Oddly Oppositional
⇦South Pacific is a Broadway musical from 1949, that was also made into a movie in 1958. In 1949 RCA Victor released a box set of 4 transparent blue 45 RPM records containing 8 of the 16 tracks from the Broadway production as performed by Al Goodman and His Orchestra. This set was designed to be played on an automatic record changer (see Technology Connections video below for more on those), so the records don't contain sequential tracks. And since I don't have a record changer and the set is only a selection, I usually play both sides before moving on to the next record. Because of the way I play the records I noticed something weird about the way the songs are arranged. The songs on each record are oddly oppositional to each other. Now the "opposition" between these songs isn't always direct or even of the same flavor between pairings. However, each record has songs that seem to invert some part of the other. It’s nothing dramatic or meaningful, just kind of strange.
First, a quick note that the movie has a slightly different song arrangement than the Broadway show. The movie has "Twin Soliloquies" and "Some Enchanted Evening" listed as track four together, and includes an extra song, "My Girl Back Home", as track six. Also, sometimes a couple of tracks are listed with elongated titles: "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" instead of "A Wonderful Guy" and "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" instead of "Carefully Taught".
Now a look at how the songs would be arranged if all of the original Broadway songs were included in my set (highlighted songs are not in the set):
| Record | Side A | Side B | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 01 | "South Pacific Overture" | 16 | "Finale" |
| 2 | 02 | "Dites-moi" | 15 | This Nearly Was Mine" |
| 3 | 03 | "A Cockeyed Optimist" | 14 | "Carefully Taught" |
| 4 | 04 | "Twin Soliloquies (Wonder how it feels)" | 13 | "Honey Bun" |
| 5 | 05 | "Some Enchanted Evening" | 12 | "Happy Talk" |
| 6 | 06 | "Bloody Mary" | 11 | "Younger Than Springtime" |
| 7 | 07 | "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame" | 10 | A Wonderful Guy" |
| 8 | 08 | "Bali Ha'i" | 09 | "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" |
The actual song list with my "oppositional" notes:
| Record | Side A | Side B | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "A Cockeyed Optimist" | 8 | "This Nearly Was Mine" | The first record is pretty simple: A woman singing about being optimistic and full of hope versus a man lamenting a love that will never be. |
| 2 | 2 | "Some Enchanted Evening" | 7 | "Younger Than Springtime" | Record two has two different men singing about love, but the songs themselves have oppositional elements. Starting with the titles we have the "lateness" of the evening versus the "earliness" of spring. Then the enchanted evening refers to the singer as a generic "you". And it has a lot of speculative and ambiguous language with words like "may", "stranger", "somehow", "somewhere", and "seems". Whereas the springtime is talking about "I" with very declarative language where he does the thing ("I touch your hand") and she is the thing ("Sweeter than music are you"). |
| 3 | 3 | "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame" | 6 | "A Wonderful Guy" | The titles on record three are both positive, but "a wonder guy" is "nothin' like a dame". Here we have a group of men singing as opposed to one woman. However, the real opposition is the vibe: sincere vs. joking. Our woman sings about how she doesn't care if others don't believe in romance but she's happy being in love with "A Wonderful Guy". But our men are singing about the lack of women, and it is quite obvious what part of "companionship" they are missing most. |
| 4 | 4 | "Bali Ha'i" | 5 | "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" | And our final record starts with a single woman opposed to a group of women. Bali Ha'i calls to you, "come to me", and the song talks of lonely people looking for each other in the "foggy sea". It is also slow and sensual, with the insinuation that Bali Ha'i is a woman calling to a man. Of course, "Wash That Man" talks about getting rid of the man. It is an upbeat song and tries to be a bit more frivolous, rejecting the man "if you laugh at different comics". |
Automatic Record Changers: We used to like them.
Explore the show South Pacific - History and More | Rodgers & Hammerstein
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Selections from South Pacific insert card side 1 |
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Selections from South Pacific insert card side 2 |