Pasek & Paul’s 6-time Tony Award-winning, blockbuster 2016 musical Dear Evan Hansen opened in London in November 2019 before closing the following March due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it is scheduled to re-open this October. English actor Sam Tutty plays the title character in the production, and is featured here singing “For Forever” with three other Evans: Andrew Barth Feldman from Broadway, Robert Markus from Toronto, and Stephen Christopher Anthony from the national tour. The show’s music supervisor Alex Lacamoire produced and arranged the vocals, Dillon Kondor wrote the guitar arrangement, and Tim Basom and Ethan Pakchar accompanied for this performance.
A film adaptation of the musical, starring Ben Platt who originated the role of Evan, will be released this September. Key changes at 2:47 and 3:49.
Tag: soundtrack
Christopher Tin (feat. Soweto Gospel Choir) | Baba Yetu
If you enjoy turn-based strategy video games, then you are likely familiar with the Civilization franchise, and if you played Civilization IV, then you may have spent a significant amount of time staring on the main menu screen, enraptured by today’s tune and forgetting entirely that you’d settled down to conquer the digital world. American composer Christopher Tin‘s composition “Baba Yetu” arranges a Swahili translation of The Lord’s Prayer into a masterful piece for choir and orchestra.
The tune won the 2011 Grammy award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists — the first ever piece of video game music to win. Just as impressive, it’s featured on an album which itself won the 2011 Grammy for “Best Classical Crossover Album”: while the piece debuted with the game in 2005, Tin also released a recording of it on his first album, Calling All Dawns, in 2011.
Tin begins the song with a rousing call and response in G major. The voices gradually build and merge into a modulation to D major, which begins at 1:00. 20 seconds later, the chorale drops away, and the tonal center begins to shift until the voices triumphantly return and modulate squarely to E major while proclaiming “Ufalme wako ufike utakalo. Lifanyike duniani kama mbinguni, Amin.” (Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. On earth, as it is in heaven, Amen). With the verse finished, tonal certainty once again fades, until at the 2:25 mark the final chorus brings us back to G major to finish out the tune. I hope you enjoy this moving arrangement, along with the visual accompaniment of some truly high-definition 2005 video game graphics!
Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta | Summer Nights (from “Grease”)
“Summer Nights” is one of the most popular songs from the 1971 musical Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta performed the song in the 1978 film adaptation of the musical, and their recording reached the #5 spot on the Billboard Top 100 (and the #1 spot in the UK.) Two ascending half-step modulations occur at 1:42 and 2:22, and we return to the original key of D at 2:35.
John Parr | St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)
From the 1985 movie soundtrack of the same title, John Parr‘s “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” was co-written by Parr and David Foster. The film starred a group of 20-something actors collectively known in pop culture as “The Brat Pack”: Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Andrew McCarthy. The movie focuses on a group of friends as they move into post-college life.
Songfacts reports: “The phrase ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ refers to the spectral light sometimes seen around a ship’s mast. John Parr didn’t see the movie before he and Foster wrote the song: ‘Fortunately I didn’t see the film, specifically because the phenomenal force of nature known as St. Elmo’s Fire was a metaphor. To me it was the embodiment of a dream, a focus to strive towards as it glows in the sky. In the movie, Rob Lowe pulls out a gas canister and tells Demi Moore not to get too hung up about her problems. He lights the gas and as it ignites he dismisses her plight as no big deal, just like St. Elmo’s Fire. That would have killed it for me.'”
Critical reception of the film was mixed at best. The video echoes the film’s earnest self-congratulation by combining footage from the film, a “club concert” by Parr, a set that’s crumbling and partially on fire, and Parr joining the cast at some sort of event that looks like … a photoshoot? An awkward industry event? It’s anyone’s guess. But the tune hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart for two weeks in September 1985 and still remains a staple of many 80s playlists. Starting in A major, the chorus shifts to F# major (for the first time at 1:11); the verse reverts to A major. Many thanks to our faithful mod wrangler JB for this submission!
Barbra Streisand | Make Someone Happy
Originally written by Jule Styne (music), Betty Comden and Adolph Green (lyrics) for the 1960 musical Do Re Mi, “Make Someone Happy” subsequently became a jazz standard, and has been recorded by dozens of singers including Perry Como, Aretha Franklin, Judy Garland, and Jamie Cullum among others. Featured here is a live 2009 performance by Barbra Streisand at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Starting in C major, the tune modulates down to B around 3:29 while Streisand is ad-libbing some dialogue and stays there for the final chorus.
Starship | Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now
Written by Diane Warren and Albert Hammond, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” was recorded by the American rock band Starship for their 1987 album No Protection. The track was the top-selling song of 1987 in the United Kingdom, reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, and was nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards in 1988 (it was the theme song for the 1987 romantic comedy Mannequin.) Key change at 2:56.
