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wherebettertoescape · 6 months ago

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Top 10 Underrated Songs from Musicals (Sad Edition)

so I've been down a wormhole of YouTube rank videos of songs in musicals. And so many of them I disagree with - particularly the ones looking at the sad/evocative songs. So, I decided to make my own ranking of saddest songs in musicals, but I'm gonna try and avoid just posting the usual ones, the ones that I usually see in these videos and instead go for the ones that I WISH were included because they're SOOOOO good

I'm also very well aware that so many people are gonna disagree and argue with my choices (including Louise, who I did NOT run this post by 😂) so please - let me know which ones you think deserve more recognition!

(I don't know which order you're meant to do rank posts in so I'm gonna start with number 10 and lead up to number 1??)

10. That's What You Call A Dream (Bonnie & Clyde)

I have such a soft spot for songs in musicals that are about grief for a dead dream, grief for a life that they could have had - anyone who made it through my Outsiders post will probably know that. And that's exactly what this song is - even with the amount of death within the show, Bonnie and Clyde is not exactly what I'd call a sad musical? You know exactly what's going to happen from the start, and even while you root for the two of them, they're not exactly sympathetic characters.

Blanche, though, she is exactly that. I know some people don't like Blanche too much, and I could go on and on about how I disagree with that and also with the notion that her and Buck are only there for comic relief. But I won't, and I'll instead settle with saying that within the musical she is a reluctant participant within her own life because she is intrinsically tied to Buck because she loves him.

While the other characters have grand dreams of fame and fortune, Blanche dreams of the mundane - this song is all about how she just wants a normal, simple life with Buck. But even that simple life is out of her reach - at the time she first sings this song, they haven't yet rejoined Clyde, but she is becoming more and more aware even then (while they're living within the law) that they're never going to get the life she dreams of, because the police are never going to leave Buck alone because he has a criminal record, and even if he didn't, being related to Clyde is enough to cast suspicion on them at all times. Even so, Blanche loves Buck and sticks with him through everything - and then the reprise of it when Buck's dying, don't even get me STARTED on how beautifully sad it is.

9. Dear Bill (Operation Mincemeat)

I get the feeling that there's gonna be a slight trend in this list of songs in usually upbeat musicals that just come in and absolutely decimate me emotionally. "Dear Bill" is the ideal example of that - Operation Mincemeat as a show is so upbeat, so funny, so melodramatically unique, and all the songs are so enthusiastic and filled to the brim with jokes and word play.

And then there's "Dear Bill" - a ballad in the form of a love letter penned by Hester to their fictitious fallen soldier, drawing on her own past experiences of writing to Tom, her partner who died fighting in the First World War. She reflects on what it's like to be left behind in England while her partner is off fighting - updating him on the day-to-day things that have been going on since he died, rather than offering endless proclamations of love.

And then, midway through the song, she slips up. She forgets that she's not writing a false letter to their made-up soldier Bill, and instead addresses her lost love. The letter is becomes so full of anger and loss and heartbreak, and the audience is forced to remember that Hester was a real person, that the people in the show were all real and all felt this loss at some point or another. And Hester is so tired and angry at the war - "why did we meet in the middle of a war? what a silly thing for anyone to do", just longing for the war to be over, because this isn't even the first war she's lived through. Adding onto that is when Jean, who is listening to Hester writing this letter, later on brings up that line again (in Useful) - "I think that when people meet in the middle of a war, it feels like it means something more" and it's just this very beautiful moment of friendship between these two very different war-hardened women.

8. Lifeboat (Heathers)

Lifeboat is kinda similar in it being a shockingly sad song within an otherwise comedic show. I know that there are probably other, better songs within Heathers I could have listed, but Lifeboat has always stuck with me. The drop from her singing "the tiniest lifeboat with people I know" to her practically screaming "EVERYONE'S PUSHING, EVERYONE'S FIGHTING" is the kind of thing that haunts me when I try to sleep at night.

This is the song of a girl whose entire life has been flipped upside down. She is losing so many people who she loves, all because (from what she knows) they have decided to kill themselves. I know its a comedic line, but there's something so sad in her speech beforehand where she goes "I'm on the damn bus again because all my rides to school are DEAD".

Lifeboat is just this eruption of overwhelming emotion - sadness, confusion, anger, and above all this desperation to understand what's happening to her friends, it truly is a cry for help. Only for it to be used against her by one of her remaining best friends - Heather McNamara is not exactly a good person, but she is trying to be and she has just unburdened her insecurities (yes, in the completely wrong environment but she doesn't know any better) only to be told to kill herself. When I saw Heathers live, it was Lifeboat that brought me to tears - it was a musical that I had never cried at before, and maybe it was just that the actress I saw was incredible, but even so I think it's such an underrated song and one of the saddest musical tunes.

