Melissa Errico, with Concord Theatricals, launches 14 brand new short #SIXTYSECONDSONDHEIM films which are a song-by-song-by-Sondheim sequence of her new album “Sondheim In The City,” called by The New York Times “a New York house tour of thrill and heartbreak.” The short films are a continuation of the #sixtysecondsondheim video series first released in conjunction with Melissa’s 2018 album ‘Sondheim Sublime’ undertaken as personal ruminations and studies of Sondheim’s style. In a prismatic study of Manhattan, she looks at what makes each song a masterful Sondheim classic and a part of her imaginary city.
“Dawn” (from the unproduced film, Singing Out Loud) is the opening track #1 of the album
From Company, one of Sondheim’s most well-known musicals, “Another Hundred People” is the classic Sondheim New York song.
“Who Wants To Live In New York/What More Do I Need?” is a little portmanteau of two songs that seem to work together so well.
“Take Me To The World,” written for the TV musical Evening Primrose, is very much a song about the longing for the real world we all feel.
“Can That Boy Fox Trot!”, a joke on kind of the double entendre songs that were sung in saucy cabarets in the 1920s, was written for the stage musical Follies.
“Anyone Can Whistle,” from the show Anyone Can Whistle, is the one place in this record we went outside of literal New York into the more broadly defined imaginative New York that Steve always lived in.
“Everybody Says Don’t” is another song from Anyone Can Whistle. Not literally New York, but imaginatively and mythically New York in the most powerful way.
“Good Thing Going” is, along with “Send in the Clowns”, one of Steve’s two pop hits.
“Broadway Baby” is a song about professional aspiration. It’s another song from the stage musical Follies, and the ninth track of the album.
“Uptown Downtown” is another cut song from Follies, and probably the single most virtuosic sequence of rhyming in all of Sondheim’s work.
“It Wasn’t Meant To Happen”, another cut song from Follies! It’s a classic statement of the power of denial to move us.
“The Little Things You Do Together” is from Company. It’s one of the Classic songs of New York malice and it’s Sondheim at his most openly satiric and sarcastic.
“Sorry Grateful” is an absolutely perfect song from the musical Company.
“Being Alive” is a beautiful soliloquy from Company. The last of many attempts to end the musical on a sufficiently high, soaring, and emotional note; and the last track of this album.