Lily's eyes- secret garden

[Nath]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:19pm

ok, I know very little about this show, but have been asked to direct a concert and the song 'lily's eyes' is in it, just wandering if anyone could tell me what its about, hidden meanings, context or anything else which may help me get 'into' this song!

thanks heaps!

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:21pm

Oh man,

This song is probably the reason i am in the theatre industry now. I discovered the cast album at my library and fell in love with it. I remember looping this song over and over again. So amazing.

Akiva

[Luckydave14]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:21pm

I wasn't really listening to the words at the Benefit, I was in awe of Pasquale and Chase's power while performing that I didn't know what they were really saying. It's probably about the character Lily's eyes though haha

[jimmirae]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:22pm

Hope this helps:
1911, India, or Inja as the British would say. Mary Lennox, British as they come, dreams of nursery rhymes and Indian chants (Opening), and awakes to find her parents have died of cholera. She is found and returned to the England she has never known, not knowing if she is awake or still dreaming (There's a Girl). Note: Throughout the show, these and other songs are sung by a chorus of ghosts, referred to in the libretto as "dreamers," who serve as narrators and Greek chorus for the action.

Mary is met in Yorkshire by Mrs. Medlock, housekeeper to her Uncle Archibald. They take the train to The House Upon the Hill, which has "something wrong inside it;" Archibald is a hunchback who has been inconsolable since his wife Lily's death. Mary is to live with Archibald, her next closest relative.

No one can sleep Mary's first night there (I Heard Someone Crying); the old house is noisy and memories are louder still, and Mary and Archibald both think they hear their lost loved ones. Next morning, Mary meets the first friendly person she's found in Yorkshire, Martha the chambermaid. Martha entices Mary outside with tales of the gardens (If I Had a Fine White Horse), in particular, a secret hidden garden. Meanwhile, Archibald continues to wallow in his memories of A Girl In the Valley who planted a garden on his land and in his heart.

Mary finally meets Archibald; they are at best polite to each other, clearly uncomfortable. Mary returns to the garden, laid out in Victorian style as a topiary maze, as do gardener Ben and neighbor boy Dickon, each with his own agenda (It's a Maze); Mary discovers that there really is a secret garden, hidden since Lily's death because it reminds Archibald of her. Dickon, we learn, is something of a druid who comes to invoke the spring (Winter's On the Wing). He claims to converse with the animals, and teaches Mary to speak Yorkshire to a bird (Show Me the Key). The bird with Dickon's help does lead Mary to the key to the garden; but where's the door?

Mary's only request of Archibald is for A Bit of Earth to plant a garden of her own; it's the one request he can't grant, as she reminds him more and more of his Lily. As the Yorkshire gloom turns to rain (Storm I), we meet Archibald's brother and physician Neville. He and Archibald both notice that Mary has Lily's Eyes, and we learn that Neville loved Lily as well, and still carries his jealosy for the girl "who loved my brother, never me."

As the rain continues, Mary again thinks she hears someone crying (Storm II), but this time she finds him: her cousin Colin, confined to bed as a cripple since his birth, during which his mother Lily died. (NOTE: I know how depressing all this sounds, but the book and the music manage to keep a light touch. Really.) Colin dreams so he thinks of a Round-Shouldered Man who comes to him at night and reads to him from his book "of all that's good and true." The storm reaches its peak and Mary, half dreaming again, ventures out and finds the garden! (Final Storm)

Act II begins with Mary's reverie about The Girl I Mean to Be, with "a place I can go when I am lost." But can the garden be that place? Like her uncle, it is neglected and overgrown; it seems dead. Archibald relates his dream to Neville, a dream with Lily and Mary together in the garden. But Neville's dreams are darker; recalling Lily spurning him, Neville looks to the day when Archibald leaves for good and the house becomes Neville's (Quartet).

Giving in to his brother's urgings and his own fears, Archibald leaves for the Continent, pausing only to read his son one last fairy tale (Race You To the Top of the Morning). Mary remains interested in the garden, and asks Dickon for help. Dickon explains that it is probably just dormant, or WICK, and that "somewhere there's a single streak of green inside it." They even bring Colin in his wheelchair to the garden, as the ghost of his mother sings to him and with him (Come to My Garden / Lift Me Up). In the garden, the exercise and fresh air begin to make Colin well or is it Dickon's magic and an Indian invocation? (Come Spirit, Come Charm). The dreamers sing the praises of the renewed garden (A Bit of Earth (Reprise)).

