Read Online Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz by Greg Lawrence, John Kander, Fred Ebb - Free Book Online Page A
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said, “Can I make that phone call?” So I called Liza and told her she had the part.
KANDER: Then Mr. Abbott fell completely in love with her.
EBB: Within a couple of weeks of rehearsals, he became her devoted slave.
KANDER: He really did. He would come back and sit in her dressing room night after night. He loved young talent. That really excited him. On Liza’s birthday, Mr. Abbott came waltzing into a rehearsal with a cake, which was something he would never ordinarily do.
EBB: He loved the kind of singer she was. She could belt out that Karen Morrow thing.
KANDER: By the time we met him, he was slightly deaf. But he could certainly hear Liza.
EBB: I don’t think she was ever less than aware of how important this show was for her, and Mr. Abbott was very protective of her. He insisted that Liza have an eleven o’clock number that we wrote out of town, “Sing Happy.” She had to have a big song at the end.
KANDER: He was right. “Sing Happy” was the story of a woman who is literally having a nervous breakdown, whose world has collapsed around her, so that it was really screaming at somebody. The right way to do the song is in the context of the show. There was a concert in London once and a guy was singing
it. He was singing it very well, but it didn’t have a lot of meaning until I told him what the character in the show was feeling, and then he sang it and took your head off:
Sing me a happy song about robins in spring.
Sing me a happy song with a happy ending,
Some cheerful roundelay about catching the ring.
Sing happy.
Sing me a sonnet all about rolling in gold;
Some peppy melody about rainbows blending,
Nothing with phrases saying you’re out in the cold.
Sing happy.
Tell me tomorrow’s gonna be peaches and cream.
Assure me clouds are lined with a silver lining.
Say how you realize an impossible dream.
Sing me a happy song.
Play me a madrigal about trips to the moon,
Or some old ballad all about two eyes shining;
It can’t be loud enough or a moment too soon,
Sing happy.
No need reminding me that it all fell apart,
I need no lyric singing of stormy weather;
There’s quite enough around me that’s breaking my heart,
Sing happy.
Give me a hallelujah and get up and shout,
Tell me the sun is shining around the corner;
Whoever’s interested in helping me out,
Please keep it happy
I’m only in the market for long, loud laughter,
I’ll let you serenade me ’til dawn comes along;
Just make it a happy,
Keep it a happy song!
EBB: Another director might not have thought in terms of giving Liza a big number like that, but Mr. Abbott did because she was Liza and because of her notoriety. There was something notorious about her getting the role because she was Judy Garland’s daughter.
KANDER: In writing for her, I don’t think we ever thought in terms of her mother. We only thought of Judy as a kind of specter hanging over Liza. She was a controversial figure, and I guess in some ways still is. People would cruelly write that she was only getting work because she was her mother’s daughter. That was always there, and I think Liza was terribly aware of it.
EBB: Judy came to the opening night of Flora . We had written the song “You Are You,” and one of the lyrics was “You are not Myrna Loy, Myrna Loy is Myrna Loy. You are you.” After the show, Judy came backstage and said to me, “Listen, I have a suggestion for that song. ‘You are not Judy Garland, Judy Garland is Judy Garland. You are you.’ That’s what it should be.” Then she turned around and walked away. I thought, my God, how amazing that she would say a thing like that. I later told Liza, and she was humiliated.
KANDER: She had the curse of being Judy Garland’s daughter. She was always afraid that her mother would be in the audience and overshadow her. With the first nightclub act that she did, there was a question whether Judy was going to be there or not, and as I recall, Liza tried to
KANDER: Then Mr. Abbott fell completely in love with her.
EBB: Within a couple of weeks of rehearsals, he became her devoted slave.
KANDER: He really did. He would come back and sit in her dressing room night after night. He loved young talent. That really excited him. On Liza’s birthday, Mr. Abbott came waltzing into a rehearsal with a cake, which was something he would never ordinarily do.
EBB: He loved the kind of singer she was. She could belt out that Karen Morrow thing.
KANDER: By the time we met him, he was slightly deaf. But he could certainly hear Liza.
EBB: I don’t think she was ever less than aware of how important this show was for her, and Mr. Abbott was very protective of her. He insisted that Liza have an eleven o’clock number that we wrote out of town, “Sing Happy.” She had to have a big song at the end.
KANDER: He was right. “Sing Happy” was the story of a woman who is literally having a nervous breakdown, whose world has collapsed around her, so that it was really screaming at somebody. The right way to do the song is in the context of the show. There was a concert in London once and a guy was singing
it. He was singing it very well, but it didn’t have a lot of meaning until I told him what the character in the show was feeling, and then he sang it and took your head off:
Sing me a happy song about robins in spring.
Sing me a happy song with a happy ending,
Some cheerful roundelay about catching the ring.
Sing happy.
Sing me a sonnet all about rolling in gold;
Some peppy melody about rainbows blending,
Nothing with phrases saying you’re out in the cold.
Sing happy.
Tell me tomorrow’s gonna be peaches and cream.
Assure me clouds are lined with a silver lining.
Say how you realize an impossible dream.
Sing me a happy song.
Play me a madrigal about trips to the moon,
Or some old ballad all about two eyes shining;
It can’t be loud enough or a moment too soon,
Sing happy.
No need reminding me that it all fell apart,
I need no lyric singing of stormy weather;
There’s quite enough around me that’s breaking my heart,
Sing happy.
Give me a hallelujah and get up and shout,
Tell me the sun is shining around the corner;
Whoever’s interested in helping me out,
Please keep it happy
I’m only in the market for long, loud laughter,
I’ll let you serenade me ’til dawn comes along;
Just make it a happy,
Keep it a happy song!
EBB: Another director might not have thought in terms of giving Liza a big number like that, but Mr. Abbott did because she was Liza and because of her notoriety. There was something notorious about her getting the role because she was Judy Garland’s daughter.
KANDER: In writing for her, I don’t think we ever thought in terms of her mother. We only thought of Judy as a kind of specter hanging over Liza. She was a controversial figure, and I guess in some ways still is. People would cruelly write that she was only getting work because she was her mother’s daughter. That was always there, and I think Liza was terribly aware of it.
EBB: Judy came to the opening night of Flora . We had written the song “You Are You,” and one of the lyrics was “You are not Myrna Loy, Myrna Loy is Myrna Loy. You are you.” After the show, Judy came backstage and said to me, “Listen, I have a suggestion for that song. ‘You are not Judy Garland, Judy Garland is Judy Garland. You are you.’ That’s what it should be.” Then she turned around and walked away. I thought, my God, how amazing that she would say a thing like that. I later told Liza, and she was humiliated.
KANDER: She had the curse of being Judy Garland’s daughter. She was always afraid that her mother would be in the audience and overshadow her. With the first nightclub act that she did, there was a question whether Judy was going to be there or not, and as I recall, Liza tried to
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