Archive for Musicals.Net Musicals.Net |
| rockyrocks666 |
whistle down the wind- shame?does anyone else think its a shame that the music for the show is actually quite good but it really doesnt translate that well to the stage? |
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| Bex |
yeah. i love the song 'whilst down the wind' | ||||||
| rockyrocks666 |
LOL i love your signature. genious! | ||||||
| Salome |
the score is terrible,even by ALW standards. | ||||||
| rockyrocks666 |
HA! i agree with the Andrew Lloyd Webber bit but i do this that the score is pretty good. i dont think the main songs are nessesarly the best though. i think its the more linking songs that are good. but your definatly entitled to your own opinion. | ||||||
| jcstar |
I've only heard the hits, so I can't comment.
"Cold" by The Everley Brothers "Vaults Of Heaven" by Tom Jones and/or Michael Ball "Whistle Down The Wind" by Tina Arena "No Matter What" by Boyzone They're all good songs, but I'd like to see the show. Andy. |
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| rockyrocks666 |
the show is very static and doesnt do the music justice, but worth seeing | ||||||
| B3TA07 |
Re: whistle down the wind- shame?
To musical theatre? Yes.
Maybe to you but not everyone is deaf.
Nope. |
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| rockyrocks666 |
lol, thats a bit harsh. im entitled to my own opinion | ||||||
| liza_minelli |
I've got the Cast Recording (not sure which one it is as ive lost it), totally agree. |
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| rockyrocks666 |
fair enough | ||||||
| listen to jesus jimmy |
what is the show about? | ||||||
| The Very Angry Woman |
http://www.glenncarter.com/stagefilm_whistle.html http://www.theatre-musical.com/whistle/synopsis.html |
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| snowhite880 |
I actually dont like the show that much...i think its kind of boring truthfully...but it is true, it doesnt transfer well to the stage. | ||||||
| theatregeek |
I really like this show, and the music is fantastic. Some of the songs are amazing. I've seen the show twice, but I have to agree, it doesn't transfer to the stage well. | ||||||
| jo132000 |
I went to see it just before it closed in London and i really enjoyed it, I guess everyone has different tastes...but i thought the song 'A kiss is a terrible thing to waste' was a really good song. | ||||||
| christinadaae |
I've never seen it, but heard the entire thing.
Vaults of Heaven is the only song that was written well. And it's not a song for the stage. It's a song for church. Christina |
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| Faded_Flowers |
I thought the new London production was a shame - nothing like as good as it was in the last run. The stage going up in flames this time round was a bit pitiful... And where was Annie Christmas? 
Some of it's pretty bad, some is great (A Kiss is a Terrible Thing To Waste, Nature of the Beast)... I love it anyway. |
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| christinadaae |
It's about a prisoner Jesus, and the ingenue who falls in love with him. Nothing happens plot wise throught the story. There are one or two lines that are good. But even that is ruined by the horrible dialogue and disgraceful Southern accents. |
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| Hans |
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| Yip1982 |
[quote="Bex"]yeah. i love the song 'whilst down the wind'[/quote]
I think it's one of the most sincere ALW songs ever composed. Ther e is a refreshing simplicity and innocence in this song. |
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| sopranodespair |
I dont like the show itslef but I like the music. I even sang "Whistle Down The Wind" at a recital too. | ||||||
| opheliarose |
I saw this last week.
The performers did well, but the material all felt really, really recycled. I just about lost it when DH pointed out how much the theme song sounds like the Hamm Beer commercial. |
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| LaGataNegra |
So, I finally got around to listening to ALW's Whistle Down The Wind. I've avoided it since it's known to be a flop, and was generally panned by critics when it hit the London stage way back when. It didn't make it to Broadway, and the cast album costs $37!! A recent windfall allowed me to buy it (and a pile of Sondheim DVDs, and Brigadoon (cd), and Hello, Dolly!(dvd)) I was a happy camper this past weekend!
The show is set in Louisiana, USA, I'd guess in the 50s or 60s. The first scene has a preacher spouting fire and brimstone about how Jesus will return, and those who fail to recognize the Saviour will burn in fiery hell. Witness to this sermon are three children and their widowed father. We learn that a convicted murderer has escaped from prison and is in the area. The three children find him, hands and feet bleeding, in their barn. They mistake him for Jesus and he takes advantage of their naivete to save his hide. There is a secondary plotline about a young guy and his girlfriend arranging to get out of their one stoplight town. (Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts) The young guy (Amos) also is friends with the children and helps them conceal the convict. There's a bit where Amos seems to have fallen in love with the eldest of the children-but I'm not sure about it. The convict also seems to fall in love with the girl, but then he says 'I'm taking you hostage' when the villagers are hunting him down, so it's kinda squirrelly. A tertiary plotline about a revival meeting with snake-handlers goes nowhere, but does give us a glimpse of life in the South, where there is a small contingent of Bible pounders who test their faith by handling deadly snakes. (if you get bit and die-you are not worthy of being called Christian!) I listened to the show through twice this weekend, going back to repeat a few songs. I like Whistle Down the Wind better now than I did after seeing the Royal Albert Hall rendition. Being sung by a man to comfort his children gives it a poignency that is missing when sung by a young girl. The Vaults of Heaven reminds me of Love Changes Everything (from Aspects of Love). It doesn't really fit with the rest of the show. It's just parked at the beginning as if commenting on the action to come-yet the comment is vague and a bit confusing. The tune for Vaults pops up here and there throughout the show as if to connect it, but it just sits there, with no effect on the story. Jim Steinman wrote the lyrics to this show. Some of you may know him as the tunesmith behind Meat Loaf's success. Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts, as well as Home By Now, No Matter What, and A Kiss is a Terrible Thing to Waste show up on Meat's latest 'best of' album. His influence comes through in the music, as well. I wonder if ALW and Steinman didn't write the music together. It's very country and rock 'n roll, more so than ALW's other work. It's definitely a...different...sound. If I didn't know better, I wouldn't know that WDTW was composed by the same guy who did CATS and Phantom. All in all, I can see why this show didn't fly with audiences. The story is convoluted, and the murderer gets no redemption, but does escape. The music is lovely, but often doesn't serve the story well. Amos sings TTaBH with his girlfriend one minute, then turns around and sings it again with Swallow (the eldest child), then the girlfriend and Swallow sing it together. Why? I don't know. This problem plagues the piece. I did like the use of the piano to set the mood, rather than overorchestrating the show. It works best when the piano is in action. With all that said: in spite of watching the entire DVD collection of Sondheim and listening to WDTW this past weekend, what song is running through my head now?' Home By Now-from Whistle |
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| santtu |
News flash for you: the scene takes place in a church! So why wouldn't it be a song for the stage?! |
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| *paradox in pink* |
Like a lot of others, I loved the score, thought it had a good plot in theory, but didn't translate very well onto the stage. Something just wasn't right-the flow or storyline or something.
