The Music in My Head

A couple of days ago Facebook asked me what was on my mind, and I immediately typed my reply into my status:

If you hit the dust 

Let me raise you up

If your bubble busts

Let me raise you up

If your glitter rusts

Let me raise you up

And up!

Yes, right now the shiny new original Broadway cast recording of Kinky Boots is in my head, and I couldn't be happier to have it there.  

To remind you, in an example of sublime serendipity, Mr. Rip and I saw Kinky Boots in previews on Broadway this past March.  Well, we were smitten with it right away, and I predicted then that it was going to be a smash hit.

We preordered the original cast recording so that it would arrive at our home just the minute it was available.  Now I am happily singing the songs and the praises of composer-lyricist Cyndi Lauper, who won the Tony for her achievement.  I love every single song in the show, with a particular soft spot for The History of Wrong Guys which could have been the anthem of my youth.  Even when I am not listening to the CD, which I often am, I am hearing the songs in my head.  

It does not always work out so well, though.  Not all the good songs are catchy and not all the catchy songs are good. My mind is like Pandora on shuffle, but I don't get to pick the artists.

For instance, Kopit and Yeston's Phantom is a good musical full of very beautiful songs that serve the story and the characters particularly well.  A couple of them moved me to tears.   

So, why is it that I had no memory of those songs literally the millisecond I left the theater?  Did I just dream that I saw Phantom at the Pittsburgh CLO?  Because that's what happens when I dream.  No matter how vivid, or good or bad a dream of mine might be, moments after waking I couldn't begin to tell you what it was about.

Mind you, not all the catchy songs that stay in my head are welcome there.  

The day after I saw Phantom  I watched the documentary ANNIE: It's the Hard Knock Life - from Stage to Screen on PBS.  Now, let me assure you that I admire the musical Annie very much. Why else would I watch this documentary?  Yes it is as cute as can be and a true crowd pleaser just chock full of adorable precious songs that will drone on in my head for hours - sometimes even days or weeks.  Sometimes in desperation I change the words to amuse myself (I'll stop hearing this song...TOMORROW...).

So now It's a Hard Knock Life (no one cares for you a smidge, when you're in an orphanage) was stuck in my head.  Oh, how I yearned for any one of those beautiful but obviously forgettable Phantom songs to replace it!

Now if I could just get the 15th movement of Rachmaninoff's Vespers to stick in my head.  No one goes around humming a high quality classical tune like that.