Random Top Ten

Random Top Ten!!

Top Ten Musical Theater Songs

10. "Somewhere" - West Side Story - Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim
Maybe Bernstein's most purely gorgeous melody.

9. "Loving You" - Passion - Stephen Sondheim
A delicate and fragile bit of shimmering songwriting, as direct and classic a song as Sondheim has written.

8. "Migratory V" An uplifting pure melody about how much more humanity can achieve when it works together. Rapturous.

7. "Gethsemane" - Jesus Christ Superstar - Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice
Jesus doubts his destiny in the garden after the last supper. The folksy acoustic opening gives way to a majestic and angry diatribe. A tour de force for a singer that many have tried to master--none as successfully as original concept recording Jesus Ian Gilian.

6. "How Glory Goes" - Floyd Collins - Adam Guettel
A dying man questions god about what heaven will be like. Heartbreaking.

5. "Sunday" - Sunday in the Park with George - Stephen Sondheim
Sondheim's choral masterpiece.

4. "Rose's Turn" - Gypsy - Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim
Mama Rose's fabled nervous breakdown. Lots of legendary singers have essayed this ultimate character piece - my favorite just may be Betty Buckley's.

3. "No More" - Into the Woods - Stephen Sondheim
A father and son try to come to terms with the challenges life places before us. Such a plaintive, disarmingly simple, wistful song.

2. "The Impossible Dream" - Man of La Mancha - Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh
So overdone and misinterpreted it's almost tragic. The point of the song isn't, as so many singers insist it is, that by trying to do impossible things one can achieve the impossible, that trying hard can accomplish anything, but instead that trying, believing, in the face of literal impossibility can have immense power. It's the "impossible" dream, not the "very unlikely" dream.

1. "Epiphany" - Sweeney Todd - Stephen Sondheim
A desperate man completely snaps and decides that humanity does not deserve the life it's been gifted with. A brilliant piece of playwriting through song.

Until Whenever