Sing! Lyrics - Chorus Line, A

Song Overview

“Sing!” sits early on the A Chorus Line original Broadway cast album - a brisk, comic palate cleanser that does two jobs at once: it sketches a marriage in shorthand and it lets you hear how brittle the audition room can feel when your gift for dance outpaces your ear for pitch. Kristine confesses she “really couldn’t sing,” Al rescues each dangling phrase, and the joke lands because it is built on love, rhythm, and a patter-like volley that never quite stands still. If you want to hear it in situ, cue the original Broadway cast album - the track clocks in short, punchy, and precise.

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

1. Comic duet for Kristine and Al on the A Chorus Line OBC album - she trips over pitch, he finishes her phrases clean.
2. Function in the show: character color and couple portrait, giving relief after early audition tension.
3. Written by Marvin Hamlisch (music) and Edward Kleban (lyrics); produced on record by Goddard Lieberson for Columbia Masterworks.
4. Later covered on the 2006 Broadway revival cast album; also performed in Glee’s Season 2 duet episode.
5. Omitted from the 1985 film adaptation’s soundtrack, underscoring how differently the movie reshaped the score.

Creation History

Behind the quick laughs is a serious craft puzzle: how to score tone-deafness musically without sinking the tune. Hamlisch solves it with clipped, staccato cells and spoken-sung patter for Kristine, set against Al’s squarely pitched interjections. That contrast is the engine. The record comes from a marathon day inside Columbia’s storied 30th Street Studio - the same converted church that captured so many landmark cast albums. Producer Goddard Lieberson, in his last season of Broadway cast-recording stewardship, marshaled the sessions like a seasoned stage manager. Engineers, musicians, and creators pushed from morning through midnight to lock the album down - old-school, one long day framing a score meant for perpetual motion.

On disc, “Sing!” preserves the original 1975 comic timing, then reappears in the 2006 revival recording with a touch more attack and a brighter sheen. The revival read centers the joke just a hair more forward in the mix, making each interjection snap - a useful study if you are staging the number for a small house and need it to read over the air.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Within the audition-day frame of A Chorus Line, “Sing!” belongs to Kristine and Al - newly married dancers vying for chorus spots. Kristine admits she cannot match pitch; Al, proud and protective, finishes her phrases in tune. The bit escalates from one-word rescues (“note,” “throat,” “thing”) to mock-solfege and seasonal needle drops, before the company turns it into a quick solfege flare. The scene plays as a micro-sitcom - a relationship sketched through timing and rescue.

Song Meaning

It is about competence and care. In a room where your livelihood rides on eight bars, Kristine’s flaw should be fatal - except her partner knows how to get her through. The subtext is a dancer’s truth: not everyone in the chorus can be a singer first. The number celebrates the ensemble economy - if someone covers your weak spot, you do the same when the combination turns on them. Against the show’s harder passages about failure and aging, this comic duet affirms partnership as a survival skill.

Annotations

“The song ‘Sing’ is performed by Al & Kristine… Al briefly interrupts the song to aid Kristine as she continues trying to sing the rest of the song.”

That’s the whole mechanic: interjection as music. Those cut-in rescues are rhythmic hooks and character beats. It is vaudeville logic applied to workshop-born stories.

“It is said to be based around the life experiences of Renee Baughman.”

The show famously drew on first-person testimonies from dancers during its workshop era; Baughman originated Kristine, and the number’s joke - a dancer anxious about pitch - fits that raw-oral-history palette. Whether line-by-line or in spirit, the song reads like those taped confessions turned into theater.

“Sing was also included on the album sung by Marvin Hamlisch & Edward Kleban as a demo.”

On reissues you can hear rough work-reel bonus tracks where Hamlisch and Kleban map song ideas at the piano. It is not just a curiosity; it shows how the writers tested the stutter-and-rescue shape long before an audience met Kristine and Al.

Style, timing, and what makes the joke land

“Sing!” fuses a patter-duet feel with Broadway bright lights - a little music-hall DNA spliced into 1970s show tune craft. The groove lives in crisp 2-feel figures, frequent pickups, and sustained on-the-beat interjections from Al that function like rimshots. The humor arcs from mild embarrassment to communal rescue: once the company joins for solfege, the scene flips from private struggle to public play. The emotional arc is gentle - mortification to acceptance - and it mirrors the show’s big question: who gets seen for who they are when the number is over.

Key cultural touchpoints

The number has kept a second life in the culture because it is learnable and adaptable. High schools love it for the built-in bit. Revival casts punch it as a crisp mid-first-act vent. TV grabbed it for a duet episode because the number’s structure dictates its own staging: give the “non-singer” the heart and the “rescuer” the clean notes. It is also a neat index of how Broadway albums used to be made: in one legendary New York studio, with a producer who knew how to get every gag onto tape without stripping its stage energy.

Key Facts

• Artist: Renee Baughman, Don Percassi (album producer: Goddard Lieberson)
• Featured: Company
• Composer: Marvin Hamlisch
• Lyricist: Edward Kleban
• Producer (album): Goddard Lieberson
• Release Date: October 1975
• Genre: Broadway show tune; patter-duet comedy
• Instruments: Rhythm section, reeds, brass, strings typical of 1970s cast-album pit orchestra
• Label: Columbia Masterworks
• Mood: playful, self-aware, gently frantic
• Length: ~1:53 (OBC album)
• Track #: 4 on A Chorus Line (Original Broadway Cast)
• Language: English
• Album: A Chorus Line (Original Broadway Cast)
• Music style: brisk 2-beat comedy with spoken-sung passages
• Poetic meter: irregular, with trochaic bursts and patter phrasing

Canonical Entities & Relations

People

• Marvin Hamlisch - composed the music for “Sing!”
• Edward Kleban - wrote the lyrics for “Sing!”
• Renee Baughman - originated Kristine on record; principal vocalist on “Sing!”
• Don Percassi - originated Al on record; principal vocalist on “Sing!”
• Goddard Lieberson - produced the original cast album session
• Michael Bennett - conceived and directed the stage musical housing the song

Organizations

• Columbia Masterworks - released the album
• New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater - originating producer of the show

Works

• A Chorus Line - stage musical containing “Sing!”
• A Chorus Line (Original Broadway Cast Recording) - album containing “Sing!”
• A Chorus Line (New Broadway Cast Recording, 2006) - revival album containing “Sing!”