But all is not well. Mary has to throw a tantrum to prevent being sent to boarding school, as Martha tells her she must Hold On: "It's this day, not you/ That's bound to go away." Mary writes a plain letter full of feeling to Archibald (Letter Song) urging him to come home. At first he can't (Where In the World), but Lily's ghost convinces him to return (How Could I Ever Know).

He finds Colin well and walking, despite all of Neville's warnings. Archibald, a changed man, accepts Mary as his own, and the dreamers invite all to "stay here in the garden" (Finale).

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:51pm

jimmirae..WOW...and i thought i had a lot of time on MY hands! LOL...that was a great synopsis...btw..i love JOhn Corbett too!

ps...when pisttsburgh clo did the show years ago Charles Pistone and Doug Sills BLEW the roof off the theater with Lily's Eyes!

[jimmirae]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:55pm

Thanks Andrew, but I pasted it from a website. You got great taste if you love "Lily's Eye's" and John Corbett too!!!

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:56pm

i do have great taste! hahaha...i love Chris Noth too...don't hate me! i adore sex and the city..i am watching it now!

[jimmirae]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:59pm

Big is ok but I'm an Aidan Shaw Booth Bitch for Life! All we do is lay in bed eating KFC and after we have hot sex and I rub his belly, LOL!

[Nath]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 11:59pm

so I'm going to assume that there is little subtle or interesting about teh lyric but instead is an excuse to let 2 guys sing the hell out of a song?

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:01am

aaaaaaaaaaaah...i love the booth bitch episode! i love them ALL!
i am watching the one where SJP gets stood up at her birthday party and Big shows up with a car full of red balloons for her. =)
i just love a man in a suit...and i loved Aidan the second time around, i must say! he looked GOOOOD...

[jimmirae]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:03am

Read the lyrics dude, but read them like somebody wrote them just for you - like poetry, what do you feel? You really don't know what the song is about? It's love, Read that thinking of someone you loved very much who is now gone, but you can still see their eyes - forever! It's all there, this doesn't require a Master Class.

[Nath]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:05am

so in other words I was right there isn't anything else to the song (ie doesn't further the plot, elude to anything else in teh story etc)?

[jimmirae]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:09am

Yes, The song gives the History, Of great Love, more than one as well. You do not see that?

[Nath]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:15am

lol *reels his fishing line in*

so I am still correct the song doesn't alude to anything other than the lyric that is there? there is no theme from this song that appears elsewhere in the show?

I know what the song is about(the title kinda gives it away, and I have heard it and read teh synopsis). I was asking other than the lyric that is there how does it relate to the story, are there themes/lyrics in this song that corelate to another song/theme elsewhere in the musical.

[gumbo2]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:18am

Man, this song brings you into the characters so much more. You can see by this song how much Archie loved Lily, and how Mary is forcing him to remember her. At the same time you can see that his brother not only A) really cares for Archie and hates to see him sad, but B) Actually loved Lily himself. It's crazy. Those are just my thoughts, I just sang this song and it was GREAT fun.

[Nath]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:20am

is it sung with any conciousness of each other? or completely seperate worlds? or what?

[jimmirae]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:36am

It is not sung as "Together", Seperate thoughts. You MUST know that Nath, How old are you? I mean, I dunno, If you have never been in love or had a loss you may not relate to this..

[Nath]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:40am

let the petty games begin!

i asked purely because the brothers line (Neville?) eludes to him almost watching Archie. I never asked if it was sung together!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 12:50am

Nath, from a director's perspective, you're right -- there isn't much connecting of the dots you have to worry about for that song. No subtle allusions or metaphors from elsewhere in the show you should worry about bringing out. Yes, for you, it's basically about those two getting up and singing the hell out of the song and maybe even stopping the show (it's the highlihght of the whole musical). Everything else will fall into place afterwards, if they just vocally nail that moment.

[jimmirae]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 1:01am

let the petty games begin!

I wasn'y playing a petty game you ass, I was trying to honestly be of help. Your loss shrub!

[Nath]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 1:09am

My ass has nothing to do with this...

[Footlooser]

Posted: 1/10/06 at 1:43am

One of the BEST songs for Musical Theater