“…our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be…” — Henri F. Amiel
The Art of Deception: Madoff in real life, Mrya in Stephen Schwartz’s Seance on A Wet Afternoon, Frollo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the Wizard of Oz in Wicked
By Carol de Giere
Illusions and cover-ups were on my mind recently as I shopped for a dress for an upcoming opera premiere while wearing shorts, t-shirt, and a baseball cap. Actually, my husband and I don’t mind switching from our casual selves to dressed up versions for one night, and we’re looking forward to attending Opera Santa Barbara’s production of Séance on A Wet Afternoon, premiering September 26th. Still, it’s interesting to consider the range of topics suggested by facades.
Séance on A Wet Afternoon weaves itself around the subject area of illusion, deception, self-delusion, being “in denial”—the misty and twisted possibilities outside of straightforward thinking. The warped mindsets of the couple, Myra and Bill, in the movie version of Séance on A Wet Afternoon, captivated Stephen Schwartz when he first saw it. Years later, when he was commissioned by Opera Santa Barbara for a new opera, he thought Séance would be ideal as source material for something tragic. [Read more about the opera]
As I ponder the kidnapping deception plot of the movie and opera, I can’t help but think of news reports of recent months and years. I think of master deceiver Bernie Madoff, and of politicians who create facades as model citizens and prove otherwise in their actions. And so it’s not surprising that an artist like Stephen Schwartz should want to depict deception. He has already touched on the topic in Wicked in terms of the Wizard of Oz. His original angle on Wicked was to create a musical that showed how “things are not what they seem.”
There’s another twist on the theme in Séance. Unlike Bernie Madoff, who apparently fully cognizant of the rules he was breaking, Myra doesn’t get what she’s doing wrong. She is in denial about the criminal nature of the kidnapping plan and only focuses on how to bring acclaim to her skills as a medium by revealing the location of the kidnapped child. She believes what she’s doing is legitimate. AND she thinks she’s better at her mediumship than she actually is—she is also self-deceived.
She is much like Claude Frollo in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, for whom Schwartz wrote the lyrics for the song “Hellfire.” Frollo is the dark antagonist character who is personally haunted by his repressed desire for the gypsy Esmeralda. Writing the lyric, Schwartz has Frollo sing a prayer while saying “you know I’m so much purer than the common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd.” Not so! He blames Esmeralda’s “witchcraft” for his own passion’s fire. He tries to destroy her.
Schwartz claims that Frollo was a delight to write for. As quoted in the biography Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked, Schwartz says, “My favorite character I have ever written is Frollo, who is probably the most despicable human being in anything I’ve done; I love him as a character. He was so totally self-justifying and in such denial of his own true motives. It was really fun to go to dark places in myself I would never let myself do in real life. It made me understand why actors love to play villains.”
I’m sure Stephen Schwartz has also relished writing for Myra. He has commented that the movie’s characters struck him as operatic. Myra’s “intense neediness,” for example, “seemed very worthy of being sung, but at the same time, she is covering a lot of what’s really going on inside her with the veneer of calm and pleasantness.” [Comments quoted on a New York City Opera VOX Showcase video documenting his process for Séance.]
The opera depicts a difficult subject and is not meant as a feel-good show. We might consider it a kind of cautionary tale both for the times we live in and for the webs we spin for ourselves.
Says Daniel J. Boorstin about human psychology: “We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality.”
Wolves howling at the moon: a suitable image for a song about living with nature, but for a t-shirt? It might not become popular without a marketing miracle. According to news reports, the rate of sales on “Three Wolf Moon” t-shirts at Amazon.com had only been a few per day for the first few years it was available.
That all changed when a YouTube video “Three Wolf Moon” appeared. A sketch comedy company calling themselves Dr. Coolsex created the video featuring a modern girl dressed as Pocahontas guiding a young man to buy and wear the shirt in order to become “one cool guy.” The soundtrack is a parody version of Stephen Schwartz’s lyric for “Colors of the Wind” about wolves, with music by Alan Menken.
As soon as the video reached hit status, the “Three Wolf Moon” t-shirt became a fashion sensation and best seller for Amazon. [Try it for yourself and see what happens] Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, Available in Various Sizes
The video’s song lyrics spin off of comments left by Amazon.com buyers as well as Stephen Schwartz’s original “Colors of the Wind,” especially the verse: Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
The story of the origin of this line is one of my favorite.
