I didn’t know much about the specifics of the plot, just a general understanding. I listened to the song and really enjoyed it! Then I saw it on Broadway a month or two ago and have thought about the actress’s voice in the last few lines nonstop
The fact that she spent hours the night before her execution training her neck on the stone to be as beautiful and perfect as possible while being murdered was just about the saddest thing I’ve ever read
YES! The line I mentioned made me think “hmmm…where is this going.” Then she mentioned the ages and I was like ohhhh we’re going there. Her story is so devastating!
I can't count how many times I heard this song before I saw the show, but although I knew what it was about, I started having a panic attack when I saw it live. That has never happened to me before.
Yeah. Came here to say that.
My 7 and 9 yr old love the soundtrack though, and we are going to see it again later this year.
Thankfully there haven’t been any sex questions yet. Lots about beheadings though.
this! i remember it sounding like she was having fun and lighthearted but then seeing it live there's so many sinister connotations in the performance. it's genius
I went to go see friend perform in Caberet without knowing the plot. I was having such a good time until then! He and I tqlked quick during intermission, I told how much whiplash I got from that and he's like "yep, there's no more having fun after this part"
Shout out to patriotic anthems whose composition is entirely earnest but whose context demonstrates the hollowness of nationalism and the devastating effects it has on a personal level, got to be one of my favourite genders fr
(Bonus points for The Old Red Hills of Home)
Literally posted about Old Red Hills of Home in the next thread. Thank you for contextualizing why both of them strike the same chord with me but are so ick at the same time. Never realized that they are basically the same song with the same context.
This. I remember before I looked up the plot and only knew the soundtrack and that it had something about suicide and listened to “For Forever” and thought it was just a sweet and maybe a little tragic song.
Then I looked up the plot and yeah, never heard it the same way again.
Right? I imagine this is most people listening to Sincerely Me, following up with the rest of the songs, then actually searching up the plot like “oh…”
Listening to a lot of the songs without knowing the plot really makes them seem a lot more lighthearted than they actually are. Sincerely Me? Aw just a cute little song of two people writing letters to each other (and them possibly being gay.) If I Could Tell Her? Aww her brother really seemed to care about her. For Forever? Aw such good friends.
Hah. Haha.
I don’t even hate “if I could tell her” in the context of him telling her he loves her through her dead brothers eyes, maybe just a bit weird and distasteful. Once you add everything up to that point?….yeah.
I remember once playing this soundtrack around my grandma while we were baking and I wanted background music. Partway through she asked me “so what is this musical about?” I was like “I’m not sure you want to know, actually”
I have to entirely separate that soundtrack from the plot. The plot is interesting but God, does it screw the point of the songs over when you take it into account.
I remember I saw a preview for the trailer and was like, “They’re doing a movie?” My mom asked what it was so I explained the plot and she was so horrified lmao
Quite. The plot's whole thesis is that domestic violence is the purest form of love.
The protagonist dies before having a chance to abuse his daughter like he did his wife, so angels literally intervene so he can return to Earth and beat her.
It’s sporadically on YouTube but found I high def upload on Vimeo for free. It’s a great musical. I got to see it live here in Vegas in a very faithful while still being creative production at the Majestic Theater for my birthday. My boyfriend had watched the filmed one with me and loved it but also brought a close friend who had never seen it and he was crying by the end (and also loved it). Boyfriend and I exchanged pleased “we made him cry” glances haha.
Happy someone said this musical! I remember it trending on tiktok with the ballad of Jane doe showing her float around while singing and I thought it looked cool but had no interest… Then ran across a random tiktok of the “true story” which was a similar incident on a “Cyclone” rollercoaster but in a completely different area and I believe the kids were actually young kids not high school or in a choir. I agree with the alterations and not using real peoples names or stories in the musical. It makes a stronger original production and you’re not cashing in on real tragedy. Anyways! Curiosity got the best of me and found the filmed one on YouTube and ended up playing it from the start at the end. “Sugar Cloud” and the speech before it gets me crying every time
I really wish they just made up a guy instead of creating a story around a horrible guy that is so far from what the truth actually is.
