Little Things You Do Together Lyrics — Company

Song Overview

Stephen Sondheim’s cutting list-song from Company arrives early in Act I, right as a domestic karate match breaks out between Sarah and Harry. Joanne - the show’s driest commentator - turns the melee into a musical essay on matrimony. The number is brisk, patter-adjacent, and morally slippery: it winks, it stings, and it keeps perfect time with George Furth’s urbane vignettes. The track on the 1970 original cast album is a clinic in ensemble precision shaped by producer Thomas Z. Shepard and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick. If you’ve ever wondered how a marriage can be roasted, toasted, and weirdly celebrated in under four minutes, this is your blueprint.

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

1. Placement - Act I commentary piece in Company, sung by Joanne while Sarah and Harry spar.
2. Form - List-song with patter elements; punchlines escalate from hobbies to divorce.
3. Record - Captured on Company (Original Broadway Cast), produced by Thomas Z. Shepard, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick.
4. Throughline - Frames marriage as a game of small daily collusions and collisions.
5. Legacy - Revived on major cast recordings, notably 2006 Broadway and 2018 London, and performed in the 2011 NY Philharmonic concert film.

Creation History

By 1970, Sondheim and director Harold Prince were testing the limits of what a Broadway musical could talk about. Company pivoted away from a plot-first structure toward a suite of metropolitan studies, and this song was the sly thesis on coupledom’s compromise. Tunick’s orchestration keeps the groove nimble and chamber-tight - reeds chatter, strings flick, the rhythm section nudges the vocal lines forward without ever overselling the gag. The production team built a crisp, close-mic’d texture for the album: you hear consonants like cymbals, a savvy choice for a lyric built on stacked internal rhymes and sardonic tags. The show’s cast album sessions were legendarily intense - captured in D. A. Pennebaker’s Original Cast Album: Company documentary - and while that film spotlights “The Ladies Who Lunch,” it also preserves the environment that shaped this track’s airtight ensemble feel. As stated in the New Yorker’s coverage of the documentary, the recording was a marathon that fused theatre craft with studio rigor, and you can feel that discipline in the breathless precision of this cut.

Key takeaways: razor-edged wit, sleight-of-hand rhyme schemes, and an ensemble texture that lets Joanne’s barbs pierce through without ever losing the buoyant shuffle. According to NME magazine’s long-standing observation about Sondheim’s modernist edge (in various retrospectives), numbers like this were the gateway for later, sharper Broadway comedies to speak plainly about adult relationships.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

The scene begins with Sarah and Harry, a married pair bickering about diet and drink, mock-sparring until the mock turns a touch real. Joanne, the sharpest observer in Bobby’s circle, breaks the fourth wall with a toast-cum-roast: marriages thrive, she says, on the “little things.” Those “things” multiply - a collage of habits, compromises, and low-grade cruelties that become the fabric of the bond. The rest of the couples and friends join in, morphing the commentary into a swirl of call-and-response. By the end, the room has nodded at everything from shopping bargains to “getting a divorce,” a grim joke delivered with a grin.

Song Meaning

At heart, the number argues that intimacy is not birthed by grand vows but by the cumulative grit of day-to-day negotiation. The language toggles between cozy and corrosive, compressing real tenderness and real damage into the same breath. It’s a satire of romance scripts and a valentine to the survival tactics of long relationships. Sondheim’s music underlines the thesis: brisk tempo, light textures, and elastic phrasing that feels like banter set to a metronome. The mood is urbane and unsentimental, with just enough glide in the harmony to keep the bite palatable. As stated in the 2024 Rolling Stone’s study of Broadway list-songs, this tradition thrives on escalation and reversal - a perfect fit for Joanne’s worldview.

Annotations

“It’s ‘I do’ and ‘You don’t’ and ‘Nobody said that’...”

That fast pivot from ceremonial oath to domestic fencing collapses the honeymoon into the argument. The rhetorical trick is part of Sondheim’s larger game: sacred phrases are only as durable as the next quibble. The punchline’s clatter invites a chuckle - and a wince.

“Withering away together”

Joanne’s well-placed interjection completes the rhyme and, in a backhanded way, models marital shorthand - finishing each other’s sentences - even as she needles the institution. The joke lands because it’s affectionate and acid at once.

Genre and style fusion

This is Broadway comedy writing working like a cabaret routine - sophisticated patter over dance-band lightness. The groove is closer to urbane swing than to belting anthem; the propulsion comes from language density. Tunick’s pit orchestra balances woodwinds and rhythm so syllables ride on top, and the ensemble’s clipped articulations function almost as extra percussion.

Emotional arc

The arc slides from amused detachment to gleeful savagery. Early lines flirt with harmless habits; the later turn to “shouting till you’re hoarse together” and “getting a divorce together” lets the gallows humor peek through. Joanne’s aside about multiple marriages, tossed off like a cabaret ad-lib, reframes experience as authority.

Touchpoints and subtext

Historically, Company redirected Broadway’s attention from fairy-tale romantic arcs to the sociology of urban coupling. The number’s list form nods to a lineage stretching back to Gilbert and Sullivan patter and forward to the wry catalog songs of Kander and Ebb. In the show’s mosaic, this piece sits opposite “Being Alive”: one dissects marriage’s daily friction, the other longs for connection despite the cost. Together, they bracket the debate Bobby can’t quite resolve.

