songs without any relevance to the musical — Page 2

I may be wrong, but "Motherhood March" from Hello, Dolly!

I believe this was added later, but "Gifts of Love." Genevieve's situation is fully explained in "Meadowlark"; we don't need some long ballad about a failed relationship.

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A lot of Kiss Me, Kate; mostly Too Darn Hot. Great number, though.

Jonart beat me to it. Shipoopi is a fun little number, but totally irrelevant to the plot.

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Surely Lucy in Jekyll and Hyde doesn't need ALL of those songs.

Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You in the Music Man.

I know someone mentioned Memory, but once it's over, so is the whole musical in my mind. Why the Addressing of Cats?

Doin' the Latest Rag in Titanic.

The Lusty Month of May and Then You May Take Me To the Fair and Fie on Goodness (but I love all of these songs) from Camelot.

I'm sure you can find arguements for all of these, but they don't do enough in my mind to develop character or advance the plot to exist.

YES, Lucy doesn't really need "Someone Like You" (because of "Sympathy, Tenderness." Unless you'd want to cut that one.) And "A New Life" just stops the action too much. And you sit there screaming "Stop singing and LEAVE, Lucy! He's gonna kill you!" And guess what? He does.

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AH. I love "Turkey Lurkey Time" with a passion, but yeah, its kind of irrelevant.

Concerning Wicked, all the ones mentioned are pretty much character development related or have some plot or something but "What is this Feeling" is the most unnecessary song ever. They don't like each other. We get it. They could do the letter part and just move on.

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I'll agree with Rhythm of Life. When I saw Charity performed at my university, I was completely confused about why on earth that song was there. It was never alluded to before or after. I guess it's not just me, then.

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Motherhood March from Dolly is used to distract Horace from seeing Barnaby and Cornelius in the hat shop. Doesn't really forward the plot, but it does have purpose.

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"Spring Awakening - Mama Who Bore Me, Mama Who Bore Me (Reprise), My Junk, Touch Me, And Then There Were None, I Believe, Blue Wind, The Word of Your Body (Reprise), The Song of Purple Summer"

I'm not going to go song by song and tell you why you're incorrect, although I could with the exception of The Song of Purple Summer, which I still can't figure out. But the point stands that if you have read the numerous interviews with the artistic team and cast members of the show than you understand that all of the music in Spring Awakening is meant to be a kind of inner monologue of the life of each character and the thoughts that each new situation or feeling brings out in them. They are not supposed to be directly connected to the dialogue or book scenes. They should stick out. That's the concept of the show. But to say they have no relevance is just incorrect.

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"Those songs are MUCH more disconnected from the show than the rest of the score. And I have read practically every interview . . ."

You practically listed the entire score. And that's my point, yes, you are right, the music IS disconnected (def. - To sever or interrupt the connection of or between) from the storyline because it was meant to be. That's part of the shows design. But the music is not IRRELEVANT (def. - having no bearing on or connection with the subject at issue)to the story.

For example, in my opinion these songs are arguably irrelevant to their shows:

'Officer Krupke' - West Side Story

'What A Game' and 'Atlantic City' - Ragtime

The shows would sure be a lot darker without them though.

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Updated On: 2/23/07 at 03:10 AM

Maybe I am finding disagreement with how we interpret CONNECTION and RELEVANCE. I see them as two different things. Maybe you don't. The only reason I even said anything about SA, is because defyinggravity practically listed the ENTIRE score as irrelevant to the show, that doesn't seem strange to you? Defyingravity is talking about the music in SA's CONNECTION to the storyline in relation to the material before and after these songs, and I agree the songs come out of nowhere by design. But if you look at the lyrics, it's very plain to me that the songs are RELEVANT to what's going on in the story. As where songs such as 'Atlantic City', 'What A Game', and 'Officer Krupke', although CONNECTED to the material preceding it and fitting in the flow of the show, are not necessarily RELEVANT to the story. If you took these songs out, IMO the show would not lose any clarity. The music in SA gives you a lot of insight into the actual characters in the show, which you don't necessarily get in the dialogue, hence there RELEVANCE, but not CONNECTION.

I'm not some crazy SA fan. I'm just trying to state what the difference is IMO. It's completely your perogative to disagree.
I'm done arguing this.

I'm editing this post to make a correction. DefyingGravity, I am wrong in saying that you are wrong about SA. I just strongly disagree with you.

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Updated On: 2/23/07 at 04:39 AM