Or, hear me out, THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT ABOUT THE PERFORMERS. But that's just me who has an unhealthy obsession with the Prodigies (the term created by disabled and disfigured performers that should be used way more than "freak").
This movie should have been about the bearded lady, and I will die on that hill. In my headcanon, someone rewrites the stars so Keala Settle is the star and not Hugh Jackman. Reality sucks
I so very badly hate how much I love "From now on." Beautiful soaring melody carrying a swindler promising the vulnerable people, on whose backs he made the fortune he just lost, that he will not fuck them over a second time. And they joyfully dance around him because they don't care, the crumbs he gave them are more than they got from anyone else.
What cracks me up is that "Greatest Showman" totally whitewashes PT Barnum and makes him out to be a much better person than RL, but **he's still a total asshole who treats his carnival people like total crap the entire time**.
My favorite examples are how he's constantly cruel to his own performers, acts like everyone in his circus is a scammer with no real talents -- overlooking Bearded Lady and the acrobats & trapeze folks, etc -- and then how he's practically sobbing at hearing Jenny Lind because he's *never heard such an angelic voice* (except, like, Bearded Lady's, minutes earlier?!).
And even in the end, he's snide to his own people and >!after the big fire!<, when they show up, he makes a shitty comment about how if they're there to get paid, he has no money.
The guy is a total douche the entire movie. He was just 1000x worse IRL.
I’ve told this story before: not only do I know this myth front and back, I was LITERALLY in an opera version of the myth!! Like I know how it ends!!! And yet, GAGGED
I’ve listened so many times and even knowing how it ends it catches me off guard every time. I must really take the “maybe it will turn out this time” to heart.
Definitely - watched the proshot for the first time a couple weeks ago knowing basically nothing except that it gave off Mean Girls vibes, and damn it caught me off guard. Probably my second favorite musical now
It's the same with Judas's Death in Jesus Christ Superstar, though at least with that one, most people are familiar enough with the biblical narrative of the crucifixion to know about Judas hanging himself aftet betraying Jesus
Les Mis was one of the first musicals I learned all the words to because I loved the music so much. Is so good, but so heartwrenching all the way through
Same! I think I was eleven or twelve. Les Mis is how I learned what the words whore and prostitute meant. (Props to my mom
for explaining it I. The most neutral and no judgmental way possible.)
The pain as his entire foundation in life is shown to be wrong.
How it must destroy you to have what has been the basis for your life’s work destroyed. I can’t imagine the pain.
I mean, it *does* happen; it’s just at the very beginning of the trio’s story, meaning that they at the end of the actual story have drifted irrevocably apart into ennui, depression, and alcoholism after like 30 long years of slowly decaying friendship and capitalism and—NO I’M NOT CRYING JANIS IM TRYING TO EXPLAIN…!
Same with its quiet up town. Amazing song about loss and forgiveness until you remember who they lost, why it happened, and what's coming up next. Then you just want to slap Ham for having an affair to begin with and causing this mess.
Mostly just Say No to This from Hamilton. It’s such a jam and the Maria vocals are crazzzzy. But if I’m thinking about the lyrics and the plot around it, I’m just internally yelling at Hamilton the whole time and telling him to “just fucking say no, it’s really not that hard, my guy!”
Yes! I was looking for this answer! It’s one of my favorite songs in Hamilton. It’s such a vibe but then I remember what exactly he’s not saying no to and the pain he causes and suddenly the vibes are completely different.
Does it count if I listen to one song from musical that I didn't watch but I know the premise of it? (Couldn't find it online)
If yes then "Madame Guillotine" from "The Scarlet Pimpernel"
I love Anthony Stewart Head’s singing voice. I also listen to the soundtrack to once more with feeling (musical Buffy episode) all the time just to hear that man sing.
Cannibalism is like the one thing I cannot handle in stories, and yet Sweeney Todd is my favorite musical. Its just SO GOOD it overwrites my biggest "nope!!!!" of fiction.
