Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Musicaldudepeter
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/18/10
#1Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:43pmWhat are some songs that have equal partners in the opposite gender...?? For example 'My White Knight' which describes a man that a woman wants to find, but is a very specific song about finding someone that you could find interesting intellectually instead of just going on looks... Any song like that that a guy sings in a show. I mean look at 'The Girl That I Marry' from Annie Get Your Gun - "The girl that I marry will have to be / as soft and as pink as a nursery"...I think that's a very sexist song... My White Knight is extremely modern and forward thinking for a song from the 50s, and I think that's why it's one of the greatest love songs.
eperkins
Broadway Star Joined: 5/21/07
#2Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:50pmI think that just shows the difference between men and women's attitude's towards love. But just look at Billy Bigelow change in "Soliloquy" and how he feels about having a son - then a daughter. Very big attitude switch.
#3Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:57pm"I'll Know" from GUYS AND DOLLS covers both genders.
Musicaldudepeter
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/18/10
#4Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:59pmYes I'll Know covers this in a way... But not even a tiny fraction of the way in which My White Knight does - I mean Wilson even covers Shakespeare and Beethoven in his lyric... and that line "Just someone to love me..." gets me every time - it's a gorgeous song
eperkins
Broadway Star Joined: 5/21/07
#6Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:06pmActually, "Someone is Waiting" from COMPANY is probably a better corollary to "My White Night".
eperkins
Broadway Star Joined: 5/21/07
#7Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:26pm
I wouldn't agree that Someone Is Waiting is a good corollary to My White Night. Someone Is Waiting is all about the best attributes of the women Bobby know and hopes to find in another woman. My White Night is very much about finding a plain man who is into talking and reading and more interested in being in love with her, than he is in himself.
Maybe "She Likes Basketball" from Promises, Promises would be closer.
Updated On: 5/9/13 at 03:26 PM
#8Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:48pmSomeone Is Waiting far more than Being Alive.
#9Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:49pm"There Won't Be Trumpets"? umm, "It Takes Two"? "Bill"?
Musicaldudepeter
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/18/10
#11Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:54pmYeah, maybe it's a stretch, but I assume you kinda meant a love song about being equals in love--not seeking out some ideal.
#12Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:55pm
Thanks, luv. I was feeling a little crazy and wondering if I didn't know the lyrics to either song.
Both songs play a similar role, in that they list all of the qualities the characters are looking for, but the irony is they'll never find that person. It's just a list of qualities. Bobby will never find a Jenny-ish Joanne, and Marian falls for the exact opposite of what she says she's looking for.
Being Alive and Till There was You are similar in that both characters are finally dealing with the truth of what they're looking for (or have found).
Musicaldudepeter
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/18/10
#13Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:58pmI feel bad for Marian though - always feels like she had to 'settle' with Hill... I always wanted her to end up with a 'ponderer,' someone who's modest and gentle. Maybe that song is not so feminist after all.
#14Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 4:08pm
It's not feminist in the least. 'Being In Love' from the film version is slightly more feminist. Slightly.
I'm not even sure I'm buying the idea that she is looking for an equal. She's 26 and unmarried which, during the time the show is set, is well past her sell-by date. She doesn't actually have a lot of options. Plus, if you're like me and think Winthrop is her kid with Old Miser Madison, then she probably has no options. Harold, being unconventional as well, saves her from that. What she pines for is not her equal...what she ends up with, I would argue, is.
John Adams
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/1/13
#15Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 4:43pm
IMO, the definitive answer to your question is: Joey, Joey, Joey from The Most Happy Fella.
It is the antithesis of Marian's fantasy for a marriage partner "to sit with [her] in a cottage somewhere in the state of Iowa". Nevertheless, Joe sings equally as romantically about his need to not be tied down to any one place or any person.
His "ideal" regarding a lover is The Wind. When she beckons, he lovingly answers.
Both Marian's and Joe's songs are dreamy ballads, and both speak of an ease and simplicity regarding their relationships with their lovers. Also, both songs end with a dramatic high note (respective of vocal ranges).
Updated On: 5/9/13 at 04:43 PM
eperkins
Broadway Star Joined: 5/21/07
#16Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 4:47pm
Both songs play a similar role, in that they list all of the qualities the characters are looking for, but the irony is they'll never find that person. It's just a list of qualities.
Good point. I wasn't thinking that way about the question.
#17Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 4:52pm
And to be honest, I decided to just ignore the question asked (regarding how modern the song was, cause I just disagree) and talk about what I think the song is about. Which kinda makes me an Asshole. But that's nothing new. 
eperkins
Broadway Star Joined: 5/21/07
#18Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 4:57pmSonofRobbieJ, I agree with you that there's nothing modern about My White Knight. Quite the opposite, I would say. I think one could find many songs in musical theatre sung by women that share similar sentiments. Songs for men usually take a very different view about love.
John Adams
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/1/13
#19Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 4:59pm
>> And to be honest, I decided to just ignore the question
Holy Schnikes. I did the same. I answered based on the title of the thread.
But now that I've read the question, I think my response still fits.
Updated On: 5/9/13 at 04:59 PM
eperkins
Broadway Star Joined: 5/21/07
#20Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 5:07pm
"Holy Schnikes"
Or, sticking with The Music Man, "Great Honk!"
John Adams
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/1/13
#22Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 5:26pm
"Plus, if you're like me and think Winthrop is her kid with Old Miser Madison, then she probably has no options."
That just blew my mind. It all makes sense now.
#23Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 6:15pm
Anyone who thinks Marian "settles" for Harold Hill is watching a very bad production. He's the most dynamic person on stage and the focus of everyone's attention. Most importantly, he is the only person who sees who Marian really is.
But as long as we're discussing one of my favorite songs, I'd like to know what the bolded line below means to people:
"And I would like him to be more interested in me than he is in himself.
And more interested in us than in me."
It reminds me of FUNNY GIRL's "I need less of myself, I need more him, more him" as a collection of words that mean less and less the more you think about them.
P.S. There is not a chance in hell that Marian Paroo has a child and denies him to the world. Ripping a page from a library book is a HUGE moment for her precisely because deliberate dishonesty is so foreign to her.
Musicaldudepeter
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/18/10
#24Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Posted: 5/9/13 at 7:19pm
Marian is so often played as a 'stickler,' as someone who is stuck up and persnickety, and who can't open her mind even a little bit to an 'outsider.' The irony is she is a cultured, well read, open-hearted, kind, giving woman, but so many directors take the former as true, and direct the show with a focus on a negative Marian Paroo. Much like Guys and Dolls (with regard to Sarah, who in many ways, is the same type of character), the show works better if Marian is cast/directed as a woman of the world, slightly older than usual perhaps, who falls for Harold Hill's charm, and his 'man of the world' persona. In some ways, My White Knight is her awakening, her beginning to realize what she has in front of her in Harold Hill... Is she perhaps lying to herself when singing this song, trying to fool herself into thinking she doesn't want him, doesn't need him? The song and the character are both layered with many psychological questions and answers...
Re the line "More interested in me... than he is in himself, and more interested in us than in me." It's a beautiful lyric (one of many beautiful lyrics in the song) that totally sums up an honest, true, deep relationship - she wants him to care about the relationship and the partnership more than her, in a good way. So that even if someone will mar her feelings or principles, and if it is ultimately better for their relationship as a couple, she will love him. Complex, but beautiful!
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