MANY KINDS OF KIND SONGS By Peter Filichia
Why must there be an expiration date on something so important?
February 10th through the 16th is the official “Random Acts of Kindness Week.” But why stop there, when we could have a “Random Acts of Kindness Month, Year, Decade, Century and Millennium”?
And why limit it to “Kindness”? There are plenty of synonyms that are close enough for us to acknowledge them: Sympathy, Caring and Niceness, for a start.
There are also plenty of songs from musicals to get you in the mood. Or, to put it another way, this is not the time to play your 1998 CABARET recording of “I Don’t Care Much,” good song though it is. We’re here to praise kindness, not to bury it.
So, let’s start with “Kindness,” one of the many fine songs in INNER CITY, one of earliest and best rock musicals. The 1971 show detailed a difficult time in New York City history, and it was intent on revealing the town, hairy warts and all. “Kindness,” though, was seen at the time as a way to improve matters.
(It still is.)
In FANNY, composer-lyricist Harold Rome urged us to “Be Kind to Your Parents.” That may sound overly sentimental, but his following line saved it from being treacly: “Though they don’t deserve it.”
You’re the best judge of whether or not yours do, but even if they were as mean as Eve Harrington’s, be nice, if only – as the song in REDHEAD goes – “Just for Once.”
The Doctor in THE MOST HAPPY FELLA doesn’t urge his patient to take two aspirin and call him in the morning. No, he prescribes “Love and Kindness” to Tony. It’s a tall order, for Tony’s foreman took the liberty of sleeping with Tony’s wife on their wedding night. Nevertheless, Tony takes his advice and forgives, which is much easier than to forget.
That said, considering that Tony got his wife through false pretenses, perhaps the punishment fit the crime. That concept, by the way, actually originated in a song allegedly about kindness: “A More Humane Mikado” is from a Gilbert and Sullivan show whose name you already know or guessed. Dennis King does a nice job with it on the 1960 soundtrack of the TV special of THE MIKADO, in which Groucho Marx, of all people, played a prominent role.
In JUNO, Jerry is lovesick for Mary, who simply isn’t interested. All he asks from her is “One Kind Word,” but, as she aptly points out, he wants much more than that, and that she cannot give. Marc Blitzstein’s melody manages to be simultaneously melancholy and beautiful.
Mary is, however, able to give herself to another man, and in those pre-pill days, you can surmise what happens next. But you wouldn’t necessarily guess what occurs after that. Once Mary confesses to Jerry that she’s with child, he – who’s been professing his undying love for her all musical long – spins around, turns his back on her and says, “My God, Mary, have you fallen as low as that?”
Couldn’t Jerry have given her “One Kind Word” instead of 10 nasty ones? Let’s attribute Jerry’s insensitivity to JUNO’s opening in May, months after Random Acts of Kindness Week.
A decade before WEST SIDE STORY, Broadway had a musical – well, an opera, really – set on the stoop of a New York tenement. In 1947, STREET SCENE had music by Kurt Weill to a book by Elmer Rice. It was based on the latter’s play about life in a most unglamorous and dangerous part of town. Twentysomethings Rose and Sam, hoping to marry and escape to the suburbs, each shows consummate kindness to the other in “Remember That I Care.”
You may be surprised to learn the identity of STREET SCENE’s lyricist: Langston Hughes, best known for his 1951 poem “Harlem.” Truth to tell, the poem itself isn’t as famous as its second line that mentions “a raisin in the sun.” As we all know, Lorraine Hansberry chose the phrase as the title of her landmark 1959 play. It became so well known that the 1974 Tony-winning Best Musical adaptation of the play shortened the title to RAISIN, although nary a raisin showed up in the show (any more than it did in the play).
Dorothy Shaw in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES shows some kindness to Henry Spofford III, a Mainline Philadelphian who might well have known Lt. Joseph Cable’s parents. In “You Say You Care,” Dorothy establishes in the verse that, because her blood is hardly blue, “I don’t think I should marry you; I care for you too much.”
Lyricist Leo Robin got in some good wordplay here in having Dorothy sing, “I’d probably get you in Dutch with the Pennsylvania Dutch” to the point where even “The Quakers would quake.” Henry Spofford disagrees and is willing to tie the knot.
If you’ve seen the film version of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, you may be surprised at this turn of events, for playing Henry in the movie was a seven-year-old child. Ah, but in the original stage show, Henry was a 38-year-old, certainly mature enough to entertain marriage with the fetching Dorothy.
Not all kindness is genuine, as INTO THE WOODS’ Little Red Ridinghood discovered after surviving some time in a wolf’s digestive tract: “Nice is different than good” is the lesson she learned.
Little Red (as her name has often been shortened), I’m afraid you’ve made a grammatical error. “Nice is different from good” is correct. And I say this out of kindness.
(Of course, we have to wonder if Sondheim purposely had her make that mistake. Many a kid would.)
But if nice is indeed different from good, does that mean that INTO THE WOODS’ Cinderella is actually accurate when she called the man she’s just met “A Very Nice Prince”? After all, in Act Two we find that, as husbands go, he’s not good. Maybe if we wait enough midnights until Random Acts of Kindness Week comes around, he’ll come around.
Kindness in musicals is nothing new. As early as 1909, THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER was lobbying for “Sympathy.” Yes, give your friends just that when they need it, and if that isn’t enough, there’s always chocolate. Granted, some may prefer a soldier, but getting a bag of M&Ms is much easier than bagging a Major or a Marine.
And speaking of gift-giving, DR. SEUSS’ HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS reminds us that it isn’t necessarily the worth of the present or even the accuracy of getting the recipient what he or she most desires. No, “It’s the Thought That Counts.” And while this musical only surfaces during the last months of any given year, this is advice that you should heed all year round when purchasing presents for anniversaries, bar mitzvahs, birthdays, confirmations, engagements, housewarmings and weddings.
May you do such kindnesses for many weeks, months and decades to come.
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon.
