agreement that if she did, Sondheim would then write the score of SUNSET BLVD for her. However, after Jean Stapleton dropped out of MURDER, SHE WROTE Lansbury was offered the role and jumped at the offer. It was a wise decision on her part (especially financially) but I was always disappointed that it limited her time on the Broadway stage. Fortunately, I did get to see her again in BLITHE SPIRITS and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC when she was in her eighties. She was a truly amazing woman.

As far as the original thread post, what a ridiculous statement.

I heard it was early 80s as well but it's been so long since I read about it that I could be misremembering.

I had had a friendly correspondence with Sondheim through the years, and in 1993, I asked him what really happened with him and ''Sunset Boulevard.'' And he wrote me back.

''The facts are these: In the early '60s, right after ''Forum,'' Burt Shevelove and I decided to do a musical of ''Sunset Boulevard.'' We'd actually gone so far as to outline it and plunge into the first scene when I found myself at a cocktail party being introduced to Billy Wilder. I told him of our plans. He replied, " But you can't --!'' I assumed that he was going to tell me how the rights were not available, but he continued: ''It can't be a musical, it must be an opera. It's about a dethroned queen.'' Recognizing the truth of this insight, I called Burt and told him to stop working.

'Lap dissolve, as my mother would say. It is now 1980. "Sweeney Todd" has opened, and Hugh Wheeler asks me to join him and Hal Prince and Angela Lansbury in doing a musical of ''Sunset Boulevard.'' I told the Billy Wilder anecdote, but Hugh insisted that I tell Hal in person, and I agreed. ... When I told Hal my feeling, he immediately replied that he would be delighted to do it as an opera, since Beverly Sills was pushing him to do one anyway.

''I said that if I wanted to do an opera, ''Sunset Boulevard'' might be a very good idea, but I didn't want to do an opera and therefore ''Sunset Boulevard'' wasn't a very good idea. And there it was left, to dry up like a raisin in the sun (wouldn't that make a terrible title for a play?). ...

''I can't imagine going into such detail about such trivia with anybody else. I guess you can take that as a compliment.'' - Best, Steve

Updated On: 1/29/25 at 02:41 PM

Thanks for sharing! That explains the confusion: the idea of a Sondheim Sunset was considered in the 60s and the 80s.

Updated On: 1/29/25 at 04:27 PM

joevitus said: "Um, no. A musical of Sunset was considered in the 60's and 80's. Lansbury in the role was solely thought of in the 80's."

That's what I meant to type. I wouldn't expect her to be considered for the lead in a Sunset musical prior to Mame. I had always heard of her being considered for it in the 80s.

For anyone interested, I found the interview I was talking about--part of the series Elliot Norton Reviews (he's an...interesting interviewer but man he got a LOT of great theatre people on his show.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oQB5iBcvGg

AWL has long been accused of plagiarism. Most notably, his Phantom of the Opera theme has a striking similarity to Pink Floyd's main theme from "Echoes" on the 1971 Meddle album. Roger Waters considered suing ALW over it. He said, “It’s the same time signature—it’s 12/8—and it’s the same structure and it’s the same notes and it’s the same everything. Bastard. It probably is actionable…But I think that life’s too long to bother with suing Andrew f*cking Lloyd Webber.” https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/pink-floyd-was-the-phantom-of-the-opera-stolen-from-them.html/