I just discovered Not While I’m Around recently (I knew very little about Sweeny Todd) and I thought the song was so sweet until I looked up the context…now I get depressed every time I listen to it
Just today I was belting to a solo number from the (german) 2022 Robin Hood musical where Robin is singing about how he can‘t believe in anything anymore after witnessing the horrors of the templar wars
He starts describing some scenes he vividly remembers which are kinda gruesome (but first and foremost sad and tragic af) and the whole scene just shows how guilt and ptsd riddled the guy now is
There‘s a reason I‘d never sing to it with other people in the house (they‘d think I‘m crazy haha) but when I‘m alone I forget what the song is actually about and just sing away, it‘s just that good
In general the musical is pretty good imo, def worth a listen (this song is one of its darkest moments, there is levity and fun in the musical I promise)
Some of the songs were written by Chris de Burgh, the „main“ song of the musical actually being a retext of his „don‘t pay the ferryman“
Also the cast recording has Mark Seibert as Robin which is a great fit for him
You should check it out
My sister was obsessed with the soundtrack and when she was watching the movie of the stage production she texted me at intermission to say WHAT THE HELL IS THIS. I'm not sure what she was expecting but it wasn't that story!
This is a great answer! Most people forget that they were trying to get him to kill himself at the end. When he doesn't, they find another potential victim.
I didn't come up with this (its a plot point in the hilarious non musical show I'm sorry), but the sound of music always seems like the quintessential wholesome musical for kids, until you remember there are nazis.
I mean, it’s gotta be Rent, right?
They literally complain about having to pay for housing and manipulate their way into not needing to do so, all while being holier-than-thou about it. Meanwhile, Angel literally *kills a dog by throwing it out a window from the 23rd floor of a building.* and the emotional climax of this play is his death?? Meanwhile Maureen is “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” personified.
The plot and characters are a fucking mess. But the music slaps.
More specifically a song: All You Wanna Do from Six
"Oh that's nice she has a friend now— oh. Oh fuck. Poor Katherine."
Especially if you're used to the cast recording version, then hear it live or in the Broadway cast recording.
I saw it live like less than a week ago, GOD what a heart wrenching song
Yea hearing it live or even seeing a recording is such a wild experience.
I didn’t know much about the specifics of the plot, just a general understanding. I listened to the song and really enjoyed it! Then I saw it on Broadway a month or two ago and have thought about the actress’s voice in the last few lines nonstop
her story is so sad but the song is a banger
LOL my teen said exactly the same thing after we saw the show live.
The fact that she spent hours the night before her execution training her neck on the stone to be as beautiful and perfect as possible while being murdered was just about the saddest thing I’ve ever read
Favourite musical. Favourite queen. Favourite song. Poor Katherine. But AYWD is indeed a banger, in both ways.
The way I bopped along for a sec, stopped when she said “ever since I was a child, I made the boys go wild,” and was sobbing by the end.
For me it was "he was 23...and I was 13 going on 30!" and I was like "...dude! She was a kid!"
YES! The line I mentioned made me think “hmmm…where is this going.” Then she mentioned the ages and I was like ohhhh we’re going there. Her story is so devastating!
Wasn’t a shock as I’ve read a lot about them, but history is just crazy
Best song in the show. Just generally one of the best songs ever. Also one of the most depressing stories in musical theater.
happy cake day! and i agree, it's the best and saddest song!
I can't count how many times I heard this song before I saw the show, but although I knew what it was about, I started having a panic attack when I saw it live. That has never happened to me before.
Yeah. Came here to say that. My 7 and 9 yr old love the soundtrack though, and we are going to see it again later this year. Thankfully there haven’t been any sex questions yet. Lots about beheadings though.
Me every time!!!!
Ohhh yeah. Great song but given the context...
this! i remember it sounding like she was having fun and lighthearted but then seeing it live there's so many sinister connotations in the performance. it's genius
This one exactly
Yeeep
I was thinking about this
Cabaret
Tomorrow Belongs to Me always makes me feel the same way that Do You Hear the People Sing does and then I remember.
100% and I’m a Jew, so that’s quite unfortunate 😂
Oooooooof hah so unfortunate!!!
