What's In a Playlist?

Me and music is one of those long-lasting affections. It'll outlast all my relationships, mean more to me than most things in this world and keep me going through troubled times. Usually, it perks me up, reminds me that there's something worth carrying on for. In compiling this playlist - designed to keep me positive - I had to dispense with many songs I consider favourites because they're so sad. You'd expect there to be more Judy here, for instance, but Judy invariably breaks my heart.

So here is my extra special playlist, split into categories. I realised pretty quickly that anything connected to Jerry Herman and Stephen Sondheim needed to be in its own categories. Those two masters of the musical have a lot to answer for. My adoration of Merrily We Roll Along, in particular, is on display.

Classic Musicals 

'A Step in the Right Direction' - Bedknobs and Broomsticks
'Finale' - Call Me Madam
'Cactus Time in Arizona' - Girl Crazy
'Processional' - The Sound of Music
'Golden Ticket' - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
'If My Friends Could See Me Now' - Sweet Charity
'Portobella Road' - Bedknobs and Broomsticks
'Substitutiary Locomotion' - Bedknobs and Broomsticks
'The Turnable Song' - Something in the Wind
'Put On a Happy Face' - Bye Bye Birdie
'Rosie' - Bye Bye Birdie
'It's a Lovely Day Today' - Call Me Madam
'That's Entertainment' - The Bandwagon
'Pick Yourself Up' - Swing Time
'Moses' - Singin' in the Rain
'One Brick At a Time' - Barnum
'If I Ruled the World' - Pickwick
'Thank You Very Much' - Scrooge
'Stereophonic Sound' - Silk Stockings
'Come Follow the Band' - Barnum
'The Colours of My Life Reprise' - Barnum
'Museum Song' - Barnum
'Out There' - Barnum
'I Like Your Style' - Barnum
'On How to Be Lovely' - Funny Face
'No Way to Stop It' - The Sound of Music
'Leave It to the Ladies' - Blitz
'Down the Lane' - Blitz
'The Roses of Success' - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
'I Don't Care' - In the Good Old Summertime
'Ten Minutes Ago' - Cinderella
'Impossible' - Cinderella
'Join the Circus' - Barnum

Herman and Sondheim

'A Parade in Town' - Anyone Can Whistle
'Open a New Window' - Mame
'That's How Young I Feel' - Mame
'Suffragette March' - Mrs Santa Claus
'Whistle' - Mrs Santa Claus
'Bosom Buddies' - Mame
'Put On Your Sunday Clothes' - Hello, Dolly!
'Before the Parade Passes By' - Hello, Dolly!
'Some People' - Gypsy
'Mame' - Mame
'Chin Up, Ladies' - Milk and Honey
'Side by Side'/'What Would We Do Without You' - Company
'I Am What I Am' - La Cage aux Folles
'Something's Coming' - West Side Story
'Everybody Says Don't' - Anyone Can Whistle
'Just Go to the Movies' - A Day in Hollywood
'It's a Hit' - Merrily We Roll Along
'Tap Your Troubles Away' - Mack and Mabel
'Someone Woke Up' - Do I Hear a Waltz?
'Do I Hear a Waltz?' - Do I Hear a Waltz?
'Overture' - Merrily We Roll Along
'Now You Know' - Merrily We Roll Along
'Old Friends' - Merrily We Roll Along
'The Hills of Tomorrow'/'Merrily We Roll Along' - Merrily We Roll Along
'Our Time' - Merrily We Roll Along
'Opening Doors' - Merrily We Roll Along
'Ever After' - Into the Woods

Modern Musicals

'Human Again' - Beauty and the Beast
'Just Around the Corner' - The Addams Family
'Where Did We Go Wrong' - The Addams Family
'Walk Through the Fire' - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
'This Is My Life' - Bad Girls: The Musical
'Once We Were Kings' - Billy Elliot
'This is the Moment' - Jekyll and Hyde
'I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do' - Mamma Mia!
'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' - Spamalot
'Bruce' - Matilda
'When I Grow Up' - Matilda
'One Normal Night' - The Addams Family
'One' - A Chorus Line
'Who's That Boy?' - Soho Cinders
'Steal the Pig' - Betty Blue Eyes
'Another Little Victory' - Betty Blue Eyes
'A Star is Born' - Hercules
'Nobody' - Betty Blue Eyes
'Anything Can Happen' - Mary Poppins
'Naughty' - Matilda
'You Can't Stop the Beat' - Hairspray
'Finale B' - Rent
'When I Find My Baby' - Sister Act
'Raise Your Voice' - Sister Act
'Sunday Morning Fever' - Sister Act
'Spread the Love Around' - Sister Act
'Come So Far (Got So Far to Go)' - Hairspray 
'You Shall Go to the Ball' - Soho Cinders
'Long As I'm Here With You' - Thoroughly Modern Millie
'How the Other Half Lives' - Thoroughly Modern Millie
'For Now' - Avenue Q

