Agreed - but maybe this is also about celebrating the grit along with the glory.
I think of something like Forty-Second Street, which of course when the musical premiered on Broadway, that area was nothing to celebrate lol. But even in the fable-like world of the musical, the song itself embraces the bad and the good, and the ballet results in a robbery and a murder. Followed by the moment that always gives me chills - when Peggy gets swept up in the dance again after the murder. Almost heartless, but also very real. But surely the song - and the show itself - is in a way, another anthem to NYC. Not as dark as West Side Story, but still dark. (And of course not long ago we were also discussing the darker elements of the film out here.)
I'd also mention Porter's wonderful "I Happen To Like New York," which also embraces the city's grit as well as its joys. And in an even further comic sense, Sondheim's "What More Do I Need."
Maybe one way to look at it - at the risk of getting faux-poetic here lol - is to say that even a seemingly doomed love like that of Tony and Maria can live on in us in this dangerous but exhilarating city.
I dunno, lol. |
