We Start Today (Reprise) Lyrics — Baby

Song Overview

"We Start Today (Reprise)" is Baby's closing act of return. The title reaches all the way back to the opening number, when three couples stood at the edge of life changes they could not yet measure. By the finale, those same words sound different. They no longer carry only possibility. They carry experience. In the original 1983 Broadway score, the reprise functions as a company-level answer to everything the show has put its characters through - fear, hope, fertility pressure, young panic, older regret, and the plain chaos of becoming a family.

Review and Highlights

Reprises live or die on memory. "We Start Today (Reprise)" works because Baby has earned the right to reuse its opening phrase. At the start, the words feel like a nervous leap into the unknown. By the end, they feel like a chosen continuation. That is not the same thing. It is deeper, steadier, and a little bruised.

IBDB places the reprise in Act Two and assigns it to the ensemble, which already tells you a lot about its job. This is no longer one couple's private idea of the future. The whole musical has to step into it. That communal frame matters because Baby is built on contrast - too young, too old, trying too hard, trying not to hope too much. The reprise gathers those separate nerves into one shared motion.

There is also a structural elegance here. Ovrtur's history note on a live 1983 audience recording says the final version of the finale consisted of reprises of "We Start Today" and "The Story Goes On." That pairing makes perfect sense. One song says begin. The other says continue. Put them together and you get the show's worldview in miniature: life does not tidy itself up, but it does keep moving, and people keep choosing to move with it.

What I like most about the reprise is its refusal to sound triumphalist. Baby is too smart for that. The characters have not solved everything. They have simply arrived at the point where continuing becomes its own form of courage. That lands harder than a fake perfect ending ever could.

Baby (1983 Broadway score) - ensemble finale reprise - diegetic within the show's closing movement. The reprise returns to the musical's opening language after the characters have been changed by pregnancy, commitment, disappointment, birth, and loss. In dramatic terms, it matters because the show does not end by erasing conflict. It ends by re-entering life with open eyes.

Key Takeaways

• The reprise turns the opening title phrase from expectation into lived commitment.
• Its power comes from company-wide memory rather than solo catharsis.
• The number works as part of the finale architecture, especially when paired with "The Story Goes On."

Creation History

"We Start Today (Reprise)" is part of the original Baby score by David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr., written for the Broadway musical with a book by Sybille Pearson. IBDB lists the number in Act Two for the ensemble. Unlike the opening "We Start Today," the reprise does not appear as a distinct track on the currently surfaced original-cast album listings from JAY Records, Apple Music, Spotify, or Discogs. That absence is not unusual for finale reprises, which often do more work in the theater than on album metadata. A useful historical clue comes from Ovrtur's note on a private live 1983 audience recording, which says the final version of the finale consisted of reprises of "We Start Today" and "The Story Goes On." So even where the cast album is quiet, the stage history is not.

Lyricist Analysis

Maltby's job in a reprise like this is not to invent a new idea. It is to let an old idea arrive with altered gravity. "We start today" is already a strong phrase because it sounds decisive while leaving the future undefined. In reprise form, that same phrase gains emotional sediment. The audience remembers how naïve, hopeful, and untested it sounded before. Now the same words carry the weight of everything that happened in between.

That is good reprise writing. Recognition does half the labor. The lyric does not need to over-explain because the audience's memory supplies the missing text. Prosodically, a phrase like this benefits from clear stress and direct diction. It has to land fast and clean, almost like a motto, so the changed context can do the heavier emotional work.

The title also has a built-in paradox that the reprise sharpens. "Start" usually implies innocence. By the end of Baby, innocence is gone. Yet the characters still have to begin again. That tension is the song. Beginning is no longer simple, but it is still necessary.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Baby begins with three couples at different ages confronting pregnancy and all the emotions that come with it. The score then follows them through excitement, strain, desire, distance, fear, and growth. IBDB places "We Start Today (Reprise)" in Act Two for the ensemble, which marks it as a late collective statement rather than a private reflection. Ovrtur adds a useful production-history detail: in the final version of the original 1983 finale, the reprise was paired with "The Story Goes On." That pairing suggests the show closes by linking beginning and continuation into one final thought.

Song Meaning

The meaning of "We Start Today (Reprise)" is that life keeps requiring fresh beginnings even after you have already been changed by earlier ones. The characters are not reset to zero. They are not magically wiser in a neat theatrical way. But they have lived through enough to know that starting is no longer a fantasy. It is a conscious act.

This makes the reprise one of Baby's clearest statements about adulthood. Grown life is not a single threshold crossed once. It is repeated starts - after news, after mistakes, after loss, after commitment, after the future arrives in a shape you did not order. The reprise returns to the opening phrase and quietly says: yes, still. Even now. Especially now.

