Being Alive Lyrics — Company

Song Overview

Song Credits

• Lead vocal: Dean Jones as Robert
• Primary artists: Original Broadway Cast of Company
• Writer - Composer: Stephen Sondheim
• Producer: Thomas Z. Shepard
• Orchestration: Jonathan Tunick
• Music director: Harold Hastings
• Album: Company - Original Broadway Cast
• Release date: May 13, 1970
• Genre: Broadway ballad with a light jazz undertow
• Length: approx. 3 min 13 sec
• Label: Columbia Masterworks
• Mood: vulnerable crescendo, prayerful resolve
• Language: English

Song Meaning and Annotations

Robert - the long-time observer in a circle of married friends - finally states a need. A quiet piano heartbeat swells into full orchestra while friendly refrains ring in his head like half-remembered advice. The tune begins guarded, edges toward hope, then lands on a brassy call: being alive. It reads as plea and victory at once. The author chose an unusual time signature for the first verse, deliberately dropping a beat so that the words rush forward — too quickly for breath, thought, or recovery, just like life itself. After the first break, the tone becomes more introspective, contemplative, and balanced. The third section brings a sense of joy, almost a premature triumph. It’s a journey from a light, tin-pan-alley beginning to a place of genuine, hopeful vulnerability. The song is both an apology and a plea addressed to the author’s wife. Humor, the author notes, is essential when dealing with honesty.

Musically it is a slow-burn theatre ballad that nudges from cabaret hush toward near-gospel affirmation. Lyrically, Sondheim flips the usual list of benefits into a ledger of risks - hurt you too deep, pull you up short. Naming the hazards becomes the doorway to desire. According to the Tony Awards site, Company marked a shift toward sophisticated realism on Broadway, and this closer is its thesis distilled.

The dramatic arc

Spoken chorus of friends - Disembodied nicknames and prompts crowd Robert’s thoughts. The effect is memory and pressure at once.

Someone to hold you too close
Someone to hurt you too deep

Half complaint, half confession. The lines set a frame where comfort and collateral damage live side by side.

Middle section - He catalogs obligations - let in, spare feelings - with wary curiosity, as if trying on a life that might not fit yet.

Somebody crowd me with love
Somebody force me to care

Verbs that should sound harsh turn nourishing in context. The discomfort becomes evidence of connection. As stated on Masterworks Broadway’s archival page, the cast and production team leaned into conversational clarity so this pivot reads cleanly on record.

Final refrain - Brass opens up, Robert repeats the title three times, and the harmony brightens. It signals possibility rather than a tied bow.

Similar Songs

1. Move On - Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin (Sunday in the Park with George, 1984)
   Another Sondheim closer where fear yields to motion. Both tracks start in a near-whisper and grow into declared intent.
2. Rose’s Turn - Ethel Merman (Gypsy, 1959)
   Two spotlight soliloquies, two brass-forward climaxes, two characters cracking their own shell onstage.
3. One Song Glory - Anthony Rapp (Rent, 1996)
   Pop-rock instead of pit orchestra, but the arc rhymes: isolation to a raw want for connection and meaning.

Questions and Answers

Why did this finale replace Happily Ever After?

Early tryouts ended on a bleak tag that left houses unsettled. Hal Prince and Michael Bennett asked for catharsis without sugar. Sondheim reshaped the same argument with a touch more light.

Is the last outburst certain or tentative?

Both. Robert does not present a plan - he presents willingness. The full-orchestra chord reads as a door opening, not a curtain call promise.

What do the interjections from friends do?

They dramatize inner debate. Robert hears their advice and cliches in his head and answers back until his own voice is louder.

How does the orchestration work on the album?

Tunick layers piano and woodwinds, adds brass pressure, then lets the section bloom as the lyric turns from guarded to asking.

Have revivals changed the key?

Yes. Later productions adjust key and tessitura for different leads, including the gender-swapped London revival, while keeping the triple-title payoff.

Awards and Chart Positions

Company dominated 1971 theatre awards, and the cast album brought home a Grammy. According to the Tony Awards archive, the show won Best Musical, Best Book, and separate prizes for Score and Lyrics. The Grammy line item credits Stephen Sondheim, producer Thomas Z. Shepard, and the original cast for Best Score From an Original Cast Show Album. While singles charts rarely reflected cast tracks in 1970, the album became a catalogue staple and later reissues kept it in circulation.

Fan and Media Reactions

"He starts by listing the hazards, then asks for them - that sly inversion is why it lands." - longform review of Company on a major culture site

"The finale feels like a personal dare set to brass." - theatre feature during a revival season

"When that final chord hits, I breathe easier." - listener comment from a cast album upload

Half a century later, performers covet the number for its actorly curve, and audiences keep it close for how cleanly it names fear, then chooses contact anyway. As stated in a recent Rolling Stone feature on cast albums with long afterlives, the theatre songs that travel best often behave like scenes - this one is the template.