Sometimes a Song Changes Its Shape... Lyrics > Sondheim on Sondheim
Sometimes a Song Changes Its Shape... Lyrics
[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken]
Sometimes a song changes its shape and texture drastically as you write it. This happened in Follies. Follies is a show about a reunion of chorus girls on the stage of their old theater. It's a party, and one of the girls is reminiscing with another one's husband about their younger days. While doing so, they are shadowed by their younger selves, which are sort of ghosts that trail them through the evening.
I wrote it as a duet and played it for Jerry Robbins and he said, "You're wasting your resources." He said, "You should utilize both couples, and you should utilize their younger selves as well." So what started as a duet became an octet.
Last Update: October, 24th 2023
Sondheim on Sondheim Lyrics
- My Name Is Stephen Joshua Sondheim
- Invocation/Forget War
- Love Is in the Air
- Comedy Tonight
- Take Me to the World
- Ten Years After I Was Born...
- Talent/When I Get Famous
- Something’s Coming
- My First Professional Show...
- So Many People
- For Many Years, Hal Prince...
- You Could Drive a Person Crazy
- The Wedding Is Off
- Now You Know
- Hal Prince and I Did Six Shows Together...
- Franklin Shepard, Inc.
- Good Thing Going
- Sometimes a Song Changes Its Shape...
- Waiting for the Girls Upstairs
- The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened
- My First Serious Relationship...
- Happiness
- Fosca’s Entrance (I Read)
- Is This What You Call Love?
- Loving You
- God
- If You Ask Me to Write a Love Song...
- Losing My Mind / Not a Day Goes By
- A Lot of People Think...
- Opening Doors
- We Had Three Endings to Company...
- Multitudes of Amys
- Happily Ever After
- Being Alive
- Something Just Broke
- The Gun Song
- Jule Styne and I Realized with Gypsy...
- Smile, Girls
- I Suppose If There Is One That’s Closest...
- Finishing the Hat
- Beautiful
- I Had a Lot of Trouble with My Mother...
- Children Will Listen
- To Me, Teaching Is a Sacred Profession...
- Send in the Clowns
- I’ve Often Been Asked Why I Don’t Write...
- Company/Old Friends
- Anyone Can Whistle