7. One to Seventeen (The Little Big Things)

okay I can't lie, before The Outsiders musical came out, The Little Big Things was the musical I was obsessed with - I've not seen it. I'm hopeful I'll be able to see it. I've read the autobiography, and I've seen the Olivier performance and I'm in love with all the cast.

And writing this list, there are so many songs from this soundtrack that I wanted to put on, but there's something about One to Seventeen that always brings me to tears. Just her absolute desperation, her pain at seeing her son growing up and his accident and I just can't even express it.

Also I just think that there aren't enough shows which show good parent/child relations and that's one thing that I love about The Little Big Things. And listening to One to Seventeen I just get so emotional and I wanna text my mum to like thank her for every thing she's ever done for me and like apologise for when she'd get calls from school saying I'd been hurt or something. Something about I dunno, that moment when you realise your parents are humans too? Like that's what this song feels like to me and it's so sad and beautiful and I love it

6. For Good (Wicked)

This is probably the one that cannot be labelled as "underrated", but also the one that no one's going to argue about it. As such, it needs the least explanation 😂

"I know I'm who I am today because of you" - what a BANGER of a line, just always makes me think of my best friend and how much I love her and miss her. I'm a sucker for friendships - give me friendship over romance any day.

Just the complete heartbreaking notion of being irreparably changed by someone who had originally been your enemy, and then having to realise that you're going to have to figure out how to live without them, but really they're always going to be with you just 🥺

5. Stay Gold (The Outsiders)

I'll be quick on this one, because if you want my full thoughts on Stay Gold I've made a whole other post about it 😂 - I'm obsessed with this show at the moment, and Sky Lakota-Lynch has just got absolutely no right to make me so emotional wit this song.

It's the "sixteen years" verse that gets me every time, just him realising that what he'd always dreamed about (having a family) was something that he'd actually had all along with the Greasers, and while the entire of the gang think that Johnny is the one member that they can't live without, Ponyboy is the one member that he can't live without.

And also the reference to the father who thanks him for saving the little girl and how he just truly thinks that the girl's life is worth more than his. Even typing it out gets me all emotional 🥲

4. I'll Be Here (Ordinary Days)

This is one of my absolute favourite musicals, and this FUCKING SONG has NO RIGHT to make me feel SO MUCH

It's essentially just a recap of Claire's relationship with her ex-husband who passed away. And it's such an important song because throughout the musical before this song, Claire is not exactly a likeable character - she seems kinda rude and standoffish. She doesn't seem to like her current boyfriend, Jason, at all, and the audience is left in the dark as for why?

I remember the first time listening to it and kind of wanting Jason to break up with her? I thought that she was treating him kinda bad for no reason? And then this FUCKING SONG comes along, and it breaks my heart every time I listen to it because she's so wracked with guilt and love and grief.

It's so rare, at least for me, that one song can change your entire perception of a character, but that's exactly what I'll Be Here does

3. Drink With Me (Les Miserables)

I think this is the one that most people are gonna be mad about. Don't get me wrong, I love and appreciate the other fucking depressing songs in Les Mis (i.e. most of them - I could write ESSAYS on Little People and Empty Chairs), Drink With Me will always be the one that makes me sob.

Louise will confirm but I've got a thing about drinking songs and letter songs. They always make me cry a little. There's something about the vulnerability of them paired with the relative simplicity of the music.

Drink With Me is just so powerful - it's entire point is to humanise Les Amis for the audience, to allow us to recognise that these revolutionaries (despite their larger-than-life appearance onstage) are just students. And this alongside the fact that we are introduced to Grantaire as being the drunkard and the cynic of the group, and yet it's not led by him? At some point I'm gonna make a whole post about the meaning of that 😂

But as well the fact that Enjolras doesn't contribute. At least in the productions that I've seen of it, Enjolras doesn't join in - while the rest of them are being humanised, Enjolras remains distant, he remains unreachable to his friends, to Grantaire who truly does idolise him (calling him Apollo, he is the only thing that Grantaire believes in), and it keeps him distant from the audience as well, it allows us to continue to view him as a martyr. But then there's Grantaire who, despite everything he says is afraid to die, and he just wants some inkling from Enjolras that their fearless leader feels the same - the "can it be you fear to die? [...] is your life just one more lie?" is the most desperate beg from Grantaire for Enjolras to confide in them and yeah, I don't know.

