New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's "Songs I Wish I'd Written"
New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's "Songs I Wish I'd Written"
#1New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's "Songs I Wish I'd Written"
Posted: 1/20/16 at 2:58pm
Somebody here has probably done this already (though I couldn't find it), but I just put together a Spotify playlist containing nearly all of the songs on Sondheim's famous list of "Songs I Wish I'd Written," keeping them in the same order as they appear in Mark Eden Horowitz's "Sondheim on Music" (second edition). I'm sharing it here just because I thought some might find it useful. If anybody can find in Spotify the few titles I couldn't, or has a recommendation for a better, more representative version of any song, please let me know. (I did this very quickly!)
https://play.spotify.com/user/pcaleb/playlist/6JNPPjbPuMfjLNv74I7r9f
#3New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 1/20/16 at 3:25pm
I made this very same playlist on my iTunes a few months ago!
"Contentment, it seems, simply happens. It appears accompanied by no bravos and no tears."
#4New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 1/20/16 at 3:31pm
This is amazing! I've read some interviews where he talks about songs he wished he had written, but I had no idea there was an actual list! This is so great--thanks for posting it!
#5New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 1/20/16 at 3:45pm
gypsy101 said: "I made this very same playlist on my iTunes a few months ago!
You know what that makes you, don't you? The perfect person to proofread my list! (Seriously, I won't be surprised if there are mistakes, since I haven't yet had time to listen to the entire playlist myself.)
As I put this together, I realized I could have made a better and more complete playlist in my personal iTunes library. I think! -- Spotify's metadata is so terrible I'm never sure if I've simply failed to find a recording that actually does exist there. (The 1994 Carousel? Audra MacDonald's "Happy Songs"?)
"
#6New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 1/20/16 at 4:14pm
Just at first glance, it looks like every song is correct to the list. You are missing: I'll Never Go There Anymore from "Kelly," The Riddle Song from "Floyd Collins," Silverware from "We Take the Town," I Am So Eager from "Music in the Air" and Bambalele, which my list uses a recording from that Audra album you mentioned. Great job on the list! I love the subject of someone as all-talented as Sondheim admitting wishing he had written someone else's song.
"Contentment, it seems, simply happens. It appears accompanied by no bravos and no tears."
#7New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 1/20/16 at 4:20pm
Hah, I was joking about the proofreading, but wow, thanks! (Yeah, exactly the ones you mention are the ones I couldn't find on Spotify.)
To me, the great value of the list is that with Sondheim as judge, you know every song is going to be really compelling on some level, and worth paying attention to--and since there are a number of titles I'm not familiar with already, that's an exciting prospect!
LianGraves
Swing Joined: 8/29/24
#9New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 8/29/24 at 1:36pm
The article where this list originated:
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000312mag-sondheim.html?scp=1&sq=conversations+with+sondheim&st=cse
halfhourcheckwithmerman
Stand-by Joined: 9/25/22
#10New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 8/29/24 at 10:19pm
This is a great list, and thanks for making the playlist, Peter2! The concept was thought up by the great Mark Eden Horowitz of the Library of Congress, as you've said above, who wanted to do a concert at the Library of songs Sondheim had written for his 70th birthday.
According to Horowitz, Sondheim was perfectly fine with the idea of (another) concert celebrating his work (what a snooze, more people singing your praises and your music!), but when Horowitz suggested that, instead, they could perform songs he wished he'd written, Sondheim lit up, and would fax Horowitz constantly for an extended period of time as he thought of more songs for the list and revised it. They ended up performing just a fraction of the whole list at the concert (it's long), but printing it all on the program, as well as thank you's and birthday wishes from all of the composers and lyricists listed who were still alive. As another poster pointed out, the wonderful Frank Rich then reprinted this list in the NYT --- he's sometimes erroneously credited with coming up with the idea, but he does deserve credit for making the list more popular! And then Horowitz reprinted the list in his wonderful "Sondheim on Music" book.
(At the concert, they also performed all of "The Frogs," or what there was of it pre-Broadway... which then led to the Broadway production, as Nathan Lane hosted the concert.)
"I Had Myself a True Love" is my favorite song ever written, and I love the recording that Peter2 has put on this playlist but also urge everybody to listen to Audra McDonald's recording of off "How Glory Goes," as well as the incredible many recordings of the song by Barbara Cook. (The concert and list was inspiration for Barbara Cook's "Mostly Sondheim" concerts, where she performed Sondheim's songs next to those on the list).
One song that didn't make it onto the list, who knows why, but that he loved --- Sondheim wrote a letter to Lynn Ahrens saying that he had to pull his car over crying after hearing her song "Times Like This" from Lucky Stiff and that it was one of the most beautiful songs ever written. It's a lovely song and there's a great Liz Callaway recording on Spotify.
"I feel safe with you, and complete with you / I'm always finding money in the street with you."
-Sheldon Harnick
#11New Spotify playlist: Sondheim's
Posted: 8/30/24 at 9:09am
I've also never forgotten how the list is titles "Song I Wish I Wrote (At Least in Part)", with that last "at least in part" doing characteristically triple work. The list is in part, he partly wishes he wrote it, and/or parts of the song he wishes he had written. Clever and exact, as always.
Ensemble1726776794
Swing Joined: 9/19/24
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