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Showstoppers.

(NOTE: Immediately off the table- anything made in the last ten years. These all need some time to mature.)



We'll call them Showstoppers. Songs that once done in a movie or stage show that makes everything that came before them merely the setup for the song, and everything that comes after lame and pointless.



Let's establish some criteria for the species. A standard by which we can measure the animal and decide if it belongs in the class or not.



The song must be iconic, something that transcends the stage or screen and takes on a life of its own. Hence the Louis Armstrong intro.



The song must be able to stand on its own, outside of its show, and beyond its time on the marque.



Also, it must be an actual replicable musical number, not a one off that can never be done again, perhaps not even repeated by the same artist. Yes, it may have been done best by somebody, as many of our examples are, but the song can be done equally well by somebody else, and in some of our examples, have been.





People's Exhibit One for this category. Perhaps the original. First done on Broadway in the nineteen twenties, it is seen in this clip in the 1936 movie production of Showboat, it is, Old Man River as delivered by the massively voiced Paul Robeson (1898 - 1976)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9WayN7R-s



Song by Kern and Hammerstein
 
Exhibit Two.



You can call it the Quest, you can call it The Impossible Dream, you can call it That Song From Don Quixote, what you cannot call it is just another song in a musical.



Here we see him singing to a remarkably beautiful peasant woman, who just happens to be Sophia Loren, but we're sure that all Spanish peasant women look like that.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow


A side note about this presentation, it is a voice over. Peter O'Toole, who was playing the Knight, didn't sing it. An opera singer named Simon Gilbert did the spectacular vocalizing of the Quest. Oh well, it doesn't matter in the least, it is a icon of musical theater.



Song by Leigh and Darion for the 1965 stage production.
 
Three:



There are other songs in the musical Cats, but if you asked anybody to name another one, they'd probably stand there and stutter. With good reason. Memory is the only reason anybody goes to the show. Once the song is performed, everybody goes home.



Elaine Page's version from the Broadway show is probably the definitive version of the song written by the original director of the 1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber production, Trevor Nunn.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVH39yj26a0
 
Our Fourth Number is from another landmark musical later made into a film, and the first comedy on the list. Lerner and Loewe's 1951 production Paint Your Wagon gives us They Call The Wind Mariah. The clip below is from the 1969 film presentation of the number by another opera singer, Harve Presnell.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DrOqRQQ9mg



This song was the musical high point of the film. The low point was when Clint Eastwood made an attempt to sing to the trees, and that's enough said about that.
 
We're going to include two numbers by one Star next, and dare you to disagree.



Gene Kelly is known for his dancing far more than his singing, but so it goes. In these two, he sings. And dances.



An American In Paris gave us a Gershwin song that everybody knows, but they don't know where it came from.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvglHa_P9BA


sidebar:

If you have time, check out the ballet number (the 'pas de deux') with the lovely Leslie Caron where they dance around the fountain. You'll be glad you did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlvzGT1Ta2w


And this one is simply what it is and there is no other reason for the movie it was in to exist. The performance is as iconic as any on our list and should lead one to have new respect for umbrellas.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ


Singing in the Rain from the 1951 movie by Comden and Green.


Now this one introduces a new element: The Song was around for years and years before anybody thought about putting it in a movie. And when they did, it was done by everybody else, including the old master Jimmy Durante in 1932 long before Mr. Kelly got around to doing it. As for who originally wrote the thing, your guess may be as good as theirs.



But nevertheless, it was Kelly's version everybody thinks about when they hear the title.
 
Hair comes in in next just because it does. Aquarius, the opening number of the show was perhaps a bigger hit on the radio and in concerts than the play or film ever were.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9oq_IskRIg


In the movie version it was delivered by the spectacular voice of Renn Woods, and yes, she did finally get the toilet paper out of her hair!



(all puns available at no extra charge)
 
Grease brings a couple of possible entries onto our list. Of course the title song from the movie written by Barry Gibb. But it has always been, first and last, tied to the movie, and by our criteria it stops there.



But there was another song in the movie that transcended the musical. It packed up its bag and left the show on Broadway, and the movie theater, and went on tour with Olivia Newton John. Which is a good thing no matter how you slice it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN1gi8oq74g



The song was added to a family friendly version of the show when it moved from its off-broadway R-rated edition to The Great White Way in 1972. But the original love song called kiss it probably needed to be left in Chicago where it ran in the early days. No matter who sang it, it would not have been on our list as a SHOWSTOPPER.
 