Green Corn Moon Became Blue Corn Moon
While preparing to write lyrics for the Disney film Pocahontas, Schwartz read a lot of Native American poetry and came across a reference to a “green corn moon.” He noted that in some Native American tribes, months were named after moons, including the ‘green corn moon’ of August. He wanted to use that in a lyric but didn’t want to use “green” to avoid association with the myth of the moon being made of green cheese, and he believed that the “ee” sound wouldn’t sing well. So he switched it to blue corn moon…..
In the Pocahontas chapter of Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked, I include the full story as well as some of his handwritten notes such as rhyme ideas, the story of Carole Schwartz’s suggestion for “Just Around the Riverbend,” and more. http://www.defyinggravitythebook.com
For Some Future Moon
I recently had the chance to meet with Stephen about some upcoming events and projects. I told him about the “Three Wolf Moon” sensation. Who knows? Maybe next time you see him, he too will be wearing the t-shirt.
For future updates on this award-winning songwriter, be sure to subscribe the quarterly newsletter associated with this blog: The Schwartz Scene: http://www.musicalschwartz.com/newsletter.htm
And for the full original “Colors of the Wind” lyrics, sheet music, recordings, or DVD for the movie, see Pocahontas.
Although he never won a Tony Award, songwriter Stephen Schwartz may be able to add another Grammy to his trophy case. His collection already includes 4 of them: Godspell (2 - producer and composer), Pocahontas “Colors of the Wind”, Wicked (producer and songwriter for Best Musical Show Album).
Below is the list of nominees for the 51st Grammy Awards season:
Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media (A Songwriter(s) award. For a song (melody & lyrics) written specifically for a motion picture, television or other visual media, and released for the first time during the Eligibility Year. (Artist names appear in parentheses.) Singles or Tracks only.)
* Ever Ever After (From Enchanted)
Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz, songwriters (Carrie Underwood)
Track from: Enchanted
[Walt Disney Records; Publishers: Wonderland Music & Walt Disney Music]
* That’s How You Know (From Enchanted)
Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz, songwriters (Amy Adams)
Track from: Enchanted
[Walt Disney Records; Publishers: Wonderland Music & Walt Disney Music]
ALSO NOMINATED:
* Down To Earth (From Wall-E)
Peter Gabriel & Thomas Newman, songwriters (Peter Gabriel)
Track from: Wall-E
[Walt Disney Records/Pixar; Publishers: Walt Disney Music, Wonderland Music/Pixar Talking Pictures/Pixar Music]
* Say (From The Bucket List)
John Mayer, songwriter (John Mayer)
Track from: Continuum
[Aware/Columbia; Publishers: Sony/ATV Tunes, Specific Harm Music]
* Walk Hard (From Walk Hard — The Dewey Cox Story)
Judd Apatow, Marshall Crenshaw, Jake Kasdan & John C. Reilly, songwriters (John C. Reilly)
Track from: Walk Hard The Dewey Cox Story
[Columbia; Publishers: Murder by Television/Apatow Music/Popular Misconception/New Columbia Pictures Music/Colpix Music]
Stephen Schwartz won his first Grammys for the cast album for the 1971 hit musical Godspell. He was 23 years old when he wrote the score. Now at sixty, Schwartz’s work continues to earn acclaim. For more information about Schwartz’s role in Enchanted, see the new career biography Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, form Godspell to Wicked
This podcast with Stephen Schwartz is about his lyrics for the songs from Disney’s Enchanted, and is part of the 30th issue of The Schwartz Scene newsletter. It was recorded on February 15, 2008
Listen to the podcast by clicking the arrow button immediately below (Internet Explorer and Opera browser users click the button twice):
Carol de Giere: Welcome to this podcast about Disney’s Enchanted. I’m Carol de Giere and with me is songwriter Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the lyrics for the songs of this movie. We’re recording this for The Schwartz Scene from www.theschwartzscene.com.
Stephen, I’m hoping you can share a few comments for our listeners who may either be songwriters themselves or who are interested in the craft of writing songs.
First of all, let’s talk about the assignment you and Alan Menken were given and how you conceptually approach writing songs for movies. Was it up to you to discover the ways that songs might advance the story?
Stephen Schwartz: In the case of Enchanted, a screenplay existed, a screenplay that had been worked on for many, many drafts and through many, many writers until they finally came back to the original conceiver and original writer Bill Kelly. The screenplay that we received and that I read was not only terrific, but very, very close to the screenplay that was actually shot. This wasn’t one of those cases where a great deal changed during the writing and filming process, because that screenplay had been gone over and worked over by Kevin Lima, the director, with Bill, so it was more of a shooting script, in a way, than perhaps other cases might be.