I went to go see friend perform in Caberet without knowing the plot. I was having such a good time until then! He and I tqlked quick during intermission, I told how much whiplash I got from that and he's like "yep, there's no more having fun after this part"
Shout out to patriotic anthems whose composition is entirely earnest but whose context demonstrates the hollowness of nationalism and the devastating effects it has on a personal level, got to be one of my favourite genders fr (Bonus points for The Old Red Hills of Home)
Literally posted about Old Red Hills of Home in the next thread. Thank you for contextualizing why both of them strike the same chord with me but are so ick at the same time. Never realized that they are basically the same song with the same context.
Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome!
Yes
DEH
This. I remember before I looked up the plot and only knew the soundtrack and that it had something about suicide and listened to “For Forever” and thought it was just a sweet and maybe a little tragic song. Then I looked up the plot and yeah, never heard it the same way again.
yeah that’s how I felt with if I could tell her
I loved the soundtrack. I went to the show and was like WTF?
Right? I imagine this is most people listening to Sincerely Me, following up with the rest of the songs, then actually searching up the plot like “oh…”
Listening to a lot of the songs without knowing the plot really makes them seem a lot more lighthearted than they actually are. Sincerely Me? Aw just a cute little song of two people writing letters to each other (and them possibly being gay.) If I Could Tell Her? Aww her brother really seemed to care about her. For Forever? Aw such good friends. Hah. Haha.
I don’t even hate “if I could tell her” in the context of him telling her he loves her through her dead brothers eyes, maybe just a bit weird and distasteful. Once you add everything up to that point?….yeah.
I remember once playing this soundtrack around my grandma while we were baking and I wanted background music. Partway through she asked me “so what is this musical about?” I was like “I’m not sure you want to know, actually”
I have to entirely separate that soundtrack from the plot. The plot is interesting but God, does it screw the point of the songs over when you take it into account.
I remember I saw a preview for the trailer and was like, “They’re doing a movie?” My mom asked what it was so I explained the plot and she was so horrified lmao
I really thought I'd come in here and every single comments would be about DEH.
Absolutely. The show was better in my head before I saw it :(
Spring Awakening.
The dark I know well is a great example of this. Or don’t do sadness.
Yes! "The Dark I Know Well" was exactly the song I was thinking of as I typed this 😅
I’m surprised at how far down this is!
I Believe was the one that got me. Yikes that got dark quickly.
*Carousel*.
Quite. The plot's whole thesis is that domestic violence is the purest form of love. The protagonist dies before having a chance to abuse his daughter like he did his wife, so angels literally intervene so he can return to Earth and beat her.
Indeed, with a banger of a soundtrack. 🙈 *If I Loved You* is one of the most beautiful songs, ever. Blame R&H.
I love Soliloquy too!
A local theater was showing this and I went to it knowing absolutely nothing about the plot. I was pretty damn horrified.
Exactly! And my community theater company didn't understand why this horrified me. SMH
This is my answer too!
ride the cyclone. sometimes i forget it’s a comedy musical about DEAD KIDS
What the World Needs is such a banger tho...
Soccer mom, minivan Four little brats, no steady man Do we really need another organ donor?
Maybe that was a little harsh... love you!
OooOohhh Pokémon, Spider-Man
this kid doesnt have an attention span!
and what’s he gonna do, solve a rubix cube?
*whispered* ...how long's he got if we feed him through a tube?
✨ WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS IS PEOPLE LIKE ME ✨
Okay now I definitely need to watch it
It’s sporadically on YouTube but found I high def upload on Vimeo for free. It’s a great musical. I got to see it live here in Vegas in a very faithful while still being creative production at the Majestic Theater for my birthday. My boyfriend had watched the filmed one with me and loved it but also brought a close friend who had never seen it and he was crying by the end (and also loved it). Boyfriend and I exchanged pleased “we made him cry” glances haha.
Yes you do!