How about an Opera?


Or rather, the Phantom thereof?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5dhyiqhR7Y


NO. Andrew Lloyd Webber did NOT write Phantom. The original was from 1909 by a Frenchman named Gaston Leroux. However, that being said, Webber's 1986 production has become the definitive version of the now hundred year old show.



Yes, there are other songs in the Phantom of the Opera. And your point is... what?
 
Yes, you over there, you had a question?



What about 'Mary Poppins'? And 'Sound of Music'?


Excellent point. What about them?

OK, here we go.

Please keep your arms and legs inside the car until the ride comes to a complete stop.


Now. Pick one song from Poppins to include. Which one of the iconic songs from Sound would you list?


You can't. Half the songs from each of those shows, and we can throw Music Man into the mix for good measure, could easily be on our list.


Now, is it because none of them hit the mark like, say, Impossible Dream or Memory?


No. While we could make the argument that no individual song from any of these three shows is as epic as any of our first handful, that could immediately be countered by the considerable weight of 'epicness' of any these shows as a whole.



Sound of Music has, as an entity, transcended itself. If parody and imitation are the sincerest form of flattery, then it is in a class by itself. Except for perhaps Mary Poppins which was even featured in the opening ceremony of a recent Olympics. Not to mention how many people know the song about the trombones but have no idea it is from the same show that featured Goodnight Ladies by the Buffalo Bills.



So it is clear that we have uncovered another category. Iconic Musicals where most, if not the entire Song List, takes on a life of its own. But that is another article.
 
The Almost, but not quite songs.


Once upon a time, big budget star studded disaster movies were all the rage at the box office. There was the Airport series, not to be confused with the airplane farce. And you have to remember the Towering Inferno. And then there was something about a bunch of bees called the Swarm by Irwin Allen.



But before Mr. Allen got bug bitten, he went on a cruise on the SS Poseidon, with this song playing in the background.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcLazPauA1c


Miss Diana Ross brings an interesting point relevant to our discussion with her song


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOH6SzDX3l4


Do you know where you're going to? from the 1975 movie Mahogany.



And before we wade in, one more.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18GTVeXNWfg


I don't know to love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar, which was better done by Helen Reddy.



These head up the list of, also rans. Almost, so close. But, just, really, not quite.



They would be the second team, songs to be called up if one of the others couldn't play that day.



Another good example is the theme from Ice Castles, which is always listed as the theme from Ice Castles. The Melissa Manchester song is good, in some respects, it was better than the tear-jerking movie. But Through the Eyes of Love just doesn't quite make it on its own, at least not when stacked up against the ones we're talking about.



Same for the love theme from Superman which also had a title of Can You Read My Mind. Yeah, it was good, but outside of the movie, it just doesn't hold its own water.
 
Back to the Showstoppers:


Who sang Don't Cry For Me Argentina from Evita better?


Elaine Paige on Broadway:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciOalICSUAo


Or Madonna in the 1997 film version?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA1QHtFkH48


Does it matter? BOTH are excellent.
 
This one brings almost every production to a standstill for a prolonged round of applause since it deputed on Broadway in 1964, when it won nine Tony awards.



This is from the 1971 movie with Topol as the singing milk man.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc



It too, has become an icon that has moved into an orbit somewhere over that occupied by the production based in the Tzar's Russia.
 
I'm surprised nobody sent me a PM demanding that this be added to the list.



Well, no, I'm not really. These days it is more associated with the MDA Telethon and Jerry Lewis than it is with the musical and later movie it is from.



Rogers and Hammerstein gave us this one in 1945 in CAROUSEL.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcSOTLBf1NI
 
Perhaps this one can be the flagship of the 'also ran' show tunes.



While Natalie Wood was 'pretty' and sang very well about it, overall the song just doesn't make it to the next level.



But to its credit, it has been the subject of almost as many parodies as anything else on our list.



But still.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7BQRGXFLJs



you judge
 
Another also ran.


Yes it won an Academy Award, and hit the top 10 on the Billboard charts.


Yes, it is the only reason anybody remembers Hitchcock's remake of his own movie The Man Who Knew Too Much.


Yes, it became Doris Day's signature song in life as well as on her TV show in the sixties.


But, no, it just isn't one of Those songs.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVuEC3r7a-o
 
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