I saw the tour in Detroit, my cousin was one of the locals picked to be in the children's chorus, which was a cool experiance for her.[/b] |
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| hippo2002 |
I don't like Boyzone's No Matter What,the children's version is so much better,IMO. | ||||||
| jcstar |
They're two different songs, basically... lyrically. I like both. Did anyone see Eric Kunze in the show? Andy. |
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| Hans |
Because it lacks theatricality. It does nothing to justify itself dramaturgically. It doesn't expand a theme, establish character or further plot. It only does a cheesy job of painting athmosphere (which isn't really enough). |
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| MusicFan |
Regarding the first part of your statement, I guess it depends on what you mean by `theatricality'. In my view, Vaults of Heaven is a very theatrical piece but I could be using a different set of criteria from you. Regarding the points you make about expanding a theme and establishing character etc, Vaults of Heaven is a prologue, a tone-setting piece. It is absolutely justified dramaturgically in that it establishes from the outset the religious fervour of the inhabitants and places the children in a strong social context that will have a great deal of significance when they mistake the convict for Jesus Christ. |
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| Hans |
This is how I defined it:
I just don't think that's enough to justify it dramaturgically. The song just states that this is religious context, it doesn't develop any ideas or do anything interesting. In my opinion. |
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| MusicFan |
It does much more than that. It tells us about the people in the community, their alienation and suffering, their desparate need to cling to the notion of a saviour who will "return to guide them". The sign "JESUS LIVES" which we see displayed in neon lights during this song hangs in ruins after the fire, and this metaphorically signifies the futility of their optimism. Furthermore, it tells us that these people are trapped, they have nowhere to go, and in that respect they are just like the convict in the barn. Most importantly, it makes the children's faith and unquestioning belief that the man is Jesus understandable because we immediately identify them as being at the very heart of this community. The social context is paramount to this story and Vaults of Heaven establishes all of these themes from the outset and brilliantly sets the tone of the piece at the same time. |
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| Hans |
Can you come with specific examples of the text where this is the case? Because I think the song is too broad and general, it appears like a religious song most similar to anyone else, and that you are reading too much into it. What ties this specific text definitively to this specific story? I think it's a set piece, basically. Plus a neon sing is not a part of the song. |
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| RainbowJude |
I don't really have the time to go into this now, but the song is more than a mere set piece; yes, it helps define setting but it also points towards the broader mileau as well as the themes of the show. It's not as broad as you're implying it is; you couldn't simply transpose it into another church scene in another musical (e.g. it could not be the hymn in Titanic, it could not be a devotional in The Sound of Music, it could not slot into the church scene in Rent). But most of all, I can't see the point of engaging in this debate at all since your mind is made up about Whistle Down the Wind and I don't think that your mindset will shift, no matter what justification is offered in opposition to it. And that's fine - I'm equally firm about my positions in relation to certain things - but then you have to be sure whether you're actually questioning something in order to explore it more deeply or whether you're just being a wall for people to bash their heads on. And if it's the latter - then what's the worth of that? 
Later days David |
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| Hans |
Oh, David, don't come here and rain on my parade
I agree that the style of the music doesn't fit those shows you've listed. But the text doies not refer specifically to anything in the show. I think you could take almost any song of the same style and vague lyrics and put it into WDTW to the same generic effect, since a generic gospel song is what that song is. |
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| RainbowJude |
Then I really don't think you're paying enough attention to the lyrics in this song or to the text of the rest of the show. Later days David |
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| Hans |
Why don't you try to educate me, then? Pretty please? |
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| jackrussell |
"Vaults of Heaven" isn't alone in being a generic song that sets the tone but doesn't contribute much dramatically. Several ALW shows have such a number near the beginning, written as a pastiche of the music of the period - "On This Night of A Thousand Stars", "Think of Me", "Parlez vous Francais" don't move the story along in themselves (apart from Raoul's intervention in Think of Me) - they set the period and sometimes have a (rather weak) thematic link with the rest of the piece. | ||||||
| Hans |
Haha! That is sooo, true, I've been thinking about it before, without bothering to make a fuzz out of it. But you're totally right - it's annoying and weak writing. Stupid, stupid. |
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| jackrussell |
Whistle Down The Wind is particularly weak in this respect as it has two such numbers - Cold being the other. That said, I do think it is a very underrated ALW show - the musical themes of Unsettled Scores and the trio A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste are, in my opinion, among the best things ALW has ever written. |
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| Hans |
Difficult to argue with that. |