Jazz, Easy Listening Etc

'Take a Look' - Alison Jiear
'Don't Fence Me In' - The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby
'In the Mood' - Bette Midler
'Zing a Little Zong' - Bing Crosby
'Walkin' My Baby Back Home' - Bing Crosby and Judy Garland
'Don't Rain On My Parade' - Bobby Darin
'Taking the World By Storm' - Bonnie Langford
'I'm On My Way' - The Cliff Adams Singers
'High Hopes' - Doris Day
'Something's Gotta Give' - Ella Fitzgerald
'I've Gotta Be Me' - Glee Cast
'The Way You Look Tonight'/'You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile' - Glee Cast
'In the Mood' - Glenn Miller
'American Patrol' - Glenn Miller
'Five Little Miles From San Berdoo' - Jane Russell
'I Concentrate On You' - Judy Garland
'Just in Time' - Judy Garland
'Who Cares?' - Judy Garland
'You've Got Me Where You Want Me' - Judy Garland and Bing Crosby
'New York, New York' - Liza Minnelli
'Hello, Dolly' - Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland
'Chicago' - Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland
'Gonna Build a Mountain' - Matt Monroe
'Dearie' - Ray Bolger and Ethel Merman
'Hey, Look Me Over' - Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby

Bits & Bobs

'That's Me' - ABBA
'We Didn't Start the Fire' - Billy Joel
'You May Be Right' - Billy Joel
'Birdhouse in Your Soul' - Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

I hope that title put 'Do Re Mi' in your head. It was rather intended to. Though this post isn't about musicals, it's about writing (for a change!). 

I've gone back to working on 'Lily', the first novel I completed. While the document is labelled 'Fifth Draft' there was an aborted attempt way back in the day so it's more like the sixth. Instead of going through it with a luminous pen, though, I'm typing the whole thing out from scratch. I generally do that with second drafts because there's so much to change but at this point it might seem a little silly, like giving myself far more work to do than I need to. 

However, it has the benefit of making me think things over. My sentence structure's evolved a lot since I last toyed with the novel and I'm more confident generally. There are some additional plot aspects I'm trying to weave in as I go but I wanted to make sure as much as possible had been looked over critically. I want this novel to be the best it can be, after all. 

So it's a lot of work and it doesn't end here. I plan on another pass through once I've finished this to check and improve syntax and grammar then I want to read the whole thing aloud. I'm not sure how long all this will take but I have other projects to intersperse with this one - many other projects. Not to mention that PhD which is taking up a good proportion of my time at the moment. I'm only really allowing myself to work on the novel after nine o'clock at night which means, of course, that some nights I just can't bring myself to. Which is fine. I've got my priorities and my PhD is top of that list, no question. But I've always been a multi-tasker. 

My inclination is to get this draft finished so that I can focus my attention on NaNoWriMo in November. Perhaps that isn't realistic but I'm going to give it a go. Because, really, I've got the words on the page, it's just a case of mixing them all up to make a novel. Right, Maria?

My Musical Memories

I got to thinking, as I was not sleeping in the early hours of the morning, what a huge impact musicals, their songs and their stars, have had on my life. A lot my memories are tangled up with particular songs, albums are connected with specific moments in time, some good, some bad. I felt like sharing. This is practically chronological, though there are some jumps.

I remember seeing the stage show of Singin' in the Rain not long after I started secondary school, sitting in the third row and getting wet at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. It took a long time for me to 'condescend' to see the film. What a mistake that was.

I remember buying the Summer Holiday cast album on CD, bringing it home and my mum demonstrating how to dance along to 'Foot Tapper', one of my final positive memories of her.

I remember the triumvirate of albums that sustained me for what felt like an age but was a mere few months - film cast recordings of The Sound of Music and Grease and the Michael Ball production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I loved the song 'Teamwork' in the latter and miss it since my CD broke and I haven't been able to replace it. 

I remember nearly breaking my ankle jumping over a sofa at a friend's house while listening to The Sound of Music. The friends were in another room, away from my racket. I realised in that moment I didn't belong anywhere near them.