And there were places for songs already built into the screenplay. They knew that they wanted to open in the whole animated world with a song [”True Love’s Kiss”]. The idea of Giselle cleaning up the apartment and having the vermin come and help her was already in the screenplay [”Happy Working Song”]. I’m not really sure whether they knew that was going to be a song or not. I don’t really remember if it said “song here” or just a scene and Alan and I decided that should be a song.
Definitely [with] “So Close,” the idea for it was not only already in the script, but the title was in the script. Kevin suggested the title, “So Close,” which I really liked.
We added “That’s How You Know.” That scene was in the script, and maybe there was an idea that it was a musical number, but we added the whole idea of her singing, and Robert being embarrassed about it and asking her not to sing, and gradually all the different people in the park joining in. We added the idea of the steel drum guy who would play along with her, etc. That was all something that Alan and I came up with. But I think that spot for a song already existed in the script.
And then the last number, “Ever Ever After,” which is the voiceover, that was something that I felt very strongly about. That was not in the script and I kept saying to the director, to Kevin, “Look, you have to close this movie musically. You cannot just close in a scene.” And ultimately, after a few false starts and cul-de-sacs, we discovered a way to do that.
Carol de Giere: I guess there’s this whole evolution that you’ve talked about before about how it begins with the old Disney.
Stephen Schwartz: Classic Disney.
Carol de Giere: Could you explain that?
Stephen Schwartz: One of the ideas which sort of emerged a little bit, it wasn’t something that was that conscious from the very beginning, but we knew that we wanted to start in really Classic Disney. This was something that I felt strongly about and sort of pushed towards, because for a while there was a discussion of, should the opening number that became “True Love’s Kiss” -Oh that was also Kevin’s title, which I liked and wanted to keep, and kept through several versions, and Alan kept saying, “Maybe we should have a different title” as we were struggling to solve the song, and I kept saying, “No, no, no, I really like the title, we just have to figure out how to do it better”-there was some talk about whether or not that should be more of an “Alan Menken style” number, like “Belle” from Beauty and the Beast.
I felt very strongly that we wanted to be in the world of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. And so Alan and I watched those movies and looked at the opening numbers, or first couple of numbers, and really tried to be in that sensibility, both musically and lyrically. I mean I made fun of it a little bit. But basically the idea was to both honor and send up the songs for Sleeping Beauty, well, not Sleeping Beauty so much as Cinderella and particularly Snow White.
Carol de Giere: And then you moved forward.
Stephen Schwartz: Then we moved forward so the second song is also [a send-up from] Snow White. “Happy Working Song” is basically the sensibility of Snow White transported to modern day New York, and that’s what’s funny about it. She’s dealing with rats and pigeons and cockroaches, but she’s still singing as if they were adorable furry bunnies and little fluffy rabbits and elves and birds, etc.
But then we started moving forward in time, in a way. As the character Giselle develops as a character and becomes more of a contemporary young woman, the score becomes increasingly contemporary. So “That’s How You Know,” which is kind of the centerpiece, that is an Alan Menken number. That’s meant to send up “Under the Sea” and “Kiss the Girl” [from The Little Mermaid] and to some extent send up “Topsy-Turvy” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and all the sort of big Disney production numbers that came in with the new golden age of animation that Alan started with Howard Ashman. And I think the idea of the Caribbean quality, or in this case, Jamaican, that starts “That’s How You Know” was directly related to the fact that we wanted to send up “Under the Sea” a little bit.
So by that time, therefore, we’re sort of in the 90s Disney. And then “So Close” is deliberately meant to refer to the title song of Beauty and the Beast. And, in fact, Kevin Lima always planned to have the famous camera move that was built into Beauty and the Beast where they are dancing and the fake camera in animation, or the digital camera, swirls around them; he wanted to recreate that camera move live. So part of the assignment was to build in a dance section where that camera move could take place.
Finally, at the very end, the solution to “Ever Ever After” was to do it like real contemporary animation where the characters aren’t even singing on screen-it’s a voice over and the action is happening while you’re hearing the voice over, so you’ve come all the way to our contemporary sensibility.
Carol de Giere: You’ve talked before about starting with titles and you’ve mentioned that a couple were provided. So I’m curious about the advantage that it gives you to start with a title, and also, for the ones we don’t know, like “Happy Working Song,” did you start with that first before you wrote the song? And for “That’s How You Know?”
Stephen Schwartz: “That’s How You Know?”-definitely I had the title, without question. “Happy Working Song” I’m not sure whether I had the title or more the idea that it was going to be “Whistle While You Work”-that kind of song-so I knew it would have work in it, and then Alan had that tune, and it sort of suggested, “…happy little working song” was just built into the music.