For me, Drink With Me is the song where it starts for me - I start crying here, and then don't stop until the end 😂

2. What Would I Do (Falsettos)

I think it's a travesty that Falsettos is almost never on those lists. It's a fucking work of art as a musical. Just so raw and painful and I've never watched it the whole way through without crying at least once.

So yeah, I was definitely torn for which Falsettos song to put in this list - Unlikely Lovers? You Gotta Die Sometime? so many good choices. But this does go back to the thing I said about having grief for a life that could have been.

And also, despite how hard their life together had been, knowing how hard it was to love each other, how painful and drawn-out their illnesses were going to be, the knowledge that Marvin doesn't regret it, that he knows that he would choose Whizzer every time?? That's my roman empire 😂

The fact as well that even in this monologue, he can't call Whizzer his boyfriend/partner, Marvin always calls him "my friend" just is so painful I don't know man

"Once I was told that good men get better with age. We're just gonna skip that stage" is just the most heartbreaking line ever - and the way that in the recording Christian Borle's voice breaks as he sings it will genuinely haunt me until the day I die

1. We Raise Our Cups (Hadestown)

Another musical that there are definitely so many options for "sad songs" - I wanna give "Flowers" an honourable mention because that's the one that really gets me, it's so beautiful.

But Louise and I saw Hadestown in the West End a couple of months ago now, and I had kinda forgotten that it ended with this song and I left the Lyric theatre in FLOODS of tears, and so for that alone I have to give it number 1 position 😂

I think it's partly with the staging on the West End, in "Living it Up on Top" when Orpheus says "to the world we dream of... and the one we live in now", there's a moment when the entire cast turns to the audience to raise their cups directly to them, and the finale with this song just took me right back to that moment and I lost it entirely.

Because I was forced to realise that when Orpheus said that at the start, that was an Orpheus who wouldn't have looked back, who had faith that the world could change, it could be kind to him. But now the Orpheus that they were singing about in "We Raise Our Cups" is hardened and more cynical and so of course he looks back

i just think it should be illegal to end it with this song and then expect you to get on the tube around London afterwards, okay? 😂

OKAY so that's my list - please let me know what your thoughts are as well - any that you agree with or disagree with? Or just your own rankings because I think I'm gonna come back to this in like a week and want to fight myself so... let me know 😂

Freddie 🐸

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lumine-no-hikari · 26 days ago

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Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #307

I slept pretty well last night, though I only got about 6 hours. I went to bed a little late, and despite setting my alarm for 9am, my body decided that 7am is where it's at. Oh well.

On the bright side, I had some great conversation with a friend of mine who exists in the space in which I write my letters! This person has a completely different sleep schedule than I do, and they have a number of responsibilities to tend, so it's not too often that we get to talk at length. But it's always a treat when those opportunities do arise!

I went to the orthodontist and got the missing attachment put back on without any trouble. But I stopped to take some photos along the way; I saw a couple of trees sparking in brilliant shades of awesome today, and so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to stop and take a pictures for you:

...I thought this tree below looked kind of like a very excited orchestra conductor, hahaha!

Not half bad for just a cellphone camera, right? And kind of an old, clunky one by now, too; J's cellphone camera is oodles better than mine!!

...Though, admittedly, it probably doesn't help that when I selected my phone, my biggest priority was battery life (because I'm always forgetting to charge it...), and not camera quality, ahahaha... 😅

...At the time, I suppose I didn't imagine I'd be taking so many pictures. I never imagined I'd become so passionate about the quality of the images I take. Writing to you has changed me in a variety of ways, all of them positive. Thank you for that; I can say with certainty that I wouldn't have developed such an interest in taking pictures if not for you.

...Hey, Sephiroth...? If we were out and about, do you suppose you'd take pictures alongside me? I wonder what sorts of things your awesome senses might capture that I might not be able to see...

...Do you think maybe someday, you could show me sometime? Maybe for a moment, we could trade places, and you could see the world through my eyes, and I could see the world through yours, and then maybe we'd understand each other a little better. That'd be pretty neat, I think...

I decided to stop at Eggcellent on the way home, because I adulted and it's not Tuesday!!! Eggcellent is always closed on Tuesdays, and sadly, almost all of my appointments are on Tuesdays. Sometimes I think about changing it to a different day (so I can go get Eggcellent when I'm done!!!!!!!), but then Bn and the dandelion-haired man wouldn't see me anymore, and maybe they'd be a little sad as a result.

