วีดีโอ

This is great! And it's a pleasure to hear you sing it in illustration. I'm always here for more golden age content, btw.

Loooooove South Pacific, great video btw!

This is such a fantastic video!!!

Instant subscribe - I am constantly talking about how no one ever talks about (and productions rarely get right) Maybe They're Magic!

It's probably not the most crowd-pleasing type of video, but it's definitely the kind that makes me go HUUUUUUHHHHH, never thought about it that way!!

That was absolutely incredible. I have bee wanting such an in-depth analysis of this song for a while and this was absolutely perfect. I want to clap it was so good.

I didn’t know who he was when I saw a clip of him and assumed he was a Broadway actor

This song came up on Spotify a while back. I had never heard it before but it was so moving.

It all looks and sounds a little too much "over the top". 🤨🤨 I think I will still watch it when it comes out.

At just hearing the intro I can cry. All the emotions are all over again

Great job analysis.

Love love love this channel. I feel targeted. I'm a former theatre kid, saw Ordinary Days in high school, loved this, studied a good amount of theory in college. Every video, amazing. Love I'll Be Here. My other fav song from this musical is Rooftop Duet. I love the different voices coming together and my favorite music in all of music theatre might be the "but I stay just the same and no one ever sees me because IIII I know that I'll never stand as tall as these buildings, I'll never quite reach the sky"

Beautiful heartfelt analysis; i can understand your intense emotion; when in a theater I myself break into tears at the exquisite beauty of a composer's art.

Excuse you, sir, I have heard this song many a times and it is indeed very pretty :)

Great video, thanks :)

I'm so happy to be getting so many vids! It'd been too long!

Brilliant! I had no idea how much I didn’t know. Stephen, we are ALL below your level of genius, boy, we all are in the dark, AND the Woods!

The algorithm presented this video to my because I was looking up a bunch of Marry Me A Little videos in prep for a callback for Bobby at a local theatre, and I’m so glad the algorithm actually delivered here. This was a great breakdown that I’m sure will help me instill a bit more nuance with it than I was privy to before. Thanks!

LOVE THIS!!! Thank you!

Yes this is one of my favorite songs i love that you talk about it!!

I can’t recall if i have already made the following observation but here goes : you are a NATURAL EDUCATOR. And in many of the same ways Leonard Bernstein did with his famous “Young Persons” series, only without the affectation . You’re passionate, astute and charismatic. It really is infectious. Take care 👍

Actually I submit that the greatest was Wagner’s use of leitmotifs in his tetralogy (The Ring). Now that’s out the way, BRILLIANT ANALYSIS! You know how much i love your work. You really are peerless . And you NEVER disappoint.

I actually saw the original Broadway cast!! I love your song analysis videos. I now listen for the things you teach us when I hear these songs! "I love the fun you provide!"

Wow, I like the explanation of secondary dominant! It's really helpful!

Learned something new today! Thank you very much!

Great analysis. Thank you! Fascinating how the song goes back to the simple "Who Wants to Live in New York?" as it is written diegetically within the show. But then Franklin Pierce, Inc. has the dissonant 'mental breakdown' version of the 7 notes. I prefer the original cast recording but the new one is enjoyable as well.

Excellent observations! I've been aware of the 'yearning' tension that semitones offer but I never noticed the difference between the upward and downward movements at different positions in the major scale. Thanks for this.

I would suggest that there are even more emotions that can be conveyed with nondiatonic semitones, especially when they belong to a mode that conveys a particular mood on its own. Interesting video!

first

I was so luck to see it, I heard about the show when standing for the rush line of the notebook and didn’t get tickets for anything that day so I decided to walk to the theatre an hour before the show and got student rush tickets and it was amazing.

Where are you getting these Piano-Vocal scores?

Second act started out quite jarring for me. Who are these people? Why am I watching this? And then piece by piece (dot by dot?), with all these chords connecting the threads, we get to Move On, which was such a nice payoff after all that. And it's only possible because the leitmotifs have been there to connect the... dots. (Damn it, these puns are just writing themselves, huh? Well played, Mr. Sondheim!)

Brilliant. I love the way you say "important." Perfect.

Sidenote, I hope you've seen Shoshana Bean's dressing room session cover of Finishing the Hat, it's such a brilliant, brilliant take on the song, she connects to it thoroughly. (if you haven't, there's a suggestion for your weekly reactions :) )

Also one of my absolute top 3 ever. Showed it to a friend recently who hadn't ever heard of it, by the end they were crying like a baby and the only thing they said was "I need to go home and write". Enough said, really. Myself, the amount of time "Move On" broke me to pieces and put me back together within those 3-4 minutes is mind-boggling... I mean... "Isn't it lovely how artists can capture us?"

Tony award winning? :’( Are you rubbing it in? Our boy Steve was robbed!!!!

Wonderful

The first show I saw on Broadway! Great video. Thanks for opening our eyes and teaching us to see!

Love this all so much!

I love how Hadestown encourages the cast members to make their own interpretations! (It also gives me a perfect excuse to go back and see it over and over again, even tho it probably still won't work out this time when they sing it again.) I've never seen it on Broadway, but I loved what I saw in the first national tour. Levi Kreis had such a different take on Hermes from... everyone, really. And I loved what I would call his game show host vibe. And I'm glad we have an appearance of this cast on James Corden for a taste of it for those who didn't get to see this cast.

I disliked Neil Patrick Harris so much in that production, but Patti was a revelation to me. I always thought Joanna had to have that smoker’s voice ala Elaine Stritch or Barbara Walsh, especially for this song and the semi-grating way some of the notes were sung. But Patti’s performance, even with her smooth as silk voice, was so wonderful that the entire character of Joanna made so much more sense to me after seeing LuPone than it ever had before. And now with your breakdown it makes even more more sense! Thank you!

Been waiting for a video on him! Jordan Fisher is my idol when it comes to theatre cause I feel he has baritone qualities but works effortlessly with all the tenor songs he usually sings!

Loved Jordan as Anthony in Sweeney Todd, this was perfect (honestly, Reeve Carney's tone was the one thing that always bugged me about Hadestown, this was just how I always wanted him to sound). Thanks for the reaction, bummer about the white noise, I understand why you gotta do it but it does distort parts of the song to the extreme.

Jordan's 'weak' head voice is definitely a choice because JOrdan can be very powerful in high notes, as he is in his own music.

first like!

Mateo, you should check out the Paper Mill Playhouse's production of this. It starred Tony nominee and future winner Alice Ripley, and Max Von Essen. A pro shot was made and excerpts can be found on TH-cam. It's great to see Meadowlark performed by Alice on a set and in costume.

Very cool! You should consider having videos/live streams where you review song submissions written by and sent in by fans. I'd love to hear your thoughts on our ideas!

I like the general theme of responsibly using one's voice in the age of the Internet. And the idea to use electronic music complements that well. I worry, however, that your instantiation of this theme borders on being cliche. It certainly has political merit---the elevation of the genderqueer experience is crucial. Nonetheless, I think it could be executed in a much more sophisticated way.

Love this! You’re a joy to watch. Love Bridges too ❤