making of the musical - part ii

ok, so the immediate aftermath of the musical madness was - wake up next day, alcohol still burbling in system, and arrange songs for pennyo. and that has been the theme for most of the week past, with the pennyo retreat and the preparation for it (arrangements!! arrangements!!) eating up most of my life, along with a sizable backload of overdue work. hence i really haven't had the time to carry out that period of reflection that often occurs after a massive life-rending production such as the musical.

a week's passed, pennyo retreat's over, the concert's next week but at least most of the songs are out, and there's a lot less admin and a lot more of an established system as opposed to the musical, so i have the time to sit down here and think, and write a bit more about what happened seven days ago.

yellow people

this song is apparently controversial though i really don't see what's the big deal. this is another of those early songs that existed as a scrap for a really, really long time and never really evolved past that for an equally really, really long time. when i first sat down to bash songs out with caleb, i just kept singing - 'yellow people sit together, black people sit together, that's what we call diversity..." and many iterations with many different colors... and then i was convinced to add in a politically correct ending to avoid getting lynched by a multicolored mob.

personal favorite line - "i'm not in the US/to feel like N-U-S..." (it was just too easy. i'm sorry all NUS people. note that i expressly tried to avoid anti-schools-other-than-penn jokes in the musical, even though it can be sooo tempting. this one slipped through the cracks.)
most hated line - "just a bit of effort and little care/take a while you'll see"..."have an open mind/be color blind"(i hate preaching by music, especially the obvious.)

university of pennsylvania

another early scrap! at least "yellow people" existed as three lines. this one.. was only three words. "u-n-i-ver-si-ty-of-penn-syl-va-ni-a". it didnt even have the catchy little pause at the end (university of pennsyl - PAUSE - vania). it was all 12 syllables of equal lengths, sung in choral warmup style... and it would just keep going up! and up! and up! with no direction, rhyme or reason! i think i was reading about modal jazz at the time. obviously i was reading wrongly.

as expected, caleb hated this song in its earliest form. after i added the pause, and corny lyrics, he grudgingly accepted it - this was after yellow people, and i think random school facility as well, and then he nagged me about writing too many 'theme' songs and not too many 'character' songs. bah. theme songs are more fun. character songs are for emo whiners like my brother. (this is a test to see if caleb actually reads this blog).

trivia - there used to be a missing extra chorus that went (hurrah (8x) - fair harvard has her crimson, and yale her colors toooo... at the university of pennsylvania). we both laughed a lot about it when we wrote it, but i think we realised that it didn't make very much sense, and i wrote it out when i fit the song into the script. one more of those calls about school-specific jokes.

personal favorite line: "you waant much more than this pro-vin-cial liife" (everyone loves disney); or.. "your country needs more graduates... to marry other graduates... and when they finally copulate... their children will be smart" (old joke, but good one. with mild personal resonance, too, having passed through jeep-land.)
most hated line: the chorus that got cut.

random school facility

at this point i must throw out a random accolade to the lovely jennifer setiawan, who stepped in one week for the musical for a special guest cameo. we had a cast member pull out a month before the show, and though it didn't seem like a big deal at the time (we had enough ensemble members to fill in), there was a minor logistical issue created - may, who took over the role of mrs heng, had to cover also as a random school girl to fall in love with martin. this was ok, but suboptimal. thankfully jen appeared to cover things, and she took it a step even further by volunteering to choreograph the whole dance! (or rather, i met her at some intoxicated gathering, told her 'eh, go choreograph it', we both laughed it off, i woke up the next day, saw her at rehearsal, and told her 'eh. i'm serious.' this was a week before the show.) weaker human beings would have told me to go do bad things to myself. jen sang, danced, choreographed, and turned up for a hell week though she only appeared for one song... my undying gratitude goes out to her.

this song (being one of the 'theme' songs that caleb so detests) was rather easy to write. looping enough boyz ii men and other generic poppy swoony love ballads in triple time made it simple - i have been sufficiently culturally schooled in the grand and august pop music tradition to well, follow the formula. add in enough random love overkill cliches (girl and boy in library, girl and boy sharing study room, girl and boy bumping and swopping notes accidentally...) and tada instant funny love song. i was actually tossing a few more tried and tested scenes around, e.g. girl in elevator, boy rushes in last minute... and then elevator spoil etc etc.

favorite line: "i was surprised/ to find/ his/her notes are much better than mine..." (musical corny fun songs are one of the few places where my over-rhyming habits are tolerable)
most hated line: the entire chorus, really. the whole "love of a lifetime" thing? and "so specially special" (oh so special)? quite a lyrical copout. i was trying to fit in something more funny but there were deadline issues. "so specially special" may be the worst phrase in any of the songs in the whole musical... i'm almost ashamed i wrote it.

hello my dear/oh no my dear/you know my dear

my brother's cameo song. about two months before the musical we were experiencing a strange reversal of roles. my brother has written probably ten times as many original songs as i have (find them on his website), and i have done probably ten times as many music arrangements as he has (due to being part of pennyo, penn's only chinese a cappella group - concert next week! shameless plug!) - albeit only for a cappella. back then, i was writing all the tunes and lyrics - and then he was exclusively doing all the arrangements. this was sort of necessary because - i was writing the book, and not really telling him very much about it, and hence had to integrate the songs into the book - and he's the music genius, so he can pick out the chords and accompany whatever tune i sing at him in <15 minutes (which happens to be the average time he appears at my room before each musical practice).

