The original licensed version returned the first-act "Not a Day Goes By" to Beth
And here's one change in the revision that I really really really really don't understand, and despise even more.
Toward the end of the song, originally, when Beth sings "I'll die day after day after day" etc, she stops short on the word "after," not completing the thought. As if she is really just too wound up and emotionally can't get through it. Then after a breath, she finishes the song with the repeated "Till the days go by." It is perfection. It says everything about Beth's mindset and heart in that moment, in one little tiny missed word. It is a prime example of god being in the details.
But for the revised version, now used universally, that damn "day" is filled in. I can't tell you how much I hate that, and wish I had been able to ask Sondheim WHY?????
When I coach the song now in my musical theatre classes, I tell anyone singing this about that change, and let them make up their own minds as to which version they want to use. Most often, they leave out the "day." |