For me, the advantage of starting with a title-and I want to emphasize that it’s not arbitrary, that I don’t just say, “Oh, I’m looking at a vase of flowers, so let’s call the song “A Vase of Flowers,” a lot of thought goes into what is the title- but that thought and then the ultimate decision of what the title is going to be, focuses what the song is about. It helps to define for me what the content of the song is, so the lyrics aren’t all over the map. I’ve just found over the years that as I’ve gained experience as a songwriter, knowing the title is very helpful for me in focusing the song.
Carol de Giere: I’m curious, we know that journalists are taught to look for the who, what, when, where, and why of their story. I wonder if songwriters do that. And I was thinking about like with “Happy Working Song,” okay, who: my little friends-”Come my little friends,” and the what is clean the crud up and the where is the kitchen. Do you ever consciously do that?
Stephen Schwartz: Not at all. No. Until you said it this second it never entered my mind. I see now that you point out in “Happy Working Song” that that exists. But it’s news to me. I never thought about that at all.
Carol de Giere: It just happens.
Stephen Schwartz: It just was accident.
Carol de Giere: It helps to establish a place.
Stephen Schwartz: Sometimes a song demands that. With “Happy Working Song” that sort of demands it. “That’s How You Know” doesn’t really refer to the place, it doesn’t say here I am in the park singing this song.
I think the content of the song and what it’s about will make its demands. You’re really not writing a newspaper article. Sometimes that aspect of it is important to the story. In Sweeney Todd it’s important that when Anthony and Sweeney are singing about London at the beginning that they are referring to London. I mean, that’s part of the story and it’s important for Sondheim to establish that. But then in other songs, that doesn’t necessarily occur.
Carol de Giere: But in “That’s How You Know” it’s kind of interesting because you start out with “How does she know you love her?” and then after a chorus or a bridge or something it becomes “That’s how you know.” Do you remember consciously working with this?
Stephen Schwartz: I remember worrying about it. Because I had the title “That’s How You Know” but when we started it because of the scene that it was coming out of, the first question had to be “How does she know?” And I thought about changing the title to “That’s How She Knows” but it’s just not a good title. “That’s How You Know” is just a better title. So I tried to structure the lyrics so it could go to the real title, “That’s How You Know,” without it being too big a glitch or a speed bump, and I think I was pretty successful in doing that.
Carol de Giere: It kind of becomes a song that, she is singing it to all of us.
Stephen Schwartz: Yeah. It just seemed it needed to be more of a general statement than “That’s How She Knows” so I really didn’t want to change the title.
Carol de Giere: You’ve said before that you don’t love to write love songs.
Stephen Schwartz: No I don’t.
Carol de Giere: So how did “So Close” come out for you. It’s not exactly a love song. It’s a discovery of love, isn’t it?
Stephen Schwartz: Yeah, I think it’s definitely a love song. I mean, well, I had the title, and Kevin really wanted the last line to be “So close and still so far.” Which in a way, I mean, that song, which I think works really well in the movie, I think has little bit of a problem as a stand-alone song because it shifts gears in the middle of the song. Like the whole first part of the song, which ends with “So far we are so close,” is one idea. And then at the end of the song, which accompanies a scene where she’s now leaving, the idea changes to “So close and still so far,” which works for the movie but makes the song just a little bit of a split personality.
But anyway, the title “So Close” and where we were going with it, helped to define what the words of the song would be. And then it was such a specific situation that they were going to be physically in contact for the first time. And I had the idea, which I really had to fight for at one point-not with Kevin but because Patrick Dempsey didn’t want to sing-I had the idea that it was imperative that Robert sing along at a certain point, and so part of the song was written so the words would reflect exactly what Robert was feeling at that time, the Patrick Demsey character, and would sing that into her ear.
That was a bit of a war to get Patrick to do that. And then later on, when I saw Patrick after the movie came out, he said to me, “Why didn’t I have a song,” and I said, “Patrick, it was all we could do to get you to sing those two lines!”
Carol de Giere: Interesting. I wonder if you could talk about “bridge.” I don’t remember if you’ve talked about what a bridge in a song does. So let’s look at “Happy Working Song.” I suppose we would say it’s
Oh, how strange a place to be
Till Edward comes for me
My heart is sighing
Stephen Schwartz: Definitely. That whole section.
Carol de Giere: What’s the role of that?