naturally, he complained about this situation - because he wanted to write some songs. i told him, ok, go write a corny mock emo love song by a long distance boyfriend. make sure to include corny mock emo tropes. i raised the example of white plastic bags swirling in the wind (a la american beauty). and this song evidently was the result - music all by him, lyrics mostly by him. (i tweaked a few lines here and there, and i added in the whole 'oh no my dear' segment (to his chagrin) for structural purposes in act ii)

favorite line: "it says that if you love someone then you must set them fweeeee"(actually, i just like the 'fweeeee'. in an earlier iteration, he was supposed to sing 'for youuu... and meeeee', with the mee in falsetto and in the sesame st ernie voice. he toned down the ernie-ness for the recordings. i was sad.)
most hated lines: i dislike most of the end bits of 'you know my dear', actually- it was supposed to be a mock emo song. and then suddenly it became the very thing it was supposed to mock - an emo song!! noooo!!! ah well. you can't always have it your way.

midnight

a lot of people like this song - it's lovingly rendered by two of our best (if not the best) singers, val and kenny, (lame trivia only comprehensible to cast- after coining 'GGV'(gingivitis), i wanted to address our two lovers as 'valkenny', which reminds me of vulcanicity, but i digress) and they hit this one out of the park. i personally like it a lot, though not as much as 'you are here' - for a few reasons.

a few flaws in construction bug it for me - the verse is not really connected to the chorus, musically (i think it has to go into double or something), and just the general feel of both parts - both of which i like separately but perhaps not that much together?; lyrically the whole 'midnight' and 'light' and 'right' think was a bit overkill in the first chorus - 'daylight' seemed a better fit in the second; the chorus is soaring when they hit it well... but also hard to sing with this bizarre jump/shift thingy in the middle; and just this general... incoherence? i was trying to achieve a feeling of tentativeness, uncertainty (could you be thinking my name/ wondering/ if i /should i feel the same); but then i had to effect this transition from midnight to daylight and the following movement towards some kind of triumphant certainty/stability (daylight! - cue lights on, kevin pang! one of my favorite moments)... all a bit iffy.

what makes it good for me still - caleb and the musicians covered my ass for this one, gliding over the long held notes in the verse and the necessary transition to the chorus with some very nice guitar/piano sequences that still lift the hair on my neck when i remember them; kevin pang and lights (already mentioned); tremendous soloists (already mentioned); a very simple rising line in the chorus ('we'll- just - wait - and -seee); and a couple of lines in the verse that i was very pleased with.

favorite lines: "children should be sleeping/lovers should be keeping time/heart to heart". ah, two feminine rhymes in a row, and with four to five word line lengths at that. it's gotta be lame. but that additional -time tagged on... saves. the. day. and then it runs on to the next sentence and then the second line gains an extra glisten... bam! (the best thing about an english major education is that it gives you the analytical resources to better blow your own trumpet.)

most hated lines: "when i wake i hear you snoring/we'll do breakfast in the morning" i was going for gritty/affectionate realism, and uh, fell very far short. caleb called me up to complain about them a couple of times - and i agreed... but i couldnt think of anything better. sometimes bad lines just stick in your head and every time you run the musical tune over to think of new, better lines - the bad ones just sit there, defying any attempt to put new words in their place.

sweet potato porridge/priorities

anybody else notice how these two songs sound a bit alike? (that's why we put them apart... in act i and act ii... and kept different singers on them... and different arrangements/moods... the scam succeeded!) even worse, i wrote them virtually back to back, without realising it, after becoming mentally stuck in a mode. caleb shouted at me after i sang 'sweet potato porridge' to him... EH! THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE LAST SONG LAH!!! he is pretty consistent about scolding me when i produce similar sounding songs (e.g. prayer for my daughter - random school).

if i had to pick a least favorite, it would be one of these two - possibly priorities. caleb likes it, and his dong-ching-dong-ching arrangement, but gosh do i find that piano raggy thing annoying. you could think of it as an exercise in super-feminine rhymes... or basically, things that rhyme with 'priorities'. the lyrics are contrived, and due to the multisyllable madness the song is nearly unsingable, but our talented singers soldiered through it anyway. i came up with it while walking home past cav's one day - i recall humming to myself "so i've got priorities/ affirmative action for minorities/ like youuu". though eventually that line got cut.

favorite line: "looks for 'whatever he can get' " (re: facebook) - potentially the only line with any subtlety in this song.
most hated line: oh, lots.

sweet potato porridge will eternally be associated with swinging hands/elbows left to right. it's a very infectious hand action. this is also the only song that i (badly) choreographed. (70% of the actions consist of swinging hands/elbows left-right in front of body). the cast may have noticed me carrying out this hand action during virtually every song with a dong-cheng-dong-cheng beat, e.g. priorities, university of pennsylvania, yellow people...

this song is also notable for being inspired by filip kor - some random joke in conversation of his from freshman year, re: parents sending him to school and hence must eat sweet potato porridge every day. caleb wrote the bridge (soy sauce, chye sim etc) and ending (no morrrre - guorui), lyrics and music both, and i wrote the rest. its a "theme" or concept song... and basically was written largely because "porridge" and "college" apparently rhyme. (yes, more feminine rhymes. sorry.)

favorite line: "doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo." (who needs lyrics!) or.. the entire ah ma chorus.
most hated lines: "work for part time at cold storage... have to take a mortgage..." just a little bit too over the top on the rhyming... i also considered "they're bringing back the knowledge.. education we encourage... " and other bad lines before deciding to keep it at two.