BEING ALIVE
(Showtune, Standard; 1970)

After a classic song has been written, performed and recorded, it is usually impossible to intuit the creative torments that plagued the songwriter before the final and finely polished finished result.  One such song is the musical theater master STEPHEN SONDHEIM’s masterpiece BEING ALIVE for the Finale of his groundbreaking 1970 masterwork Company which was entirely rewritten four times before it was finally acceptable to Sondheim and his as legendary Company collaborators Hal Prince and Michael Bennett who were the co-directors and, coincidentally, the producer (Prince) and choreographer (Bennett). 

By the year 1970, STEPHEN SONDHEIM was among the most celebrated of the American Musical Theater’s leading luminaries.  Personally tutored and (after his parents bitterly divorced) surrogate-fathered by none other than music theater immortal Oscar Hammerstein II, Sondheim was an extensively-educated, ambitious, accomplished and impassioned composer who was initially accorded international acclaim as a lyricist only (!) for the iconic American Musical classics West Side Story (1957 - music by Leonard Bernstein - 732 performances ) and Gypsy (1959 - music by Jule Styne - 702 performances ) before his first major success as both composer and lyricist for the 1962 Broadway smash hit A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (964 performances and 6 Tony Awards ® including Best Musical) firmly secured his place at the pinnacle of Musical Theater preeminence.

The stage was then set for the extraordinary genius of STEPHEN SONDHEIM to indelibly transform the American Musical, and, after the seismic April 26, 1970 opening night when Company began its 706 performance Broadway run, the art form was fully and forever transfigured - with Company, Sondheim had created the definitive and defining “concept musical” which would now be the new and permanent template that integrated the entirety of the theater arts (music, lyrics, book, choreography, orchestration, set, lighting and costume design, etc.) with non-linear story-telling which relied more on style, nuance and implication than straight exposition and less on “headline stars” and “hit songs” to ensure commercial success.  (Company would also win 6 Tony Awards ® - Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, Best Scenic Design, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Lyrics - among 14 nominations and 5 Drama Desk Awards for its Book, Lyrics, Music, Set Design and Direction.)

Interestingly, the musical score, despite its colossal innovation, required relatively little rewriting with the exception of the exceptional BEING ALIVE and the breathtaking tour de farce GETTING MARRIED TODAY sung by the character Amy which, as the originally titled THE WEDDING IS OFF, was rejected by Sondheim himself when he could not fix the lyrics to his satisfaction and then, as GETTING MARRIED TODAY, was constantly reworked in rehearsal before the punning and punishing tongue-twisting text could be comfortably and convincingly performed.  

As to BEING ALIVE, it was to be the end-of-the-show summing-up song sung by the main character, Robert, who, while throughout the piece had remained implacably incapable of personal commitment, had now begun to realize that

“...alone is alone, not alive,”

and that he needs:

“Someone to hold you too close,
Someone to hurt you too deep,
Someone to sit in your chair,
To ruin your sleep,
To make you aware
Of being alive,”

and further,

“Someone you have to let in,
Someone whose feelings you spare,
Someone who like it or not,
Will want you to share
A little a lot,
Is being alive,
Being alive.”

The first song, however, written and then discarded for the Company Finale was titled MULTITUDES OF AMYS for a scene where Robert actually proposes marriage to the Amy character and includes these sublime Sondheim lyrics:

“Multitudes of Amys
Crowd the streets below.
Avenues of Amys,
Officefuls of Amys
Ev’rywhere I go.
Wonder what it means,
Ho-ho,
I wonder what it means.
I see them waiting for the lights,
Running for the bus,
Milling in the stores
And hailing cabs
And disappearing
through revolving doors.
Multitudes of Amys,
Ev’rywhere I look.
Sentences of Amys,
Paragraphs of Amys,
Filling ev’ry book.
Wonder if it means
I’ve gone to pieces.
Ev’ry other word
I speak
is something she says.
Walls hang with pictures of Amys,
Galaxies of Amys
dot the night skies,
Girls pass and look at me
with Amy’s eyes.
I’ve seen an audience of Amys
Watch a cast of Amys
act in a play,
Seems there are more of her
ev’ry day.
What can it mean?
What can it mean?
I’ve caught a stadium of Amys
Standing up to cheer,
Choruses of Amys,
Symphonies of Amys
Ringing in my ear.
I know what it means,
Hey, Amy,
I know what it means.
Oh, wow!
I’m ready,
I’m ready,
I’m ready now!"

