Top Five Songs: Pacific Overtures

I think, for me, Pacific Overtures might be Sondheim’s all-killer-no-filler score.  It has fewer songs than most of his shows, and musicals like Sunday in the Park with George or A Little Night Music might have some of the all-around best numbers, but every song in this show really makes it count.  Even though the score only features eleven songs, narrowing it down to five was no easy task.

(Pictures are from various productions - it's incredibly hard to find a good assortment of Pacific Overtures photos.)

“Chrysanthemum Tea” – A hugely sprawling patter-and-plot number.  In it, the dilemma of western ships approaching Japan’s isolationist shores is expressed by the Shogun’s mother.  She offers her son her warnings, advice, and tea through lyrics that simply outdo themselves in rhyme.

Best line:  “Have some tea, my Lord, / Some chrysanthemum tea. / It’s a tangled situation, / As your father would agree. / And it mightn’t be so tangled / If you hadn’t had him strangled? / But I fear that I stray, my Lord.”

“Poems” – As Kayama and Manjiro journey, they play a game of almost “dueling” poems, inventing compositions based on one another’s opening lines.  Some of the imagery is just terrific, and I like the way they both write for their respective “ladies”:  for Kayama, his wife, and for Manjiro, America.

Best line:  “Moon, / I love her like the moon, / Making jewels of the grass / Where my lady walks, / My lady wife.”

“Someone in a Tree” – This is such an intriguing number; I adore it.  Here, an old man reminisces about the day he saw the westerners come, aided by the memory of himself as a boy and a soldier listening to the proceedings.  It’s a gorgeous contemplation on the nature of observation and history, the idea that nothing quite matters unless it’s been witnessed.

Best line:  “I am hiding in a tree. / I’m a fragment of the day. / If I weren’t, who’s to say / Things would happen here the way / That they happened here?”

 “A Bowler Hat” – A great passage-of-time song about gradual assimilation.  Through Kayama, we see how the influences of the west bleed into Japan.  The way each stanza builds upon the previous one by echoes and slight changes is excellent, and it’s a great showcase for the actor.

Best line:  “No eagle flies against the sky / As eagerly as I / Have flown against my life.”

“Pretty Lady” – This song is creepy-beautiful Sondheim at its best.  In the number, a trio of British sailors come upon a young woman they mistakenly believe to be a geisha.  While the melody and overlapping harmonies are absolutely rapturous, the lyrics – in which their desire for her becomes increasingly insistent – make it hair-standing-on-end foreboding.  Truly amazing.

Best line:  “Pretty lady, you’re the cleanest thing I seen all year. / I sailed the world for you…”