I’ve been struck with the worst-of-all scenarios for a straight man: I’ve got show tunes stuck in my head.
I been whispering the same six lines from Camelot’s “The Lusty Month of May”–
It’s May! It’s May!
The month of great dismay.
When all the world is brimming with fun,
Wholesome or “un.”
It’s mad! It’s gay!
A libelous display!
(Why I’m singing this in September is something you’ll only have to guess at.)
Honestly, it’s not my fault. I just got the record player (or phonograph to you 19th century types) hooked up to my amplifier, and I had some old Goodwill records I bought some months ago. Two of which were the aforementioned musical and My Fair Lady. Both happen to be Lerner and Loewe classics, popular, with exceptionally witty songs and interesting stories and perfect music. Most people seem to prefer My Fair Lady. I’m a Camelot man, myself.
One of my favourite songs from Camelot is “How to Handle a Woman”. When sung by Richard Burton, I can feel the ache of every man’s longing to understand the female sex; there’s a breadth of unsung questions in his plaintive requests of the “wise old man”, who responds with three lines:
There’s a way
The way to handle a woman
Is to love her, love her, love her.
Perfectly expressed in simplicity.
For wordplay, there is no better example in Camelot than in the “Seven Deadly Virtues”, a lyrical inversion and rhyme scheme so clever that the entire song seems to play out in seconds. In its entirety:
The seven deadly virtues, those ghastly little traps
Oh no, my liege, they were not meant for me
Those seven deadly virtues were made for other chaps
Who love a life of failure and ennui
Take courage-now there’s a sport
An invitation to the state of rigor mort
And purity-a noble yen
And very restful every now and then
I find humility means to be hurt
It’s not the earth the meek inherit, it’s the dirt
Honesty is fatal, it should be taboo
Diligence-a fate I would hate
If charity means giving, I give it to you
And fidelity is only for your mate
You’ll never find a virtue unstatusing my quo or making my Beelzebubble burst
Let others take the high road, I will take the low
I cannot wait to rush in where angels fear to go
With all those seven deadly virtues free and happy little me has not been cursed
I’ve bolded the lines that stand out to me as the best examples of Alan Lerner’s gift with the written word. Endlessly inventive, Lerner infuses his lyrics with an invitation to the masses; he is literate (quite so) but not above the fray. His lyrics are approachable, even when high-minded.
I grew up listening to Camelot and The Man From La Mancha on CD; at one point, I had all the songs memorized, and would sing various ones to myself whilst in the middle of a dirt clod war in the field across the street from my house. To me, the two activities were easily reconcilable, even natural. And they still are. Who says one can’t sing whilst shooting a weapon, or dropping a bomb, or throwing rocks at your friends? Even musicals are fair game to be used as bolsters for your spirits. I know I was always emboldened by the playful violence of “Then You May Take Me To the Fair”.
You’ll pierce right through him?
I’ll barbecue him!
You’ll disconnect him?
I’ll vivisect him.
You’ll open-wide him?
I’ll subdivide him.
In fact, I suspect that if more people knew about the artful musical format of singing whilst practicing violence against fellow human beings, our petty conflicts would become world wars, and our world wars universal destruction. Thankfully, we are too civilized and embarrassed to sing during battle, and thus casualties are kept to their respectable levels.
In case you have the faint suspicion that I am some kind of urbane sophisticate because I like listening to Lerner and Loewe, let me set your record straight. I’ve heard precisely five musicals in my life. Okay, six if you count Grease. And that was an accident. I’ve only seen four of them on television, so my total experience with them is negligible.
I suppose I should close this post with some appropriate lyric from Camelot, but I won’t do that. Instead, go buy the album and listen to it. Camelot
(1960 Original Broadway Cast). It’s only $10.99 new.