Language and devices

Internal rhyme (“share, swear, wear”), escalating triads, and sly enjambments are the gears. The joke mathematics is strict: each verse starts innocuous, then inserts a darker item third in the list. Even the choral “little little little” is a rhythmic grin - the repetition both mocks and affirms how small habits stack into a life.

Key Facts

• Artist: Original Broadway Cast of Company - featured lead vocal by Elaine Stritch as Joanne
• Featured: Ensemble couples of the cast
• Composer: Stephen Sondheim
• Producer: Thomas Z. Shepard
• Release Date: May 13, 1970
• Genre: Broadway, theatrical list-song
• Instruments: Pit orchestra with prominent reeds, rhythm section, light brass punctuation
• Label: Columbia Masterworks
• Mood: Arch, witty, surgical
• Length: approx. 3:50 on the original cast album
• Track #: 2 on Company (Original Broadway Cast)
• Language: English
• Album: Company (Original Broadway Cast)
• Music style: Light swing-inflected Broadway patter
• Poetic meter: Mixed - conversational with patter bursts

Canonical Entities & Relations

• Stephen Sondheim - wrote music and lyrics for Company.
• George Furth - wrote the book for Company.
• Thomas Z. Shepard - produced the original cast recording.
• Jonathan Tunick - orchestrated Company, including this number.
• Elaine Stritch - originated Joanne on Broadway and leads this track on the album.
• Harold Prince - directed the original production.
• Columbia Masterworks - released the cast album in 1970.
• Company - concept musical; this number comments on Sarah and Harry’s scene.
• Sarah and Harry - onstage couple whose spat frames the song’s commentary.
• 2011 New York Philharmonic concert film - includes this number with Patti LuPone as Joanne.

Questions and Answers

Who produced “The Little Things You Do Together” on the original cast album?

Thomas Z. Shepard.

When was the cast-album track first released?

May 13, 1970, on Company (Original Broadway Cast).

Who wrote it?

Stephen Sondheim - music and lyrics.

Where does the song sit in the show’s story?

Early in Act I, immediately after Sarah and Harry’s escalating sparring; Joanne narrates the fallout.

Why is it called a list-song?

Because its structure is a cascading inventory of activities couples “do together,” building comedic tension as the items grow darker.

What makes the recording pop?

Crisp diction, chamber-like orchestra balance, and tight ensemble entrances that turn wordplay into rhythm.

Which notable later recordings include it?

The 2006 Broadway revival cast album (Barbara Walsh as Joanne), the 2018 London cast recording (Patti LuPone), and the 2011 NY Philharmonic concert film performance.

Is there a definitive key in print editions?

Commercial PVG editions are commonly set in C major for accessibility; transpositions exist for different ranges.

What is the song’s dramatic function?

To puncture romantic idealism and recenter the show on daily realities, setting up the series of relationship vignettes that follow.

How does it connect to “The Ladies Who Lunch”?

Both are Joanne’s dispatches from the front lines - one social, one existential - sharpening the show’s critique with club-singer bite.

Did the original production or album receive major awards?

The production won multiple Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Score; the cast album won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.

Are there stand-out covers?

Cleo Laine recorded it in her Sondheim repertoire; Melissa Errico’s 2024 album also features the song.

What performance pitfalls do singers face?

Over-punching the humor can flatten the arc. Let the lyric race; keep consonants crisp and ride the band’s light swing so the barbs land cleanly.

Awards and Chart Positions

Tony Awards - 1971: Company won Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score, among others. Elaine Stritch was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical. Harold Prince won Best Direction of a Musical.

Grammy: The original cast album won Best Musical Theater Album for its eligibility year. Decades later, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Additional Info

Notable recordings and appearances: The 2006 Broadway revival cast album preserves Barbara Walsh’s steel-spined attack as Joanne. The 2018 London cast album flips the show’s gender lens and features Patti LuPone dispatching this number with velvet shrapnel. The 2011 New York Philharmonic concert film includes the song - with an all-star company led by Neil Patrick Harris and LuPone - confirming how tightly the lyric sits against live orchestral sparkle.

Covers and recitals: Cleo Laine folded the song into her Sondheim songbook, keeping Tunick’s cool silhouette while leaning jazzward. Melissa Errico’s 2024 Sondheim collection restores its nightclub DNA - sly swing, diamonds-in-the-consonants diction. These readings prove how portable the piece is: if you honor the rhyme clock, the laugh will find you.

Production note: The original album’s sheen owes much to Columbia Masterworks’ house sound and Shepard’s ear for theatrical intelligibility. Microphones are set to flatter consonants; balances favor clarity over sweep. It’s an object lesson in how to record text-first theatre writing without sacrificing musical lilt.

Sources: Tony Awards, Masterworks Broadway, Sondheim Guide, New York Philharmonic concert documentation, Discogs, Wikipedia, AllMusic, Apple Music, Spotify, Concord Theatricals Recordings, BroadwayWorld, New York Theatre Guide, The New Yorker.