Anyway, last time, I got their pumpkin brûlée latte. Today I got their pumpkin brûlée milk tea, and... I couldn't tell the difference. Maybe you could, if you tried them.

...Or maybe!!!! Maybe I just gotta get them both and try them at the same time!!! I should be able to tell the difference if I do it then!!!! I'll try it out sometime and tell you how it goes!!!! 😄💖

The silver, gold, and green tree I wove for the Ch and Ea still sits in its little pot on its little shelf, and... this makes me happy for some reason:

Ch was there instead of Ea this time, and her mother W was there, too! I got to talk to them for a little while; Ch was excited about my braces! She used to have metal braces at one point, and she remembers it being uncomfortable and expensive. Well... she's certainly correct on both counts!!

W doesn't have a whole lot of English, but that's okay; Ch sometimes relays what I say back to W in Cantonese! W is an older lady, and she has a radiant smile and an upbeat attitude; even if I can't understand her words, it's apparent in the way she carries herself and in the expressions on her face and in the way she uses her voice, and it's lovely to see. I like her a lot! And I like Ch and Ea, too! I'm really glad they're here.

Ch is looking forward to seeing what the inside of my face will look like in a few years! Though, she wonders if her business will last that long. I can see why she's worried; where I live, the prices of things keeps going up, but wages are staying relatively the same. People are needing to stretch themselves thinner and thinner, and deprive themselves of more and more nice things. When this happens, people in my part of the world cut out anything that isn't necessary, and... bubble tea, sadly, isn't exactly necessary.

...It's not lost on me how lucky I am. I'm in a position in which I can get braces. I'm in a position in which I can get bubble tea. And... these are things that everyone should be able to get without issue. People should have their needs met. People should be able to get nice treats for themselves from time to time.

Unfortunately, at least for right now, the world that I live in isn't very fair in a variety of respects. And there are people working to change that, but... given the culture and the way my world perceives things like "deserving" and "undeserving" (truly, there's no such thing as "undeserving", but lots of people don't know that...), the people working to build a world in which everyone can thrive are hindered by people who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

I think most people want change, but change is hard, and the people who wanna maintain the status quo have a lot of money and therefore a lot of power. Power enough to put weird ideas in people's heads about who does and doesn't deserve comfort and security. Power enough to put weird ideas in people's heads like, "if marginalized people get the things they need, then that means you'll have less of what you need! 😱"

...Remember that really gross "she's for they/them, not you!" ad that I mentioned in a previous letter? That's... a pretty good example of that way of thinking. There's no reason that a person can't be for both (as though there even is any distinction at all), but households with generational trauma where the dynamic is that only one child can be loved at a time are particularly susceptible to thinking that equal rights and social acceptance are like pie - more for someone else means less for them.

And that's how it is in some households - typically abusive ones. There can be only one "favorite", and if the "favorite" shifts, then the former "favorite" quickly becomes the scapegoat instead. And then they grow up, and therapy is hard to get, and so... it's hard for them to realize that this isn't how things work on a macro scale.

Unfortunately, those who have the money are highly educated and are very good at taking advantage of generational trauma to make sure that most people think that their enemy is those who are "othered" by society, even though the real issue is that the people who have the money are collecting and hoarding more money than they can ever realistically use (to the point that others don't get to have enough), likely because of their own traumas.

...It's like if there was a tribe of monkeys, and one of the monkeys is hoarding all the bananas so that the other monkeys don't have enough, and the monkey hoarding them has so many bananas now that it can't possibly eat them all by the time they rot, but still this monkey won't share. I read somewhere a quote that goes kinda like, "when monkeys do this, we wonder what's wrong with that monkey, but when people do it, we worship them as heroes." Or something to that effect. And it's apt.

Humans are just overcomplicated monkeys. I am certainly an overcomplicated monkey. We all take ourselves a bit too seriously sometimes, I think. It's a little weird.

In any case, as for the hoarding, for what it's worth, I think it's important to differentiate between who a person is and what a person does. Because trauma makes us do all sorts of very weird things that aren't in alignment with who we actually are on the inside. Goodness knows that I know this all too well. If the me of 12 years ago was writing to you, these letters would look very different than they do now, and not in a good way.

In those days, I was still trying to live up to the ridiculous expectations of the people who hurt me, trying to prove to them that I didn't deserve to be mistreated, and trying to get love and acceptance from them even though they were in too much pain to be able to provide those things to me. I'm sure you know more than a little bit about what this was like; it's a bit like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone.

