"Someone Else's Story"

I'm an old die-hard fan of the score - I damn near memorized the concept album when it first came out - but it predates any inclusion of this still bafflingly generic ballad. The number's third reassignment and movement to the 11 o'clockish spot for Florence makes zero sense. It was Judy Kuhn's I Want in the first Broadway production, a point of access for the character to explain how she arrived at such emotional stasis. It slowed the show early on, with its reflective tone, but it was beautiful, and the great Kuhn made it memorable. After that, as noted, it went to Svetlana. I'm always suspicious of songs that anyone can sing, at any point in a piece of storytelling, and this one makes my point, persuasively. Did I say "generic"? 

We now spend this entire show waiting for Florence to evolve away from a singular obsession with her romantic partners; it's the only thing she sings about for 2.5 hours, these two men and the woe they conjure. I longed for something new - repurposed with new lyrics? - that might launch Florence as a human being untethered to romantic entanglements as a defining trait. We didn't get it. So her final expression via this pretty song - after so many songs about these two men - as a stopping place feels unsatisfying. The character so needs - let's say it - to get a life beyond these two sequential triangles. The show's creatives, and that includes Strong, neglect her beyond serving Freddie and Anatoly. If the musical dared to propel Florence toward something  we might feel resolution rather than a stop. It's too bad, because the show still knocks these ravishing songs through the Imperial's ceiling.

Updated On: 4/21/26 at 08:40 PM

Right, it's just another baffling choice in this production for me.  My friend described it as "everyone needs to get an 11 o'clock number so this is Florence's" and that explanation makes about as much sense as anything else you could come up with for why it's the penultimate number of the show.

When given to Florence, it ABSOLUTELY needs to be in act 1 and be about Freddie.  The original version had it come in the place of Nobody's Side (with Nobody's Side moved later), where she's just had an argument with Freddie and realizes she's at the end of the line with him and has to leave him.  I personally think it would be best served in the Heaven Help My Heart slot, as she's going from one lover to another and reflecting on her past relationship (it doesn't hurt that I've always found Heaven Help My Heart a bit too cloying for Florence, but it was a #1 hit in the UK so what are you going to do?)

Tell me if I'm wrong but I get a sense that Chess is a convoluted mess of music, lyrics and book that it doesn't matter what re-incarnation if you examine closely enough you will find contradictions, challenges and inconsistencies but if you zoom out and consider 'the vibes' as a whole, the emotion associated with the music, some of the lyrics and the broad story telling etc.. it kind of works. Maybe I'm stupid, but I've seen the show multiple times (not the current production) and I still feel I barely get some of the details of the story sometimes. I've kind of given up trying to and don't think that is what the show is about......(so as far as the questions raised in this thread I guess they are good questions but maybe it shouldn't be examined so closely and you listen to the 'vibes' of Lea Michelle singing the song). 

Updated On: 4/22/26 at 10:31 AM

Personally I liked its placement better in the first act (OBC).  It's very anti-climatic in its present form.  I've never liked Svetlana singing it.  I forgot that it was in act 2 of the 1990 1st national tour (which is probably my favorite production out of all the iterations of Chess that I've seen).

Updated On: 4/23/26 at 03:59 PM

It works better when Svetlana sings the lyrics more specific to her that Tim wrote for her in Sydney in 1990.