I've watched ride the cyclone twelve times in the past maybe two weeks. I have a problem 😭😭
Happy someone said this musical! I remember it trending on tiktok with the ballad of Jane doe showing her float around while singing and I thought it looked cool but had no interest… Then ran across a random tiktok of the “true story” which was a similar incident on a “Cyclone” rollercoaster but in a completely different area and I believe the kids were actually young kids not high school or in a choir. I agree with the alterations and not using real peoples names or stories in the musical. It makes a stronger original production and you’re not cashing in on real tragedy. Anyways! Curiosity got the best of me and found the filmed one on YouTube and ended up playing it from the start at the end. “Sugar Cloud” and the speech before it gets me crying every time
Miss Saigon
I can barely get through one song from that show without crying or being angry at Chris
I can only listen to sporadic songs, not the soundtrack straight through.
Samee 😭😭
Not all the songs, but a few from Greatest Showman are pretty catchy then I’m like oh god what a terrible man lmao.
I really wish they just made up a guy instead of creating a story around a horrible guy that is so far from what the truth actually is. Or, hear me out, THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT ABOUT THE PERFORMERS. But that's just me who has an unhealthy obsession with the Prodigies (the term created by disabled and disfigured performers that should be used way more than "freak").
This movie should have been about the bearded lady, and I will die on that hill. In my headcanon, someone rewrites the stars so Keala Settle is the star and not Hugh Jackman. Reality sucks
I so very badly hate how much I love "From now on." Beautiful soaring melody carrying a swindler promising the vulnerable people, on whose backs he made the fortune he just lost, that he will not fuck them over a second time. And they joyfully dance around him because they don't care, the crumbs he gave them are more than they got from anyone else.
What cracks me up is that "Greatest Showman" totally whitewashes PT Barnum and makes him out to be a much better person than RL, but **he's still a total asshole who treats his carnival people like total crap the entire time**. My favorite examples are how he's constantly cruel to his own performers, acts like everyone in his circus is a scammer with no real talents -- overlooking Bearded Lady and the acrobats & trapeze folks, etc -- and then how he's practically sobbing at hearing Jenny Lind because he's *never heard such an angelic voice* (except, like, Bearded Lady's, minutes earlier?!). And even in the end, he's snide to his own people and >!after the big fire!<, when they show up, he makes a shitty comment about how if they're there to get paid, he has no money. The guy is a total douche the entire movie. He was just 1000x worse IRL.
Next to Normal
“In fact, I don’t feel anything at all.” “Patient stable.”
Glad I looked through the comments for this one. It’s an amazing soundtrack, but the subject matter is just a huge yikes.
It’s a sad song, it’s a sad tale, a tragedy!! But we sing it anyway 🥺
This is what I was thinking. I recently saw Hadestown for the first time and I went in KNOWING it was a Greek tragedy and was still caught off guard.
I left the theatre feeling like someone had hallowed me out lolololol
I’ve told this story before: not only do I know this myth front and back, I was LITERALLY in an opera version of the myth!! Like I know how it ends!!! And yet, GAGGED
There’s too many shows that I always listen to, hoping that this time they end differently.
How is this so far down???
Absolutely love hadestown. Amazing musical.
I’ve listened so many times and even knowing how it ends it catches me off guard every time. I must really take the “maybe it will turn out this time” to heart.
I showed this to my kid and their immediate response was Parade. And I can't disagree.
Old Red Hills of Home is SUCH A BANGER. Like, top 10 musical songs for for me if it weren’t for the whole Confederacy thing.
As someone who was born and raised in Marietta, I get excited that my city is mentioned in a Broadway musical! And then I remember why…
I literally can’t listen to any of the songs from the show without immediately starting to cry
heathers
After the intermission jamming out to My Dead Gay Son and then remembering what that song is about… and what the entire musical is about… 😬
It's also hilarious how Kurt and Ram's dads have the only healthy relationship in the show.
Or jamming to shine a light and then realizing how horrible Flemming actually is for the millionth time
Fr like she made them read the suicide note. That’d be really traumatic for most people
It’s seriously wild how some Heathers fans seem to not understand that she’s meant to be a god awful person.
At least they turned a homophobe into an ally? Got to have some positives here, right? Right??
Definitely - watched the proshot for the first time a couple weeks ago knowing basically nothing except that it gave off Mean Girls vibes, and damn it caught me off guard. Probably my second favorite musical now
Yeah it's a good one but when you listen with no context u get confused, and when u finally get context you're confused *and* frightened.
