All That's Known Lyrics - Spring Awakening

Song Overview

“All That’s Known” sits at track 3 of Spring Awakening and sketches Melchior Gabor’s worldview in under three minutes: a restless student hears Latin hexameters in class, rejects dogma, and chooses inquiry. Structurally, it is a rock pulse under a scholastic chant, a collision that defines the show’s grammar. The Original Broadway Cast album dropped on December 12, 2006 via Decca Broadway, with Duncan Sheik producing alongside executive producers Joan Cullman, Patricia Flicker, and Chris Roberts. Recording took place in early October 2006; Greg Calbi mastered.

Review and Highlights

I hear two rooms at once. In the foreground, a mid-tempo groove in G minor pushes forward on clean guitars, piano, and drum kit; underneath, the boys chant the opening of Virgil’s Aeneid in Latin. Melchior sings over that friction, railing against rote “wisdom.” The hook is not a soaring chorus but a stance. When he repeats “You watch me, just watch me,” the band tightens and the harmony opens just enough to feel like a door cracking. It is manifesto set to backbeat.

Creation History

Composer Duncan Sheik and lyricist Steven Sater developed the score through the mid-2000s, cutting the cast album just weeks before Broadway opening. Decca released it Dec 12, 2006; the credits list Sheik as producer, with executive producers Chris Roberts, Joan Cullman, and Patricia Flicker, engineering by Michael Tudor, mastering by Greg Calbi.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

During a Latin lesson, Melchior sees his friend Moritz chewed up by a rigid classroom. He pushes back, gets shut down, and sings. The live world is a classroom; the inner world is a rock song that keeps its shoulders square.

Song Meaning

Melchior is staking out intellectual autonomy. The vocal line climbs in declarative steps rather than swoops, matching a lyric that favors will over wonder: “trust my own true mind” is the core thesis. The Latin chant isn’t a joke; it is history’s weight at his back, and he plans to learn it while refusing its misuse.

Annotations

“All that’s known in History, in Science / Overthrown at school, at home, by blind men.”

That couplet frames the target: institutions that punish doubt. The fan gloss notes how “blind men” signal a culture that treats independent thought as suspect. I agree, and the track’s steady drum pattern underscores the relentlessness of that pressure.

“All they say is ‘Trust in what is written’”

The annotation links this to the Bible; in performance it lands broader - any doctrine that refuses interrogation. The guitar’s clipped, almost percussive rhythm functions like a metronome of conformity.

The boys chant: “…Arma virumque cano… Italiam fato profugus…”

The source text is Virgil’s Aeneid, book 1. Folding epic Latin into alt-rock is the show’s trick: adolescent doubt against received canon. That doubling gives Melchior a counter-melody of empire to push through.

Style, context, instrumentation

The song fuses contemporary musical theater and mid-2000s alt-rock: dry drums, piano doubling guitar figures, and strings used as grit rather than gloss. In the original Broadway pit the forces were small - guitars, strings, keys, and percussion - which kept the backbeat intimate while the Latin chant gave scale.

Emotional arc

It starts contained, almost essayistic, then hardens: “You watch me” is not a plea; it is a dare. There is no cathartic belt, only resolve. That restraint is the point.

Key Facts

• Artist: Jonathan Groff
• Composer: Duncan Sheik
• Lyricist: Steven Sater
• Producers: Duncan Sheik; executive producers Joan Cullman, Patricia Flicker, Chris Roberts
• Release Date: December 12, 2006
• Label: Decca Broadway
• Album: Spring Awakening Original Broadway Cast Recording
• Track #: 3
• Language: English with Latin quotations from Virgil
• Music style: Alternative rock musical with chanted classical text
• Instruments: guitars, piano/keys, strings, bass, drums

Questions and Answers

When did Jonathan Groff’s recording of “All That’s Known” come out?

With the Original Broadway Cast album on December 12, 2006.

Who wrote it?

Music by Duncan Sheik, lyrics by Steven Sater.

Who produced the track?

Duncan Sheik produced the cast recording; executive producers are Joan Cullman, Patricia Flicker, and Chris Roberts, with engineering by Michael Tudor and mastering by Greg Calbi.

Why the Latin?

The boys chant the opening of Virgil’s Aeneid, anchoring Melchior’s rebellion inside the very canon he refuses to worship blindly.

Does the song appear in later screen projects?

The 2022 HBO documentary Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known captures the original cast’s reunion concert and includes performance excerpts from the score.

Awards and Chart Positions

The Original Broadway Cast album that includes “All That’s Known” won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.

In the 2006-07 season, the Broadway production took 8 Tony Awards, including Best Score for Sheik and Sater, marking the show’s near-instant canonization.

The cast album also interrupted Wicked’s long run atop Billboard’s Top Cast Albums chart during its initial wave.

How to Sing “All That’s Known”

Range & key. The ABRSM Musical Theatre syllabus lists “All That’s Known” in G minor with a working range around C4-E5, while some analyses of the OBC cut show a baritenor span closer to C3-E4. That spread reflects transpositions and edition differences, so check your chart.

Tempo & feel. Moderate, with a steady rock pocket. Do not rush the Latin underneath you; lock your eighths and let text lead time.

Placement. Keep the verse speech-centric and forward; save width for “You watch me.” The payoff is conviction, not volume.

Diction. English stays conversational; Latin should be clean and percussive. Treat the chant as rhythm section, not aria.

Acting beat. Every “I know” sits on choice. If you sing it like a lecture, it dies; if you sing it like a dare, it lands.

Additional Info

Language adaptations underline the song’s portability. The Vienna German cast records it as “Diese Welt,” and Brazilian productions sing “Tudo Que É Sagrado.” Both keep the Latin thread, framing the same argument in local idiom.

The original cast reunited in 2021 for a one-night concert documented in HBO’s Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known - a reminder that the score, and this song’s thesis, still bite.