I got the
studio cast recording for this show a while back, and while it’s certainly
rough around the edges, it also has a lot going for it. The story of Chinese and Japanese immigrants,
entwining their families for several generations as it explores the history of
Asian-Americans, is accompanied by some topnotch music. These are the songs from it that I keep coming
back to.
“Making Tracks” – Oh, I just love this
song. Whenever I’m listening to the
album, I have to play the title track at least three times. Such a beautiful depiction of the brutal
lives of the Chinese railroad workers. I
love the soaring harmonies at the end of the second verse, and that chorus is
just to die for.
Best
line: “We move the mighty mountain. / We
build, we break our backs. / We live to lay the lines and / We live, making
tracks.”
“Many Rivers” – This beautiful duet sees a pair of
lovers separated by an ocean, with the husband working day in and day out to
earn enough to bring his wife to him.
His words paint her a picture of the opportunities that will stretch out
endlessly before them in America, while she reminds him not to forget all their
old land brought to them. Their echoes
to one another in the chorus are so lovely.
Best
line: “I see that land there in my mind,
/ But love, the land you left behind, / It gave you life, a language, and a
bride.”
“Picture Perfect” – It was a few of the
cast members on the recording that led me to this show, the first of which we
see here. Lea Salonga does a beautiful
job with this song about a Japanese picture bride traveling to America to meet
her husband. The lyrics are tentative
and uncertain, but there’s still a bravery that echoes through them that I
really love.
Best
line: “Take a photograph, / A negative,
/ An image on a plate. / Print a positive / On paper and / The image they
create / Is America: / An open book, / A story I can write / Where the
negatives / Turn positive / And I turn to the light.”
“So Now I See You” – Lea Salonga and Michael K. Lee – honestly, with
voices like theirs, it’s just gravy that the song itself is so good. It’s an unusual sort of love song, one that
recognizes the arranged marriage that began it, along with the hard days and
years that will follow. And yet, through
it all is this undercurrent of unity, a promise to stay by one another’s side
no matter the hardship. There’s
something really lovely about that.
Best
line: “We’re a husband and a wife, / And
that picture perfect life may never be, / But still I see you standing here
with me.”
“The Lucky One” – I absolutely love
this song. It’s the contemplations of a
Japanese-American man who’s just returned home after fighting in WWII,
wrestling with the perverseness of a country that locked up his family as
“enemies” on the grounds of their ethnicities, and yet still called on him to
serve, depending on his patriotism. A
beautifully-conflicted number by a character who’s not sure if he’s angrier at
the country that did this to him or himself for acquiescing to it.
Best
line: “And if we were the enemy, / Who
was I in Italy? / And if I looked like one of ‘them,’ / Then who, / Who are
they?”
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