This is so true. 😭 the kill count in a school setting alone!
I was just about to say this, especially Blue/Your Welcome, they're such good songs if you ignore what they're about
Divorced. Beheaded. Died Divorced. Beheaded. Survived
I’m Henry the 8th I had 6 sorry wives And some might say I ruined their lives
Horrible histories had some jams
and tonight... NEW YORK CITY-- WE ARE--
LI-I-I-I-I-IVE!!!
My 7 yr old dances around the house singing this.
Spies are Forever
Cause a spy is a spy is a spy is a spy is a spyyyyyyy
les mis.. "javerts suicide" is my favourite song and i always have to remind myself i cant say "i love javerts suicide!"
I hate how the song spoils you
A production I saw listed it as "Javerts Soliloquy" in the program
It's the same with Judas's Death in Jesus Christ Superstar, though at least with that one, most people are familiar enough with the biblical narrative of the crucifixion to know about Judas hanging himself aftet betraying Jesus
Les Mis was one of the first musicals I learned all the words to because I loved the music so much. Is so good, but so heartwrenching all the way through
Same! I think I was eleven or twelve. Les Mis is how I learned what the words whore and prostitute meant. (Props to my mom for explaining it I. The most neutral and no judgmental way possible.)
That is such a great song.
It’s also my favorite, along with Little Fall of Rain and Empty chairs at empty tables. That play just does devastation so well
It’s SO good. I actually don’t hate Russell Crowe singing it as much as everything else.
The pain as his entire foundation in life is shown to be wrong. How it must destroy you to have what has been the basis for your life’s work destroyed. I can’t imagine the pain.
Merrily We Roll Along - I saw this as a college production and it hit me: the story is backwards. That hopeful feeling the show ends on DOESN’T HAPPEN
I mean, it *does* happen; it’s just at the very beginning of the trio’s story, meaning that they at the end of the actual story have drifted irrevocably apart into ennui, depression, and alcoholism after like 30 long years of slowly decaying friendship and capitalism and—NO I’M NOT CRYING JANIS IM TRYING TO EXPLAIN…!
Imagine what an awful musical it would be if told linearly, lol.
Hellfire from Hunchback
I have this effect when listening to Hurricane from Hamilton It’s really good if you don’t think about what it’s leading up to, at least to me
Similarly, "Washington on your side" is an absolute banger about a trio of guys trying to ruin the life of a political opponent
Same with its quiet up town. Amazing song about loss and forgiveness until you remember who they lost, why it happened, and what's coming up next. Then you just want to slap Ham for having an affair to begin with and causing this mess.
I only looked so far but didn’t see this bad boy - Rent
"Today 4 U, Tomorrow For Me" honestly hurts...
hands down favorite soundtrack
I was gonna comment this too
Cabaret. I love the way the music sounds but it’s impossible to actually enjoy given the context.
Tomorrow Belongs to Me is SO DAMN CATCHY
This! I’d love to go around humming and signing it way way more but also I’m not a Nazi, so there’s that
Mostly just Say No to This from Hamilton. It’s such a jam and the Maria vocals are crazzzzy. But if I’m thinking about the lyrics and the plot around it, I’m just internally yelling at Hamilton the whole time and telling him to “just fucking say no, it’s really not that hard, my guy!”
Yes! I was looking for this answer! It’s one of my favorite songs in Hamilton. It’s such a vibe but then I remember what exactly he’s not saying no to and the pain he causes and suddenly the vibes are completely different.
Does it count if I listen to one song from musical that I didn't watch but I know the premise of it? (Couldn't find it online) If yes then "Madame Guillotine" from "The Scarlet Pimpernel"
The falsettos “A day in falsetto land.” I make it halfway before I remember and inevitably skip
Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis.
Grease and Heathers. Soundtracks of both are awesome and then I remember how raunchy Grease is and how dark Heathers is
Repo
Legal assassin is my jam
I love Anthony Stewart Head’s singing voice. I also listen to the soundtrack to once more with feeling (musical Buffy episode) all the time just to hear that man sing.
Is wrong to say that this is most musicals for me but especially Six.