Sondheim described what then transpired with MULTITUDES OF AMYS in pre-production:

 “(This was) the earliest of four attempts both to communicate the still evolving self-awareness of the central character (Robert) and be a satisfying culmination of Act Two.  However, (book writer) George Furth transferred the situation in which it was to be sung - Robert’s proposal to Amy - to Act One and the song had to be replaced.  ‘Marry Me a Little’ and, subsequently, ‘Happily Ever After’ were written and then cut before I wrote ‘Being Alive’ to fulfill that moment in the show.)”

The next song written for the Company Finale was titled MARRY ME A LITTLE, and, incorporating the ending idea from MULTITUDES OF AMYS, Robert sings these beginning lyrics:

“Marry me a little,
Love me just enough.
Cry, but not too often,
Play, but not too rough.
Keep a tender distance,
So we’ll both be free.
That’s the way it ought to be.
I’m ready!
Marry me a little,
Do it with a will.
Make a few demands I’m
able to fulfill.
Want me more than others,
Not exclusively.
That’s the way it ought to be.
I’m ready!
I’m ready now!"

MARRY ME A LITTLE was also excised (and then in 1981 became the title song of a hit off-Broadway revue of “cut” Sondheim songs and fourteen years later was reinstated into the authorized version of Company).  As Sondheim would explain:

“‘Marry Me a Little’ was my second try at a final song for the show.  I was halfway through writing it when I began to feel that it was too self-knowing for the character of Robert at the end of the play.  Nevertheless, I completed it as a favor for a friend who loved it.  When we revisited Company for its first major Broadway production since the original run, the song seemed better suited to end Act One and was restored to the show’s official version.”

Next came HAPPILY EVER AFTER which begins with these prescient lyrics:

“Someone to hold you too close,
Someone to hurt you too deep,
Someone to love you too hard,
Happily ever after.
Someone to need you too much,
Someone to read you too well,
Someone to bleed you of all
The things you don’t want to tell –
That’s happily ever after,
Ever, ever, ever after -
in hell."

This song actually made it into the production, and at the time, as Sondheim remembered:

“‘Happily Ever After’ was my third attempt at a concluding song for Company.  It was in the show at the Boston tryout.  After a few performances, Hal (Prince) persuaded me that it was too sour a note with which to end the show and that the same thoughts could be expressed optimistically.  Hence, and finally, ‘Being Alive.’”

And its flawless climactic lyrics:

“Somebody need me too much,
Somebody know me too well;
Somebody pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support
For being alive,
Make me alive,
Make me alive.
Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone
is alone,
Not alive.
Somebody crowd me with love,
Somebody force me to care.
Somebody let me come through,
I’ll always be there
As frightened as you
To help us survive
Being alive,
Being alive,
Being alive!"

After Company, composer-lyricist STEPHEN SONDHEIM and producer-director Harold Prince would collaborate on five other seminal, art form-altering classic American musicals (that together would earn totals of 24 Tony Awards ®, and 25 Drama Desk Awards): Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd (1979) and Merrily We Roll Along (1981), and Sondheim would go on to create Sunday in the Park with George (1984) - for which he won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama - along with Into the Woods (1987), Assassins (1991) and Passion (1994) that would amass another total of 14 Tony Awards ® and 22 Drama Desk Awards.

In the three decades since the momentous Broadway premiere of Company, MULTITUDES OF AMYS, MARRY ME A LITTLE and HAPPILY EVER AFTER have, with other classic Company songs such as ANOTHER HUNDRED PEOPLE, GETTING MARRIED TODAY, SIDE BY SIDE BY SIDE, SORRY - GRATEFUL and THE LADIES WHO LUNCH become well-established and much-performed and recorded American Songbook standards, and BEING ALIVE has even surpassed the song standard standard as a presently imperishable international anthem with hundreds of recordings recorded by an incomparable pantheon of record, cabaret and theater perennials that include Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Bernadette Peters, Mandy Patinkin, Dean Jones, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Patti Lupone, Julie Andrews, Julie Budd, Laurie Beechman, Michael Crawford, Larry Kert, Margaret Whiting, Ute Lemper, Cleo Laine, Steve Lawrence, Julius LaRosa, Sean McDermott, Andre Kostelanetz, Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops Orchestra, etc., etc., etc.