I Guess It Was 5 A.M. Lyrics - Sunset Boulevard

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

This opener does not waste syllables. The orchestra lays out the film-noir palette - strings in a watchful swell, brass pricking the air - while Joe Gillis arrives as the wry narrator who already knows the ending. Alan Campbell speaks the lines with clipped, reporterly rhythm; the music keeps glancing back at themes you’ll hear again later. It’s less a standalone song than a fuse: once it’s lit, the plot can’t pretend innocence.

Highlights

• Musical DNA: Symphonic theatre writing with cinematic pacing; orchestration glides from hushed suspense to brisk city energy.
• Character POV: Joe’s voiceover frames the entire show like a news item - dry humor shielding desperation.
• World-building: The overture threads motives that will reappear under new emotional lights - classic Webber architecture.
• Stagecraft: Many productions “paint” water with light during the prologue, echoing the pool from Wilder’s film.
• Key takeaway: This track sets rules of engagement: we’ll move like a movie, but feel like theatre.

Creation History

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, adapted from Billy Wilder’s 1950 film. The American Premiere Recording captured the Los Angeles cast in 1994, with Paul Bogaev as music director and orchestrations by David Cullen and Webber. Producer credits on the album list Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nigel Wright. The opener fuses overture and voiceover - a deliberate homage to the movie’s famous first minutes - while stage productions often simulate rippling pool light to place us at the crime scene.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

It’s early morning on Sunset. Sirens, headlines, and one dead body in a movie star’s pool. Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, breaks the news before the papers do and winds the clock back six months. His career’s on fumes, his car is hidden to dodge the finance men, and his options narrow to two: luck or retreat. He chooses neither, and that’s the problem.

Song Meaning

The piece frames the show as confession. Joe positions himself as your guide - a reliable witness who knows how Hollywood distorts truth - then undercuts that with irony. He’s selling his story, too. The mood is cool, sardonic, and already suspicious of mythmaking. Contextually it ties the musical to old Hollywood - where image wins and truth is edited in the cutting room - while the orchestra keeps suggesting danger beneath style.

Annotations

“The musical opens with an adaptation of Joe’s opening narration from the film... the homicide squad, complete with detectives and newspaper men.”

Right - the stage trades literal camera angles for lighting and motion. Productions often mimic the glint of water so the pool becomes a character before we meet Norma. That swap - camera for orchestra - is the show’s thesis: theatre can be just as “cinematic,” but it earns its close-ups with sound and light, not lenses.

“I’d had a contract down at Fox, but I’d fallen foul of Darryl.”

The Darryl is Zanuck - a name-check that pins Joe’s woes to the real studio system. The lyric sits like a receipt: a single line that opens a whole filing cabinet on power, access, and the speed at which a writer can be erased.

Production and instrumentation

Strings carry the noir mist; muted brass sketch police motion; woodwinds flick small, nervous details; percussion ticks like an editor’s stopwatch. It’s lush, but never indulgent - a prologue that promises melody and menace in equal measure.

Emotional arc

Starts factual and tight, grows sly and self-protective, lands on a strange calm. He knows what’s coming. We don’t - not yet.

Cultural touchpoints

Names like “Darryl” and “Paramount” are functional history markers; the writing assumes the audience knows enough to keep up. The show uses that shorthand to critique the machine while reveling in its glamour.

Key Facts

• Artist: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Campbell
• Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Lyricists/Book: Don Black, Christopher Hampton
• Producer (album): Andrew Lloyd Webber, Nigel Wright
• Music Director: Paul Bogaev
• Orchestrations: Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Cullen
• Album: Sunset Boulevard (1994 Los Angeles Cast) - American Premiere Recording
• Label: Polydor / Really Useful Records
• Release Date: 1994
• Length: 2:49
• Genre: Musicals, symphonic theatre
• Mood: noir, cool-headed, quietly ominous
• Language: English
• Track #: 1
• Instruments: strings, brass, woodwinds, keyboards, guitar, bass, drums
• Music style: cinematic overture fused with spoken narrative
• Poetic meter: prose voiceover with clipped journalistic cadence

Questions and Answers

Why open with narration instead of a full song?

Because the story is a confession. A reporterly voice makes the audience complicit and signals the show’s film-noir roots.

Where does the orchestral material go later in the score?

Motifs seeded here bloom in numbers like “With One Look,” “Sunset Boulevard,” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” often reharmonized for new dramatic stakes.

Is Joe reliable?

Only partly. He warns us about Hollywood spin while selling us a clean narrative. That tension powers the evening.

What does the “Darryl” reference add?

It nails the period and stakes. One studio boss’s displeasure can end a career; Joe’s cynicism isn’t abstract.

How do productions suggest the swimming pool onstage?

With lighting and reflective textures that ripple over the set, letting the orchestra do what a camera once did.

Awards and Chart Positions

• Tony Awards 1995 - Best Musical: Sunset Boulevard
• Tony Awards 1995 - Best Original Score: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black, Christopher Hampton
• Tony Awards 1995 - Best Book of a Musical: Don Black, Christopher Hampton
• Tony Awards 1995 - Best Actress in a Musical: Glenn Close
• Tony Awards 1995 - Best Featured Actor in a Musical: George Hearn
• Tony Awards 1995 - Design wins: Scenic Design (John Napier) and Lighting Design (Andrew Bridge)

How to Sing “Overture/I Guess It Was 5 AM”

Voice type and range: Joe Gillis is a high baritone, commonly notated around A2 to G4. On this track, the delivery is chiefly spoken on pitch with occasional inflected tones.

Technique: Think broadcast clarity over belting. Keep consonants crisp, breaths shallow and frequent, and ride the orchestra’s phrasing so your lines land between swells. Pacing matters more than vibrato.

Breath & tempo: Moderate tempo; plan micro-breaths at punctuation. The trick is sounding unhurried while staying tightly aligned to the underscoring.

Color & attitude: Dry, unsentimental, a hint of gallows humor. You’re a writer filing copy before the tabloids get it wrong.

Additional Info

• Alan Campbell originated Joe in Los Angeles and on Broadway opposite Glenn Close; the 1994 American Premiere Recording doubles as the Broadway-era document, even though it’s billed from Los Angeles.
• Orchestrations credit David Cullen with Andrew Lloyd Webber; Paul Bogaev conducts the Sunset Boulevard Orchestra on the recording.
• The Brazilian production (2019) used a Portuguese translation by Mariana Elisabetsky and Victor Mühlethaler, localizing lines like this opener for São Paulo audiences.