Venues/Locations

• Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York - site of the 1975 recording sessions

Questions and Answers

Why place “Sing!” so early on the album?

It rebalances the audition’s intensity with laughter and introduces one of the score’s key ideas: people bring uneven skill sets to a chorus line, and partnership can cover the gaps.

What makes the duet structure special?

The interjection gag is structural, not just lyrical. Al’s clean pitches are rhythmic/tonal checkpoints, a built-in “tuning fork” that keeps the number buoyant while Kristine plays on the edge of on-pitch singing.

Is the number “about” tone-deafness?

Only on the surface. It is really about nerves, identity, and the generosity that keeps couples - and ensembles - standing.

How did the studio capture the comic timing?

By treating it like live theater: tight miking, crisp rhythm-section articulation, and no indulgent rubato. The 30th Street Studio’s famous ambience helps the punches speak without extra gloss.

What changed in the 2006 revival recording?

The energy is a shade brighter and the diction is hyper-clean, tailored for contemporary cast-album production values. It reads a touch snappier, helpful for listeners discovering the show via recordings.

Why was “Sing!” cut from the 1985 film?

The movie re-engineered the score, adding new numbers and dropping several that didn’t serve its cinematic pacing. “Sing!” was part of that reshuffle - a reminder that stage logic and film logic diverge.

How did TV use the song?

Glee staged it as a strategic duet for a “non-singer” character, proof positive that the number’s architecture travels well beyond the Shubert stage.

Does the piece demand belting?

Not really. The trick is clarity and timing, not volume. The “non-singer” needs credible off-kilter intonation without turning the joke into a train wreck; the partner needs centered pitch and impeccable cueing.

Is there historical evidence the writers demoed “Sing!” themselves?

Yes - the 40th-anniversary editions fold in work-reel demos where Hamlisch and Kleban sketch songs at the piano. Hearing the composers test-drive the bit is catnip for process nerds.

What does the number tell us about Al and Kristine as characters?

They are a team. She leads with honesty; he leads with support. In a show about getting chosen, “Sing!” shows two people who already chose each other.

Awards and Chart Positions

While the single “Sing!” was not promoted to radio, the parent album’s footprint is well documented - sales milestones, gramophone nods, and chart runs.

How to Sing Sing!

If you are mounting the number, think rhythm first, charm second, and “perfect pitch” a distant third. Practical specs below draw from published resources and well-known revival recordings:

• Key: common published key E major (revival album)
• Approx. tempo: ~100-102 BPM on the 2006 revival track
• Kristine’s workable range: roughly B3 to B4 (mezzo mix/spoken-sung)
• Al’s demand: centered baritenor lines with quick entries
• Style: patter-duet, spoken-sung vs. on-pitch interjections; tight 2-feel

Step-by-step

1. Tempo & groove: Lock a steady 2-feel around the album tempo; no rubato until the last gag lands. Drummers: feather the pulse; pianists: keep the left hand metronomic.
2. Diction over decibels: Kristine’s syllables are the joke. Shape consonants and keep vowels short to suggest “almost singing” without derailing the band.
3. Breath planning: Map breaths at every interjection. Al must hear the inhales to time the saves. Practice with a click so the rescue lands on the grid.
4. Flow & rhythm: Treat the word-salad like a patter song - subdivide, aim for the downbeats, and let the punchlines sit on the barline.
5. Accents: Punch the rhyme pairs (“note-throat,” “shriek-croak”) with light stress, not volume.
6. Ensemble hand-off: When the company joins for solfege, relax the comic tension and let the blend widen; it is the payoff.
7. Mic craft: Kristine closer to the mic for intimacy; Al slightly off-axis to avoid blasting his “tuning fork” lines.
8. Common pitfalls: Overplaying the “bad singing” until pitch chaos sets in; drowning diction with belt; stepping on the partner’s cue.

Additional Info

According to Playbill, the original cast album is among the best-selling cast recordings on record, certified multi-platinum decades after its release - a wild afterlife for a score cut in a single long studio day. On the production side, Masterworks’ 40th-anniversary editions opened the vault to reveal early demos - the kind where composers bang out songs at a piano and the lyricist tries lines on for size. That peek matters for “Sing!” because it shows the authors circling the same central idea: comedy by rescue.

Critics have long clocked the number’s “stutter-song” brilliance - the way the text breaks into shards while the pulse never wavers. The observation fits: the music behaves like a confidence game where rhythm can trick the brain into believing the voice is secure. That’s why the piece survives so well in revivals and TV - the architecture is strong enough to carry new faces, fresh accents, and contemporary mic technique without blurring the joke.

And yes, there’s lore. Old-timers still talk about Columbia’s 30th Street floorboards singing back, the orchestra’s birthday serenade for a composer turning 31, and a producer who had already shepherded a generation’s worth of cast albums. If you hear a faint halo around the “la” at the end, it might just be that room, holding the note for them.

Sources: Masterworks Broadway; Playbill; The New Yorker; Wikipedia; CastAlbums.org; Spotify; Apple Music; Musicstax; Glee Wiki; Discogs; IMDb.