Rumson Town Lyrics – Paint Your Wagon

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

I hear “Rumson” as the town’s bulletin board set to music. Jake Whippany steps out, plants his boots, and logs the census and the mood. It’s brisk, brassy, and unfussy — a 50-second roll call that tells you everything you need to know about a brand-new mining camp bursting at the seams. The chorus punches in like a crew changing shifts; the orchestration keeps the focus on clarity and stomp. The cut sits right after the curtain-raiser and before the romantic threads start weaving in.

Creation History

Written for the original 1951 Broadway production of Paint Your Wagon by composer Frederick Loewe and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, “Rumson” is sung by Jake as a quick portrait of the all-male settlement two months into the strike. The original cast set was recorded November 15, 1951, with Franz Allers conducting; the first LP hit stores December 14, 1951.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Act I, California, 1853. After the opener brings prospectors flooding in, Jake pauses the action to introduce Rumson itself: who’s here, who’s missing, and what the miners dream they’ll find. The lyric catalogs the town’s growth and its imbalance — four hundred souls, virtually no women — setting up tensions that drive the next scenes.

Song Meaning

It’s a census, a pep talk, and a warning squeezed into under a minute. The number frames Rumson as a frontier experiment running on appetite and rumor. Musically it reads like a marching notice posted on a telegraph pole: square phrases, block chorus, direct images. That bluntness becomes the show’s counterweight to the more rhapsodic songs (“I Talk to the Trees,” “They Call the Wind Maria”) — a reminder that this dream was built in dust and noise.

Style & instrumentation

March-time groove, bright brass, unison men’s voices. The arrangement favors clean downbeats and syllabic text over melisma, so every headcount and place-name lands. It’s reportage — sung.

Key Facts

• Artist: Robert Penn (as Jake) with the Original Broadway Cast
• Composer: Frederick Loewe
• Lyricist: Alan Jay Lerner
• Album: Paint Your Wagon – Original Broadway Cast Recording (first LP release December 14, 1951)
• Recording date: November 15, 1951
• Conductor / Music Director: Franz Allers
• Orchestrations: Robert Russell Bennett
• Track position: Act I – “Rumson (Jake)” (commonly listed as Track 2)
• Reissues: multiple, incl. a 2009 digital issue carrying Stage Door branding
• Setting in story: Rumson, a Gold Rush camp town, two months after the strike

Questions and Answers

Who performs “Rumson” on the 1951 cast album?

Robert Penn, in character as Jake Whippany.

When and where was the original cast track recorded?

In New York on November 15, 1951, for the original LP issued December 14, 1951.

Who wrote the music and lyrics?

Frederick Loewe composed the music; Alan Jay Lerner wrote the lyrics.

Who conducted the session?

Franz Allers led the orchestra.

Where does the song sit in the show?

Early in Act I, immediately establishing the town’s demographics and mood.

Additional Info

You’ll sometimes see the track labeled simply “Rumson.” On official track lists it’s sung by Jake and comes right after “I’m On My Way.” The same character reprises the motif later in Act I, underlining how the town’s identity — and impatience — keeps pressing on the story.