The 50 best Broadway songs ever?

Bravo. Well done.

Geez, what an overwhelming task! This list is generally pretty standard, with a few welcome quirks. All the chosen songs are good, and 80% are exceptionally good. I personally prefer "I Have Dreamed" over "Something Wonderful", "Sit Down, You're Rocking..." over "Adelelaide's Lament" and "Stars" over "one Day More", but that's just me. Impossible to be totally objective.

Honestly, I've always thought "Rose's Turn," and GYPSY, were overrated: we all know about "stage mothers" and what they're like at this point, so GYPSY, to me, is just two-and-a-half hours of a now-tired idea.

And "Satisfied" at #7? (pause) REALLY? Forget that it's just not a very well-constructed song (it builds to a climax so thunderingly obvious, you keep waiting for something more): NUMBER SEVEN?

Ignoring the ranking (too big of a beast to tackle) personally, I would have chosen If I Loved You from Carousel instead of You'll Never Walk Alone. The latter is beautiful and emotionally high, but the delicate poignancy of If I Loved You so perfectly captures the nostalgia of overwhelming emotional attraction. The game of chicken for who'll drop the L-bomb first and is it too soon? I'll show you my heart if you show me yours. Personally, I think it's the most perfect love song ever written. R&H had already hit a home run with their previous effort at an arms-length love song with People Will Say We're In Love from Oklahoma, but when revisiting the theme, they outdid themselves.

And then I'd replace Ease On Down the Road with What Would I Do from Falsettos. There is no way I could leave that off any list of best Broadway songs ever.

Updated On: 12/6/16 at 03:05 PM

I have to say - in this Buzzfeed era, I have lost all interest in subjective lists.

I am enjoying the list and the explanations a lot.

But one quibble (so far) -- in Carousel -- Billy certainly does not kill himself. What were you thinking?

Well that was quite the buzzkill.

"But one quibble (so far) -- in Carousel -- Billy certainly does not kill himself. What were you thinking?"

Actually, in the original stage version (and many versions thereafter) Billy does stab himself with his knife (rather than going to jail). Perhaps, you are used to the film version where Billy dies by accident. Check out Wikipedia or your favorite Broadway info. site for the original plot.

The reason Porter ranks so low is because they've ranked this as "50 best Broadway songs, from integrated musicals, whose existence and popularity relates to their presence in show and not as standards/cabaret tunes." Porter wrote extensively for the theatre, but "Anything Goes" remains his primary integrated musical hit, and his footprint, like Noel Coward's, is arguably much bigger as a standard writer than as a show score composer.

The list feels awfully old to me. Yikes, have there been no new musicals besides Hamilton since Les Mis?? Maybe I'm just partial to newer musicals, but I'd love to see more that's current or recent on there (aside from Satisified, which is not the best Hamilton song - give me Wait for It and Quiet Uptown, depending on my mood, and the odd though welcome choices Everyone's a Little Bit Racist and Totally F*cked - but are these really the best songs from these shows (There's a Fine, Fine Line and Left Behind perhaps?)

Other new musicals I'd pick over, for example, Wouldn't it Be Loverly (zzzzzz) might be: Waving Through a Window (Dear Evan Hansen), Dust and Ashes (Great Comet) and She Used to Be Mine (Waitress). From Next to Normal, I might pick Superboy and the Invisible Girl or I Miss the Mountains). From Last Five Years I'd take Goodbye Until Tomorrow. There are even some great songs in American Psycho (I'll Be Back, This is Not an Exit, The Girl Before). Bare, Hunchback and Heathers were off-Broadway, but still All Grown Up and Are You There (Bare), Lifeboat (Heathers) and Hellfire (Hunchback) all beat out most of the list.

There's been some great stuff in the last 30 years.

Updated On: 12/7/16 at 10:43 AM

darquegk said: "The reason Porter ranks so low is because they've ranked this as "50 best Broadway songs, from integrated musicals, whose existence and popularity relates to their presence in show and not as standards/cabaret tunes." Porter wrote extensively for the theatre, but "Anything Goes" remains his primary integrated musical hit, and his footprint, like Noel Coward's, is arguably much bigger as a standard writer than as a show score composer.

"

I think that you are on shaky ground with that premise. Has an old song lost its Broadway connection because it was written for a Ziegfeld musical extravaganza or because its show is old and/or had a forgettable book.

As far back as 1917, Jerome Kern and P.G. Wodehouse, in response to the splashy musicals, were producing small, plot and character driven musicals at the small Princess Theater. The biggest hit was "Oh, Boy." The score, which included the Kern classic “Till the Clouds Roll By,” helped push the plot along, the book offered genuine characters pursuing their objectives and the lyrics functioned on various levels. I don't think that many could tell you the musical with which "Til the Clouds Roll By" is associated.



If you are going to use this criterion, I think you have to have a good knowledge of theater history. Kiss Me, Kate won the Tony for best musical in 1949 I think. There was a major revival of "Kiss Me, Kate" in 1999 starring Marin Mazzie and Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Nevertheless, it is a colorful and useful list with a good background accompanying all the songs.

Updated On: 12/7/16 at 12:00 PM

"I'm familiar with the concept of the Princess Theatre musicals and Wodehouse's pre-R&H codification of the genre, but regardless of their individual merits or qualities, history has sort of condemned them to a footnote..."

Lazy history, yes; but there are many among us who care about theatre enough to actually do a little reading and find out how it became what it is. Journalists, however, rarely are among that number.