The other day Rhonda asked me "What are you doing humming showtunes?" I stopped in mid-walk. I was humming something from Les Miserables; who knows how I got that stuck in my head. I did have to do an internal double-take though, because I never really considered Les Mis showtunes. I guess it is, by definition. I've always thought of showtunes as the simple, silly, dippy musical songs. Like from freakin' Oklahoma, or The Music Man. Where the corn is as high as an elephant's eye indeed.
So in my little brain category cubbyholes I ranked Les Mis over and above that sort of thing. I guess it was mainly a matter of content... the melodrama of love / justice / war winning out over the likes of Big Trouble in River City. Dead Orphan Gavroche over Little Orphan Annie, if you will.
Either way, I never considered myself as a guy who hums showtunes.
I didn't even own a copy of Les Mis, except perhaps for an old dubbed cassette which I would rightly refuse to listen to today. So I figured a trip to the iTunes Music Store would be fruitful. I downloaded a "Highlights from Les Miserables" album and quickly shuffled it off into the iPod.
As a rule, my family never watched musicals growing up... much less entertaining exposure to Broadway shows. Except for The Muppet Movie, I suppose. Plus, I was a kid during the weird time when Disney was between musical productions... the era enclosed by Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh and The Great Mouse Detective, all of which averaged about one song each. And none of which would be considered "musicals," I'd say. Hell, except for Pooh, they aren't even considered great films. Disney is still waiting for the planet's last remaining Black Cauldron fans to die off. I'd wonder aloud why I even grew up loving Disney stuff except that I know the answer: marketing.
And now "On My Own" is stuck in my head again.
(By the way, that drawing of Kermit is from Muppet Central, a great Muppet fansite.)