So the enemy is not exactly "the people hoarding the wealth and hurting people in order to get more wealth"; the enemy is the behavior, and the trauma that leads to the behavior. You gotta look under the surface (this can be hard to do, especially when people do horrible things!), and at all the history and experiences that shape people and the compulsions they develop in order to cope with their traumas. Teach people non-destructive ways of coping with their traumas, and watch the destructive behaviors stop.

...Unfortunately, this kind of teaching isn't an overnight process. It takes years of suffering to shape a brain into something that lacks empathy for other people, and it takes years to tear down that architecture and rebuild something new in its place. Changing up one's neural pathways is a hugely time- and resource-intensive task - not just because it literally requires calories and minerals and very specific kinds of fats and proteins to achieve, but also because the whole process is painful and involves a lot of grieving from start to finish. And uh... you're never exactly "finished". Ever.

Living with S for a summer helped me to learn that, at least for the fabulously wealthy people he was raised by, they usually only feel a smidgen of self-worth when "big number go up" and "fancy house/car/clothes/etc go brr!" And... that's really sad actually. When you live in a box that teaches you that your worth comes from how big the number is in your bank account and the social stats that your "toys" give to you.

...People, for the most part, would rather be dead than be considered unlovable by their social or family group. So what you get is people who will stop at nothing to make that "big number go up", even if it means others will suffer tremendously for it.

...Of course, there's a lot more to it than this. It's a big, complicated problem that is generations and generations in the making, and what I've written is an oversimplified summary. I already write very long letters; I'm not sure I can afford to insert a book here, hahaha...

...I don't know how to teach people on a mass scale how instead to focus on how safe others feel in their presence, on how they use their power and resources to end suffering for others, or on how closely their words and behaviors reflect their true self. All I can do is try to write without dehumanizing anyone, and hope that the people who need it can see it.

...Goodness, but I've digressed a lot. Thanks for listening, ahaha... 😅

Anyway, I made myself a lunch. Parts of it were very pumpkin themed; I think you would have liked it...

...O'course, when I say that it's pumpkin-themed, I'm mostly talking about the bubble tea and the pumpkin spice English muffin:

...I put this on it:

...There are a lot of pumpkin-flavored things that I really wish I could share with you. There are so many things in general that I wish I could share with you. Like my lunch:

...I feel endlessly frustrated that the best I can give to you is pictures. It's endlessly frustrating that I can't package up the scent of the autumn breeze and give it to you. I can't package up the warmth of the sun and the feeling of crispy leaves underfoot and give it to you. I can't package up the smells and flavors and wholesomeness of my delicious lunch and give it to you.

...

...As far as I know, I don't have that power, and it fucking sucks, to put it mildly. 😦😳😥😓

...

...But I'll try as hard as I can to make the best of what little I can do, and hope that it gets through to you somehow. Somehow...

...Try to meet me halfway, okay? Maybe it'll work then, if only a little bit. Who knows.

I think I might try to play some Oddworld today. If I do, I'll put it here; come hang out with me if you wanna:

twitch_live

Suppose I'll stop writing for now. I have the urge to run around in a digital approximation of an able body, trying to help others. I can do that in Oddworld. It's pretty neat.

Hey. I know we'll probably never eat a lunch together or drink tea together. But please work on your situation so that you can do these things in your own house at your own table with your own circle of loving, kind, and caring friends. I know we'll probably never walk around on a bright, crispy autumn day to take pictures and smell the leaves in the air. But please work on your situation so that you can come up out of that damnable crater and do these things with the people you love. I know we'll probably never sit down to play a challenging video game together. But please hold on and keep trying your best, so that someday, you'll be able to do that together with anyone you choose.

A good life is waiting for you, if you make choices that lead you to it. You don't have to hurt anyone to make those choices. All you have to do is be your authentic self. And your authentic self is kind, soft, gentle, sensitive, compassionate, and warm. These are good, strong, and brave things to be, especially in a world like this one; don't let any misinformed butt-nugget tell you otherwise, okay? Promise me - please.

I love you. Please stay safe out there while you do your things. Make kind and good choices, in alignment with your nature. Use your words to empower yourself and others, at the expense of no one else. Do these things, and you can walk your way to a different outcome.

I believe in you. Unwaveringly, and without any doubt or hesitation. Sephiroth... you have what it takes. Nothing and no one can make me believe otherwise - not even you.

I'll write to you again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

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