Stephen Schwartz: A bridge in general, just to talk in general terms, the other term for bridge is the release. And I think that’s the more accurate term. It sort of refreshes the ear. It takes you somewhere different musically and therefore slightly different lyrically usually before you return to the tune. That’s the AABA structure. The reason for the B is that AAA can be kind of dull, though if it’s “Both Sides Now” it’s not so dull. It’s different from a verse/chorus structure which is what “Both Sides Now” or “Corner of the Sky,” for instance, is, but many, many classic songs are first verse, second verse which is musically identical to the first verse, then a release that takes you somewhere else, and then a last verse that’s an A again.
So that’s the first thing about it. And then when the music changes, then you want to go someplace lyrically that supports the change of music. In the case of “Happy Working Song,” we wanted to catch up with her story. And so there’s a little storytelling element to it. And, of course, it’s also satirical of Beauty and the Beast because musically it suggests, “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere.” It has that moment that occurs in “Belle”-it’s a similar structure, so we were sort of spoofing a little bit.
And then in “So Close” that’s really a musical choice. I basically said to Alan, “We just need to go somewhere else here. And he felt it too. It wasn’t like I was there telling him something he didn’t already know. And then he wrote that really beautiful little music, and because it was more melancholy, it suggested the lyrics that ultimately wound up there:
How could I face the faceless days
If I should lose you now?
And that was just really based on my emotional response to the music Alan wrote.
Carol de Giere: Great line. It’s a great line.
Stephen Schwartz: Thank you.
Carol de Giere: Lastly, let’s talk about writing comic songs in general and specifically the “Happy Working Song.” That’s like a “wink,” I guess, so it’s a funny situation?
Stephen Schwartz: Well, it’s a really funny idea. And full marks to Kevin Lima because it was his conception. Once you have the idea that you’re going to do “Whistle While You Work” or whatever they sing in Snow White where they’re washing the dishes, once you have the idea that you’re going to do that with rats, and, pigeons, etc., then it’s just a matter of sort of thinking of that situation.
One of the things I did for that song that inspired it was, many, many years ago there was a television special with Julia Andrews and Carol Burnett, called Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall, and one of the things they did in it was they made fun of The Sound of Music and they sang a song that satirized “My Favorite Things.” And it was called “Pigs Feet and Cheese.” And again, it was a very similar sensibility to “Happy Working Song” in that, particularly Julie Andrews just sang everything so sweetly and she would sing lines like “Knitting and tatting and cleaning the barn” and I just found that song so hilarious that I remembered it for thirty years, or however long it’s been, since that television show. And so I thought a funny thing to do would be to do exactly what they did in that-to take the Snow White super sweet sensibility and put a lot of words in there like “toilet” and “vermin” and, you know, I just tried to think of a lot of ugly words and then just put them into the song, so she could be singing about these smelly socks and things, but with her incredibly sweet attitude. That just seemed really funny to me. But it’s all contained in the conception of the song.
That really was an easy song to write because the idea is so funny and it’s much, much easier to be funny if the idea is funny to begin with.
Carol de Giere: Great. Well, thank you so much for your time.
When Enchanted hit movie theaters in November, 2007, hundreds of blog writers and movie critics spun out merry comments about this uplifting tale, making it clear this movie would live, as the song says, “ever ever after.” With songs by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, the Enchanted piano-vocal-guitar sheet music is already in demand with singers eager to offer “So Close,” “True Love’s Kiss,” or one of the others at their next recital or concert.
Hal Leonard’s 52-page Enchanted songbook set for release January 17, 2008, features the Menken/Schwartz songs True Love’s Kiss, Happy Working Song, That’s How You Know, So Close, and Ever Ever After. It also includes “That’s Amore” from the soundtrack. Downloadable versions are available now.
Here are some links for reading about Enchanted sheet music, soundtrack, and more
Stephen Schwartz recently answered an Enchanted question on his discussion forum: “First of all, let me say that the entire process of writing songs for ENCHANTED was a total blast for me. Bill Kelly’s screenplay was in terrific shape when I came on board the project, so where the songs should come and what they should be was fairly clear, and our director, Kevin Lima, had a great understanding of how songs could work in the movie and was terrific to work with. Plus I always have a lot of fun working with Alan.
Headline writers had fun with such lines as: “Princess story will leave you Enchanted” or ‘Enchanted’ Fairy-tale land and the real world collide, or even the blog entry: Disney flick leaves grumpy Greg completely “Enchanted”
…Like the collision of fairy tales and reality it portrays, Enchanted isn’t perfect. But that doesn’t stop it from being an absolute joy of an experience…
….The numbers, penned by Disney alums Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz are bouncy and bright, hearkening back to the glory days of the Disney animated musical….
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