I remember ordering The Harvey Girls on VHS having once seen it on television. It arrived at my Grandma White's house and I told her she could watch it. Jealous, and having had a row with yet another friend I shouldn't have been friends with, I was walking around Wrenthorpe and I called her. She told me she was up to 'It's a Great Big World' and the idea of being with 'friends' when I could be watching that beautiful scene instead made me indescribably sad.

I remember skipping college to watch Pal Joey. And On the Town. Maybe that's something to blame Frank Sinatra for.

I remember buying a book on MGM musicals and taking it to college so I didn't have to talk to anyone all day.

I remember doing an A-Level language project on musical songs in the 1940s and 60s. It stank.

I remember terrorising the neighbours with the Thoroughly Modern Millie Broadway cast recording with Sutton Foster. While dancing along to 'Forget About the Boy' I jumped on a chair and it fell over, sending us both crashing to the floor. Lesson not exactly learned.

I remember persuading my Grandma Brown to buy me three films for £20 in HMV - Singin' in the Rain, Little Shop of Horrors and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. She thought I selected the last one just to make up the three so I took my laptop round to her house and made her watch it - she soon changed her mind. Then there was me dancing the 'Barn Dance' along the corridor in that bungalow, scaring the life out of both my grandparents.

I remember countless Sundays  in my Grandma Brown's kitchen, listening to Elaine Paige on Sunday and writing fan fiction in thick spiral bound notebooks.

I remember taking walks down the backs near my Grandma White's house with a musical compilation recorded onto my Walkman. I danced along stones wedged into the shallows of a lake singing 'All That Jazz', Claire Sweeney's version.

I remember that after getting the Wicked soundtrack I went up a hill near my Grandma White's house and sang along to 'Defying Gravity' at the top of my voice while jumping between a rock and a bench.

I remember the thrill of listening to 'Processional and Maria' from The Sound of Music and how that piece of music still has the power to make me smile and conduct along.

I remember walking to my Grandma Brown's and making sure I was listening to the London cast recording of Mary Poppins and the song 'Jolly Holiday' for a particular stretch along Aberford Road. There was singing, lots of singing.

I remember getting through my first year at uni by taking long walks past midnight with my MP3 player. Particularly, there was a set of steps that headed up to the main road. I danced up and down those, frequently to 'Avenue A' from Mrs Santa Claus, waving at passing cars.

I remember the first time I ever watched A Muppet's Christmas Carol with my flatmate and pausing halfway through to take a call that made me smile more than I had since I got to university.

I remember sitting outside McDonald's near uni listening to 'When the Children Are Asleep' from Carousel and thinking how pleasant that scenario sounded.

I remember the first time I watched Call Me Madam. I was at my Grandma Brown's, my grandfather was in hospital and my great aunt called halfway through the film. I was upset that the phone call stopped my grandmother watching Donald O'Connor dance in 'What Chance Have I With Love?', one of his best performances.

I remember meeting someone and being gutted that The Sound of Music had recently toppled from the head of her favourites list. If only I'd spoken to her a month earlier.

I remember listening to 'It Really Doesn't Matter' on YouTube, learning all the words to distract me from the fact I was living in a fifteen person house I despised.

I remember annoying the neighbours when I lived in Middlesbrough by singing along extremely loudly to 'Do You Hear the People Sing?' three or four times a night.

I remember working to rule in Bradford, sitting in my dad's car until just before clocking-in time singing 'Once We Were Kings' from Billy Elliot loudly enough to irritate anybody in the car park.

I remember after a particularly bad supervisor meeting listening to 'A Star is Born' from Hercules and managing to make myself smile before I left Sheffield.

I remember seeing Liza Minnelli sing 'Maybe This Time' live and thinking that nothing could possibly beat that for me.

I remember seeing Idina Menzel singing 'No Day But Today' and the audience around the Royal Albert Hall joining in to create an electric atmosphere.

I remember sitting in the third row watching Merrily We Roll Along and never wanting it to end. I got a similar sensation when I watched the cinema showing, though I bawled my eyes out at a different song.

There are more, many more. A lot of songs associated with bad moments too but those I'll keep to myself. The point is, while most people say they 'like' music, I really couldn't live without it. These songs are what keep me going and not a day goes by (thanks, Mr Sondheim) where my earphones don't help me blot out the real world, just a bit.

Some Favourite Lyrics

It's my birthday today and music is one of my passions so I decided to share a few of my favourite song lyrics with you. Some snippets are longer than others but all of these are beautiful. Well, I think so anyway. The images I get from them are quite potent. These are just five out of literally thousands of songs I adore.

• It Never Was You - sung beautifully by Judy Garland in I Could Go On Singing, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson... 

