Song of the Day 12/4: Jim Bryant, “Something’s Coming”
El Somnambulo insisted I feature this tune today. I have no idea why, but when a man in a luchador mask tells you to do something, you do it.
Though Richard Beymer portrayed Tony in the film, his singing was dubbed by Jim Bryant. The music is by Leonard Bernstein, lately portrayed by Bradley Cooper in a prosthetic nose, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was Sondheim’s first Broadway show, and he later expressed his dissatisfaction with the lyrics – he thought he made the characters sound too erudite for street kids.
A new production was filmed in 2021 with Spielberg as director, and Ansel Elgort singing his own songs as Tony. Sondheim didn’t change any of the lyrics.
Hmmm, why EVER would I request such a song? Could it be:
1. Yet another blatant and desperate attempt to snag page views?
2. A salute to the new Bernstein biopic?
Or:
3. A harbinger of some sensational political news (no, not Collin’s entry into the Governor’s race, although that indeed is big news)?
I can’t say for sure, but, if you hang around this blog tomorrow, the answer may, or may not, become clear…
BTW, the lyric Sondheim really hated was the one for ‘I Feel Pretty’.
He also regretted that he couldn’t drop the ‘F’ bomb’ in ‘Gee Officer Krupke’.
From a CBS interview:
“There are moments in it that embarrass me. I’ll give you a poetic one. Says Tony in ‘Tonight,’ ‘today the world was just an address.’ I thought, ‘wait a minute, that sure sounds like he’s been reading a lot to me.’ I can’t imagine that a kid would say, having just met this girl and being, you know, the kind of kid he is, a street kid, would come up with a phrase that fancy.”