Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Random Top Ten

Random Top Ten!!!

Random Top Ten Audra McDonald Songs

10. "Cradle and All" (Jessica Molaskey and Ricky Ian Gordon)
A tender and bittersweet ballad sung to elderly parents--hardly a well-mined area.



9. "Somewhere" (Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim)
A reverent and hushed rendition of the West Side Story classic.

8. Come to Jesus (Adam Guettel)
A young woman sings of her conflicting feelings upon getting an abortion. Again, not well-trod stuff.

7. "Way Back to Paradise" (John Michael LaChiusa)
A bouncy and defiant song from LaChiusa'sMarie Christine about the challenges faced by women.

6. "I Won't Mind" (Jeff Blumenkrantz)
A heartbreaking, gorgeous ballad sung by a young, childless woman to the child she loves.



5. "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" (Randy Newman)
A spare, haunting version of the Randy Newman classic.

4. "You Don't Know This Man" (Jason Robert Brown)
A stirring, deceptively simple song from Brown's Parade, sung by a young wife to a mob convinced her husband has killed a little girl.

3. "My Heart" (Neil Young)
I never in a million years would have thought one of my three favorite Audra McDonald songs would be a Neil Young cover, but here we are.

2. "Stars and the Moon" (Jason Robert Brown)
This song has quickly become a cabaret staple, but McDonald's version is pretty definitive. Wonderfully ironic and ruminative piano ballad.



1. "How Glory Goes" (Adam Guettel)
From Floyd Collins, this song is sung by a dying man, as he asks God what heaven will be like. One of the most beautiful and tear-jerking songs I've ever heard.

Until Whenever

2 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

I'm not exactly a cabaret kind of a guy, but I LOVE Moon and the Stars. Too bad she's probably better known as a co-star on a dreary dramedy than for her four or five Tonys. (I figure it ought to get canceled, but the ratings are OK and the writers' strike will mean the networks will want to keep as many balls in the air as possible.)

Tosy And Cosh said...

I'm not either, but, yes, Stars and Moon is excellent. Maybe she'll use the time off to do some concerts, maybe even a limited run on Broadway?