Annotations

We Start Today (Reprise). Ensemble.

IBDB's assignment is the first key fact. The song belongs to everyone by the end, which tells you that the opening idea has expanded beyond any one couple's private circumstance.

The final version of the finale consists of reprises of "We Start Today" and "The Story Goes On."

This Ovrtur note is the most useful historical detail for understanding the number's function. The reprise is not just a tag. It is part of a designed final sequence where beginning and continuation answer each other.

The opening number is "Opening / We Start Today."

That obvious-seeming fact matters because the reprise depends on memory. The audience is meant to hear the title and immediately feel the distance traveled since Act One.

Genre and style fusion

The number sits in classic Broadway finale-reprise territory - compact, communal, and emotionally dependent on earlier material. It is less a new song than a reframed chorus of experience.

Emotional arc

The arc runs from recalled innocence to mature renewal. The song does not deny what has happened. It folds experience into the act of beginning again.

Cultural and historical touchpoints

Baby opened in 1983 as a musical willing to treat parenthood, fertility, age, and partnership as complicated adult subjects. A reprise like this confirms that outlook. The ending does not turn life into a simple lesson. It turns life into a series of starts that must be chosen over and over.

Production and instrumentation

Because the reprise appears to function inside the finale rather than as a stand-alone cast-album showcase, its strength likely lies in ensemble lift and thematic recall more than elaborate orchestral expansion. The point is recognition, not reinvention.

Metaphors and key phrases

"Start" remains the core metaphor. By the finale, it no longer means untouched possibility. It means recommitment. Same word, harder truth.

My favorite thing about this reprise is its modesty. It does not announce that everyone has figured life out. It just says they are willing to begin again. That feels honest.

Technical Information (Quick Facts)

• Song: We Start Today (Reprise)
• Artist: Baby original Broadway stage score
• Featured: Ensemble
• Composer: David Shire
• Producer: No separate original-cast album production credit for a distinct reprise track was reliably confirmed in the sources reviewed
• Release Date: Broadway production context from 1983; no distinct original-cast album track listing was reliably confirmed for the reprise
• Genre: Musical theatre, Broadway finale reprise
• Instruments: Stage orchestra, ensemble vocals
• Label: Not separately listed as a distinct original-cast album track in the most accessible current sources reviewed
• Mood: renewing, communal, quietly hopeful
• Length: No reliable standalone runtime found for the original 1983 reprise
• Track #: Not reliably confirmed as a distinct original-cast album track
• Language: English
• Album: Part of the Baby stage finale; a distinct original-cast album entry was not reliably confirmed
• Music style: contemporary 1980s Broadway closing reprise
• Poetic meter: speech-rhythm with recalled title emphasis

Frequently Asked Questions

Who sings "We Start Today (Reprise)" in Baby?

IBDB lists the reprise for the ensemble.

Where does the reprise appear in the show?

It appears in Act Two as part of the show's closing movement.

Is it on the original cast album as a separate track?

A distinct original-cast album track for the reprise was not reliably confirmed in the most accessible current sources reviewed, even though the reprise is clearly listed in the stage score.

What is the reprise about?

It is about beginning again after experience has changed the meaning of the original hopeful phrase.

Why is it important that the song returns to the opening title?

Because the reprise lets the audience hear how the same words sound after the characters have lived through pregnancy, strain, birth, and emotional change.

How does it fit with "The Story Goes On"?

According to Ovrtur's historical note on the original finale, the final version paired reprises of "We Start Today" and "The Story Goes On," creating an ending built on both beginning and continuation.

Is this a triumphant finale?

Not in a simplistic way. The reprise feels hopeful, but its hope comes with experience and some scars attached.

Did Baby receive awards recognition?

Yes. The original Broadway production received seven Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.

Is there a later performance video of the reprise?

Yes. A stage-performance clip pairing "We Start Today (Reprise)" with "Two People in Love" is available online, though it is not an original 1983 cast video.

Additional Info

• IBDB's listing of the reprise as an ensemble Act Two number makes clear that the song belongs to the finale architecture, not to any one couple's private subplot.
• Ovrtur's historical note about the final 1983 ending is especially useful because it clarifies that the show's settled finale was built from reprises rather than a wholly new closing number.
• The most visible online video for the reprise is a later stage performance, which fits the song's afterlife. It seems to live more in production practice than in cast-album fame.

Key Contributors

Sources

Data verified via IBDB's original Broadway song breakdown, MTI's show materials, JAY Records and major platform listings for the currently available original-cast album, Ovrtur's historical note on the original finale, and a later stage video used only as a workable visual anchor for the figure images. No distinct original-cast album track for the reprise was reliably confirmed.