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| re: Carousel story question - POTENTIAL SPOILERS | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 07:03 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Carousel story question - POTENTIAL SPOILERS - Sullivan 11:36 am EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| IMO, it has to be a suicide. Billy is not about to let himself get caught. Period. It's a selfish act by a selfish man. Yes, I do believe he loves Julie. Yes, I do believe that the news of the pregnancy awakens a desire in him to change. But, he chooses crime as a way to get the easy money - and as as the robbery goes wrong, I think he knows he's cornered and feels that he has no alternative. "Or steal it, or take it -- or die." It's right in the text. Those lyrics are in no way accidental - and neither is the death. |
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| Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 10:16 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Carousel story question - POTENTIAL SPOILERS - Chromolume 07:03 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| As a side note, I've always wondered how "stealing" differs from "taking" in this context. How do people parse that lyric so it isn't redundant? | |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:01 pm EDT 07/14/18 | |
| In reply to: Stealing vs. Taking - Singapore/Fling 10:16 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| I've read the responses below, and I gotta say that I think there's been a bit of straining to make sense of a lyric choice that I think was more a matter of convenience or perhaps a small degree of desperation than anything else. It wouldn't surprise me if Hammerstein struggled over it and finally gave up. I don't think that he intended some distinction there. "Take" is on a climactic note in a climactic phrase. Does it make sense that Hammerstein intended it to mean anything like the suggestions below? Are those somehow worse than to steal money? I don't think so, and I don't think Hammerstein intended it that way. I wonder if this was a section of the number where Rodgers wrote the music in advance, and that was the climactic phrase, and so Hammerstein had to figure out something that would work. If "steal" had been where "take" is, he would have had to come up with a suitable rhyme for it. And to make "steal" the word on that climactic note is something he would have tried to avoid as most singers don't like to sing an E vowel on a high or sustained note, notwithstanding Alfred Drake's preference for that vowel, which I mentioned here recently. Even if Rodgers did not write the music in advance there — and in Musical Stages, he does say that Hammerstein wrote the whole lyric and then gave it to him — Hammerstein was musical enough to realize the power of a final section in which each phrase builds on the preceding one for a climactic effect. And I do think "take" works in context as somehow sounding more desperate than steal, even though it makes no logical sense. But Billy isn't all that strong on logic, is he? |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 10:47 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: Stealing vs. Taking - Singapore/Fling 10:16 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| Depending on how it is used, the word take can have a somewhat different meaning than the word steal. For example in the song "So What?", Fraulein Schneider sings "An offer comes, you take". | |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 11:19 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Stealing vs. Taking - BroadwayTonyJ 10:47 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| From the standpoint that taking has to be worse for Billy than stealing, I can see the argument that accepting offered money that he hadn't in some way earned would be the most difficult thing he could do. Thanks for sharing your reading. | |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 11:25 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Stealing vs. Taking - Singapore/Fling 11:19 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| As Julie sings: "You couldn't take my money if I didn't have any And I don't have a penny, that's true And if I did have money You couldn't take any 'Cause you'd ask an' I'd give it to you!" And in a sense, we could say that Billy has been taking Mrs. Mullin's money... |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 11:30 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Stealing vs. Taking - Chromolume 11:25 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| Or if it were offered to him, Billy could take money for accepting a dangerous job -- like going whaling or something on that order. | |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 01:04 am EDT 07/14/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Stealing vs. Taking - BroadwayTonyJ 11:30 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| But that latter transaction is employment, which would be filed under "making", I would think. I can see the idea that Billy doesn't look askance at bumming off of the women he's sleeping with, but still would find it hard to take a loan or free money from someone of a higher social rank than him. |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 10:34 am EDT 07/14/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Stealing vs. Taking - Singapore/Fling 01:04 am EDT 07/14/18 | |
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| But that latter transaction is employment, which would be filed under "making", I would think. I can see the idea that Billy doesn't look askance at bumming off of the women he's sleeping with... IMO, both the above statements can be referring to Mrs. Mullin. She may be paying him for his work at the carousel, but surely that ain't all...and how are we to know whether that's an honest salary or just an "arrangement" of sorts? I tend to think that where Mrs. M is concerned, he's both making and taking. ;-) |
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| re: Stealing vs. Taking | |
| Posted by: bmc 03:40 pm EDT 07/14/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Stealing vs. Taking - Chromolume 10:34 am EDT 07/14/18 | |
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| Stealing=He knows it is wrong; Taking =he's past right or wrong, he's entitled to it, he'll Just Take it. | |
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| re: Carousel story question - POTENTIAL SPOILERS | |
| Posted by: Ann 07:42 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Carousel story question - POTENTIAL SPOILERS - Chromolume 07:03 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| In the current Broadway production, there's no doubt it's suicide. He Sweeney Todd's himself. | |
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| THIS, as the kids say. Do the kids still say "THIS"? Who cares. THIS. (nm) | |
| Posted by: MikeR 07:13 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Carousel story question - POTENTIAL SPOILERS - Chromolume 07:03 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| What Chromolume (and MikeR) said. | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 07:31 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
| In reply to: THIS, as the kids say. Do the kids still say "THIS"? Who cares. THIS. (nm) - MikeR 07:13 pm EDT 07/13/18 | |
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| Spot on! Laura |
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