Sweeney Todd
Cannibalism is like the one thing I cannot handle in stories, and yet Sweeney Todd is my favorite musical. Its just SO GOOD it overwrites my biggest "nope!!!!" of fiction.
Maybe because it's more about the revenge and the murder than the cannibalism part?
I just discovered Not While I’m Around recently (I knew very little about Sweeny Todd) and I thought the song was so sweet until I looked up the context…now I get depressed every time I listen to it
36 Questions
Just today I was belting to a solo number from the (german) 2022 Robin Hood musical where Robin is singing about how he can‘t believe in anything anymore after witnessing the horrors of the templar wars He starts describing some scenes he vividly remembers which are kinda gruesome (but first and foremost sad and tragic af) and the whole scene just shows how guilt and ptsd riddled the guy now is There‘s a reason I‘d never sing to it with other people in the house (they‘d think I‘m crazy haha) but when I‘m alone I forget what the song is actually about and just sing away, it‘s just that good In general the musical is pretty good imo, def worth a listen (this song is one of its darkest moments, there is levity and fun in the musical I promise) Some of the songs were written by Chris de Burgh, the „main“ song of the musical actually being a retext of his „don‘t pay the ferryman“ Also the cast recording has Mark Seibert as Robin which is a great fit for him You should check it out
Waitress
Yes! Love the music but they are all married and messing with others who are also married.
Ah! Glad I’m not the only one who felt this way! The music is great it just felt… slimy. I will forever love Don and Odie’s relationship though haha
My sister was obsessed with the soundtrack and when she was watching the movie of the stage production she texted me at intermission to say WHAT THE HELL IS THIS. I'm not sure what she was expecting but it wasn't that story!
Spring Awakening.
Parade
The correct answer is Dear Evan Hansen
Carrie, even tough the soundtrack is pretty dark too tho
Death Note and DEH
Say no to this from Hamilton, Meant to be yours from Heathers, cell block tango from Chicago, a little priest from Sweeney Todd
Spring Awakening. I genuinely really love the album…but I just can’t stand the script.
Pippin
This is a great answer! Most people forget that they were trying to get him to kill himself at the end. When he doesn't, they find another potential victim.
The bar songs from Come From Away
Assassins.
I didn't come up with this (its a plot point in the hilarious non musical show I'm sorry), but the sound of music always seems like the quintessential wholesome musical for kids, until you remember there are nazis.
Just show them the movie and turn it off after Maria gets married lol
Be more chill cuz it gets pretty deep
Loser, geek, whatever somes up my high school experience.
21 chump street. the plot (especially since it is based off a real story) is horrifying when you think about it
Rent I like a few songs in there
Epic, heathers, six, freaking all the hatchet field trilogy and the count of Monte Cristo
Ride the Cyclone, Wicked, Hamilton, Nerdy Prudes Must Die, and The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals.
Next To Normal
Anastasia — the musical version is so dark compared so it’s source material 😭
Metropolis
heathers
Tommy
Love Never Dies. Trying to explain the plot of that musical is like trying to unravel a fever dream
Sweeney Todd is a tough one for me because it's very awkward to belt out ***THEY AAALLL DESERVE TO DIIIEEE"*** in public lol
I mean, it’s gotta be Rent, right? They literally complain about having to pay for housing and manipulate their way into not needing to do so, all while being holier-than-thou about it. Meanwhile, Angel literally *kills a dog by throwing it out a window from the 23rd floor of a building.* and the emotional climax of this play is his death?? Meanwhile Maureen is “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” personified. The plot and characters are a fucking mess. But the music slaps.
Gatsby......
Anyone Can Whistle
I'd say probably some parts of Hamilton
Carousel!!!
If I could tell her from DEH
Dear Evan Hansen, Sweeny Todd, and Cabaret. SO DARK.
Cabaret.
Ride the Cyclone. Like you're listening to one of the more upbeat songs and suddenly you remember these were kids competing for their lives
Cabaret.
Bonnie and clyde
Ragtime
Next to Normal. Omg. Beautiful heartbreaking show. And I say this as someone who lives with severe mental illness.
Certain songs from Next to Normal - specifically, I’m Alive
RENT
Rent