An occasional sunset reminded me,

Or a flower hanging high on a tulip tree,

Or one red star hung low in the west,

Or a heart-break call from a Meadow Lark's nest,

Made me think for a moment,

Maybe its true,

I found him in the star,

In the call,

In the blue...

• No Way to Stop It - sung in the stage version of The Sound of Music, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II...

A crazy planet full of crazy people,

Is somersaulting all around the sky.

And every time it turns another somersault,

Another day goes by.

And there's no way to stop it,

No, there's no way to stop it.

No, you can't stop it even if you tried.

So, I'm not going to worry,

No, I'm not going to worry,

Every time I see another day go by.

• Gone - written and performed by Melody Gardot... 

I won't wake up, 

To the sound of your feet,

Walking down the hall,

Like a soft heartbeat,

I won't wake up,

Cause by the time that,

I do you'll be gone...

• I Don't Want to Know - performed by Angela Lansbury in Dear World and written by the wonderful Jerry Herman...

Let me hide ev'ry truth from my eyes with the back of my hand,

Let me live in a world full of lies with my head in the sand.

For my memories all are exciting.

My memories all are enchanted,

My memories burn in my mead with a steady glow;

So if, my friends, if love is dead,

I don't want to know.

• Vincent - written and performed by Don McLean...

Starry, starry night,

Portraits hung in empty halls,

Frame-less heads on nameless walls,

With eyes that watch the world and can't forget,

Like the strangers that you've met,

The ragged men in ragged clothes,

The silver thorn of bloody rose,

Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow...

  

Classic Film Review: The Trouble With Angels (1966)

The Trouble With Angels stars Hayley Mills and June Harding as Mary and Rachel, two girls sent to a convent school who aim to drive the nuns round the twist with their pranks. Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) heads a collection of individual nuns with their own little quirks, two of whom are no strangers to viewers of nun films - Portia Nelson as Sister Elizabeth (recognisable as Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music (1965) and the fabulous Mary Wickes as Sister Clarissa (known to many as Sister Mary Lazarus in the two Sister Act films). It's no exaggeration to say that I knew I was going to enjoy this film as soon as I saw Wickes in the cast but she was more than matched in performance by the rest of the actors.

Mary is full of 'scathingly brilliant' ideas which Rachel goes along with. Through the course of the film they set someone's head in plaster, give tours of the nuns' private rooms, have the fire brigade called out by accident when they're smoking in the cellars and, my personal favourite, replace the nuns' sugar with bubble bath which is one of the funniest scenes of the film. But, as time goes on, Mary's brash nature is assailed by seeing the truth about how the nuns live and, after being given another chance by Mother Superior, she turns things around most unexpectedly. Perhaps the best thing about Mary's evolution is that it isn't sudden. She still performs pranks as she's coming to her realisation but there are a couple of quiet moments that are all the more poignant for being rare.

Rosalind Russell is, of course, outstanding as Mother Superior. She makes a work of art out of twitching as lemon juice is accidentally squirted in her face and the film is peppered with her expressions and comments about the behaviour of the two girls. The rest of the cast is equally as enjoyable and, for film obsessives, there is a brief appearance by Gypsy Rose Lee as Mrs Phipps (Russell played Lee's mother in the retelling of her life four years earlier).

This isn't a film with pretensions to be anything but a family comedy and, as such, is highly entertaining.

Can You Watch & Edit?

Today I noticed something about myself. Aside from the fact I need to be listening to music in order to write, I apparently need something on in the background in order to be able to edit my work. Nope, it can't be music. Preferably, it should be a musical which has enough numbers in it to distract me once in a while yet isn't completely packed. I would watch The Sound of Music as opposed to the anniversary concert of Les Miserables let's say.

Does this quirk make me odder than I thought I was?

I choose films I know backwards. Tonight I sat watching Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with my script on my knee. I managed to edit twenty-five pages, a pretty concentrated effort for me. Usually I drift off into doing something else while I'm editing.

The trouble is, I like the editing process but I do see it as a never-ending one. I'm never going to be happy with what I write. If I try and edit at my desk I'm likely to overwhelm myself by playing around with my thesaurus and panicking about why my scenario seems faintly familiar. Am I a thief, am I wannabe? By focusing half my attention on something else I can pull back from my doubts and have a decent editing session whilst also entertaining myself a little.

This doesn't work for everything, of course. Some stories require more meticulous attention than others, especially if they're irritating me. If I'm overhauling a plot I have to give it my full attention. And, invariably at this point, Facebook and Twitter get my undivided adoration.

I'm not a lost cause but I am getting close to being a hopeless case.