On Tboy's iPod ...

.... right this minute, is a song Tboy keeps coming back to, never mind that he's never seen the show in production (as if he could have) or the singer in performance.

It's worth commenting on because neither Cleo Laine nor Evening Primrose gets sufficient props.  Listen, in this specific recording, to the halt between "changing things like" and "leaves."

There's a whole world of discovery in that pause.

Because, when you think about it, the whole genius point of this song is that this character has no metaphor for the things she remembers from her childhood in the real world, from back before she got abducted/absorbed into the department-store universe.

Leaves are (green as) spearmint; snow gets compared to feathers and lint; winter trees are (bare as coatracks, spread like) broken umbrellas. It's the obverse, come to think of it, of "Take Me To the World," which is another lovely little song from a show that only has, what, four songs altogether?

Listen to the lovely, swoony, regretful ache in Laine's reading (she was what, close to 60 when she recorded it?): "I Remember Sky" speaks of "ice like vinyl on the streets ... rain like strings, and changing things (oh, god, another breath-catching revelation) like leaves."

This, remember, is relatively early Sondheim, which is why people get silly over him.

That, and the yearning of the song's last goddamn line.

Now playing on Tboy's iTunes: I Remember (From "Evening Primrose") from the album "Cleo Sings Sondheim" by Cleo Laine.

Comments

[Steve]

Amen, brother. Love the song, love the singer (once had the same album, but lost it ages ago). She's great in "Drood," too.

[t-rae]

Great song, t-boy!. I've heard "Take Me to the World," before. Why isn't Evening Primrose produced? I seem to remember that it was on TV with Bernadette Peters but I could be thinking of somthing else...

And on my ipod is a great song by a lady named Sony Holland, "Blame It On Peggy Lee." Check it out!

[Steve]

Hi, T-rae! This is Steve from that long-distant RHT education tour! Hope you're doing well!

To fill in the gaps, "Primrose" was a tiny TV musical in 1966 with Anthony "Psycho" Perkins and Charmaine "Liesl von Trapp" Carr. It only has four songs (great though they are), so a stage version would need some tinkering (or perhaps a pairing with another one-act?). The Bernadette version you remember is probably from Mandy Patinkin's "Dress Casual" album and tour, on which the two of them performed all four "Primrose" numbers. The score is also represented as an extra on the studio recording of "The Frogs" by Neil Patrick "Doogie Houser" Harris and Teresa "no funny middle name" McCarthy (though you may recognize her from "Titanic" and "Floyd Collins").

Whew! Never get a musical theater queen started....

[still alert]

Another musical theatre queen gets started:

I imagine there must be some bootleg video of Evening Primrose circulating, but back in the day, before VHS and the wheel were invented, the Museum of Television and Radio presented the long lost program, for one night only, in LA (must have been in the late 70s or early 80's). I was privileged and thrilled to attend the showing, which included a talkback with Tony Perkins himself. (Sondheim had one of his famous colds and could not fly out for the event, we were told). Far from being the freaky personality one might expect, Perkins was funny, perceptive, self-deprecating, and down-right adorable. As for the film itself, I recall very little, other than being overly satisfied with myself for having seen it.

As for Cleo Laine and Sondheim, I'll bet many of us caught her as The Witch in the First National Tour of "Into the Woods," in which she appeared right around the time her Sondheim album came out. The tour started in LA, and in addition to Laine, Charlotte Rae was billed over the title as "Jack's Mother." The role was ludicrously small for a celebrity of Rae's level, and I don't believe she continued with the tour beyond California...