Duncan Sheik | How It Feels
Duncan Sheik is perhaps best known for his 1996 hit “Barely Breathing” and a cerebral, meticulous style AllMusic describes as “Adult Alternative.” He went on to write the music for the 2006 Broadway smash hit Spring Awakening. A few years later, Sheik continued his writing for musical theatre with Whisper House (2010), featuring a book and additional lyrics by Kyle Jarrow.
Playbill reports: “‘It’s set in and around an isolated lighthouse in Maine during World War II,’ Duncan Sheik says. ‘There’s a young boy named Christopher whose father was shot down over the Pacific by the Japanese. His distraught mother has been taken to a sanitarium, and he has been sent to live with his Aunt Lily, who is not so great with children, to use a bit of [an] understatement.’
Also at the lighthouse is a Japanese servant named Yasujiro. ‘Christopher,’ Sheik says, ‘is incredibly mistrustful of Yasujiro because his father was killed by the Japanese, and he begins to suspect that the servant may be a spy. In the middle of it all, it appears that the lighthouse may be haunted by ghosts — all of whom were members of a band playing on a ship that went down in 1912.’ … Because the ghosts’ ship sank in 1912, the Titanic comes to mind. Is there a connection? ‘Not really,’ Sheik says, and laughs. ‘I guarantee that Celine Dion will not be singing this material.'”
Set in an off-kilter G major where inverted voicings are more the rule than the exception, the chorus begins at 1:27 with a prominent E major chord, whose G# third degree (further underlined by G# in the bass) briefly but profoundly displaces the original key. This small harmonic collision provides energy to a track so ethereal that it might have otherwise floated away entirely.
Monticello (from “Edges”)
“Monticello” is from the song cycle Edges, written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land) while they were undergraduates at the University of Michigan in 2005. Coming-of-age and self-discovering themes figure prominently in many of the songs. Regularly produced at colleges throughout the United States, the cycle has also been performed in Australia, South Africa, France, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Key change at 3:36.
I’m Gone (from “Hands On a Hardbody”)
Hands On a Hardbody is a little-known but cleverly crafted musical set in 1990s small-town Texas, where the local Nissan dealership decides to sponsor a contest: the contestant who keeps their hand on a showroom-new truck the longest gets to keep it! Described by The Hollywood Reporter as “a low-concept Hunger Games,” the 2013 theatrical adaptation of the 1997 film is a heartwarming comedy featuring complex musical compositions. “I’m Gone” is a duet between characters Kelli and Greg, who share a romance throughout their time in the competition as they dream about making it out of their weary Texas hometown.
Although relatively unpopular in its time, Hands on a Hardbody debuted and had a short run on Broadway, featuring an array of performers who would go on to do great things. The original Broadway cast included Keala Settle, who later performed in Rent and The Greatest Showman, as well as Dale Soules, who went on to act in Orange is the New Black. The New York Times reports that co-composer Trey Anastasio, best known as songwriter and leader of the funk/jazz/bluegrass jam band Phish, compared the experience to “parallel parking a cruise ship.”
The song features a variety of modulations, including a classic whole-step key change at the song’s climax. However, clever composers Anastasio and Amanda Green use their knowledge of vocal range wisely, modulating the tune down a few steps during a short interlude before Greg takes over the lead from Kelli. The song’s chordal structure is dreamy, featuring a classy use of modal interchange as a V7 chord sets up the progression, only to be replaced by its major chord as the song moves to its more hopeful sections.
Perhaps most importantly, the song modulates as it transitions into the hook (1:00, 2:02). The composers take listeners up a major fourth with a classy V/IV progression that brings sparkle into the tune, creating an uplifting transition into the song’s hook. Bringing a sleek pivot chord into play makes listeners feel a hopeful shift while still saving the “big key change” for the number’s finale (4:30).
All of these factors make “I’m Gone” a fabulous showcase for acting and vocal technique — and a song worth listening to.
Maya Wagner is a singer/songwriter and music producer currently studying at Berklee College of Music. Maya is passionate about sharing her experiences with mental illness and her LGBTQ identity through her music. She blogs about all things music production on her website and has established a broad web presence as an artist, performer, and producer.
Maya, MotD’s first intern, is shifting over to our our regular contributor team in April 2021, so look for more of her posts! Welcome, Maya!
Where Am I Now (from “Lysistrata Jones”)
A musical adaptation (updated for the 21st century) of Greek playwright Aristophanes’ 411 BC comedy Lysistrata, Lewis Flynn (music & lyrics) and Douglas Carter Beane’s (book) Lysistrata Jones opened on Broadway in 2011 and ran for 30 performances. Reviewing the production for Backstage magazine, critic David Sheward said, “Each of the characters starts out as a broad stereotype—just as Aristophanes’ figures are—but Beane turns the cultural expectations inside out, creating complex people within a comic context.”
“Where Am I Now” is performed here by Patti Murin, who played Lysistrata in the original Broadway cast. The key change from Eb to D at 3:09 is preceded by the sustained vocal D changing function from the 3rd of the Bb major chord to the root of a D major chord. Murin then sets up the new key a cappella before the orchestra dramatically re-enters.
Thanks to Madeline Ciocci for this submission!
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