When we were children, our mother introduced us to music. A wide variety of genres in the form of LPs entered our house, and at night, when we’d gone upstairs to our bedrooms, she’d play orchestral recordings she loved. The music floated upstairs to our ears.
That’s how I fell for Brahms 2nd symphony and Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets. And we had folk albums such as The Weavers and Marais & Miranda, and our albums of great Broadway musicals which I’d sing along with, especially Rodgers and Hammerstein.
When I was a little older, my Aunt Gert took me to the original production of The King and I. I will forever remember Gertrude Lawrence, wearing an impossibly massive formal gown in taupe taffeta, whirling around the stage with Yul Brynner in “Shall We Dance.”
I’m retrospectively and deeply grateful that musicals on Broadway were then within our middle-class budget. So along came affordable revivals of Oklahoma and Carousel and South Pacific, and original productions of My Fair Lady and West Side Story.
I kept those LP’s and transferred them to CD’s. (I’ve replaced most of the R&H musicals with reproductions from the original recordings; the only one I haven’t replaced is Carousel — which sounds as fine as it did when we first got the 1945 recording, maybe around the early ’50s.)
I started singing along with those Broadway shows, and of course I focused primarily on songs written for a woman’s voice. I was an adult when it hit me: two of the songs I loved dearly were what I started calling “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s masochistic women’s songs.”
Each of them is sung by a woman who is abused in one way or many by her mate. Yet, in the damaging spirit of The Art of Loving, loves without qualification. In spite of everything. And the songs justify her love.
“Something Wonderful,” from The King and I, is sung by Lady Thiang, the king’s chief and oldest wife. The king is an absolute autocrat, polygamous, i.e., endlessly and publicly unfaithful to his loyal first wife and murderous when he thinks he has been dissed. He is no woman’s choice for a mate. Yet, Lady Thiang sings…
This is a man who thinks with his heart.
His heart is not always wise.
This is a man who stumbles and falls,
But this is a man who tries.
This is a man you’ll forgive and forgive
And help and protect, as long as you live…
He will not always say
What you would have him say,
But now and then he’ll say
Something wonderful.
The thoughtless things he’ll do
Will hurt and worry you,
Then all at once he’ll do
Something wonderful.
He has a thousand dreams
That won’t come true.
You know that he believes in them
And that’s enough for you.
You’ll always go along,
Defend him when he’s wrong,
And tell him when he’s strong,
He is wonderful.
He’ll always need your love,
And so he’ll get your love –
A man who needs your love
Can be wonderful.
No. He is never wonderful.
In Carousel, Julie Jordan falls in love with Billy Bigelow, a carnival barker, who treats her coldly, nastily and, we are given to understand, beats her. He is an indubitable rotter. Yet she sings “What’s The Use of Won’drin'” about him…
What’s the use of wond’rin’ if he’s good or if he’s badOr if you like the way he wears his hat?Oh, what’s the use of wond’rin’ if he’s good or if he’s bad?He’s your feller and you love himThat’s all there is to that
Common sense may tell you that the ending will be sadAnd now’s the time to break and run awayBut what’s the use of wond’rin’ if the ending will be sad?He’s your feller and you love himThere’s nothing more to say
Something made him the way that he isWhether he’s false or trueAnd something gave him the things that are hisOne of those things is you, so
When he wants your kissesYou will give them to the ladAnd anywhere he leads you, you will walkAnd anytime he needs youYou’ll go running there like madYou’re his girl and he’s your fellerAnd all the rest is talk
Common sense may tell you that the ending will be sadAnd now’s the time to break and run awayBut what’s the use of wond’rin’ if the ending will be sad?He’s your feller and you love himThere’s nothing more to say
“He’s your feller and you love him.” The awful heart of The Art of Loving.
“There’s nothing more to say.”
Let us women do what Julie Jordan and Lady Thiang could not do: vote.