I began 2022 by visiting New York City with my friend and explaining to her how I wanted to write. I had some poetry and essays, but I also had this idea about writing about the piano rolls I grew up playing. I’m excited that it’s been a year and that I did what I said. New York is always inspiring in one way or another. So I thought I’d talk about a piano roll that has New York in its heart, but mostly it has a lot of heart:
The Sweet Charity Medley
I don’t know about you, but when I think of inspirational stories about call girls and hookers, the indefatigable Sweet Charity always comes to mind first. Ever the optimist, Charity persists despite being thrown off a Central Park bridge, being hidden in a closet while a movie star reunites with his true love, or being dumped by the first nice guy who ever loved her. If Charity did not have this outlook, or if the angle of the play or the movie tilted ever so slightly, it would be a complete drag. In the original Fellini film, she was, in fact, a prostitute. The American version toned it down as we tend to do in our internal battle with our Puritan heritage. Charity, in 1960s New York City, is not a prostitute but a dance-for-hire, which I just always accepted was a thing. Was that a thing? It appears that so-called taxi dancers were popular in the 20s and 30s, and so a dance hall like Charity’s would have been on its way out, along with Burlesque and Vaudeville. The setting is perfect for someone stuck in a transitional time and in a nowhere-but-up type story.
Sweet Charity is a cocktail of Neil Simon’s (The Odd Couple) comic sensibilities, Fosse’s dark, stylized burlesque, and Gwen Verdon/Shirley Maclaine’s bubbly sweetness and dance talents. With these great artists at the helm, we are led into an optimist’s musical odyssey. Seriously, every song is fun. Listen to these lyrics:
I’m the Bravest Individual I have ever met
The Rhythm of Life is a powerful beat,puts the tingle in your fingers and the tingle in your feet.
There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This, there’s got be something easy to learn. And when I find me something a halfwit can learn, I’m going to get up, get out and learn it!
I’m a Brass Band I’m a harpsichord, I’m a clarinet!
I Love to Cry at Weddings, oh what’s so sweet and sloppy as, Oh Promise Me, and all that jazz
And of course the Kathie Lee/Carnival Cruise Line-made-famous:
If They Could See Me Now, that little gang of mine, eatin’ fancy chow and drinkin’ fancy wine!
Even the dark and seductive “Hey Big Spender” has the repeating phrase of “fun, laughs, good times” which ought to be a wooden sign in a curly font hanging in living rooms next to “Live, Laugh, Love.” That song, by the way, does not have the character of Charity in it, which I always thought was purposeful, separating her from the other girls who are luring in both the men to whom they’re speaking but also Charity herself who is seeking an escape.
The Hooker with a Heart of Gold trope is a fascinating one that emphasizes personal character over mode of employment. There are usually reasons for such employment and we’re asked to root for the deliverance from such a place in the world, believing as we do in their overall morality.
From Mary Magdalene to Rizzo in Grease to Pretty Woman, the sinner-saint has always fascinated me. Especially in the feminine where there is even less inherent power, the female has to rely on hopefulness (whose opposite is ruthlessness, another feminine trope) as a tool in a world designed to keep her in her place.
I believe I said this in my introduction to The Pianolist, but this fascination with hopeful women in bad situations, with downtrodden spooky hookers, has always been there. From “Oh My Man I Love him So (all my life is just despair, but I don’t care),” to “What’s the Use of Wonderin” (he’s your fella and you love him) in Carousel to “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” from Showboat, the strong woman who happens to be miserable in love has always piqued my curiosity.
Please note, I never bought into this kind of love as an ideal or had any relationships that mirrored these songs. Did I think they were absurd in a way? Maybe I did. Maybe I wallowed so much in the melodramatic glory that when the time came for love, I knew what NOT to do.
The song I really want to focus on in this compilation of Sweet Charity, though, is a more contemplative song. It’s relevant to the mind’s ramblings in the New Year. Resolutions, here we come: Who am I and where am I going?
(In the youtube clip, I will admit that the tempo was a bit fast, but you’ll have to forgive because this song comes like 5 minutes into the roll and I had duped my sister into pumping it for me. She was getting tired. But the breakneck tempo also keeps it short, which is nice.)
Lyrical highlights of Where Am I Going include:
“Where Am I Going and What will I find? What’s in this grab bag that I call my mind?…
No matter where I go, I meet myself there…
Looking inside me, what do I see?
Anger and Hope and Doubt, what am I all about and Where am I going?”
And just when you think she’ll find her way out, she succumbs to the sadness and sings, “you tell me.”
The climax of the whole story is this moment! We are left without answers. But we are walking. We are on our feet. This is is what also makes this an excellent roll for sing-along parties. A few drinks in and belting in a good key: Wheeeere am I goiiing?? Whyyyyy do I care? is good for the soul.
"Which way is clear? When you’ve lost your way year after year?” While this question is not about love for me, it is about direction. Each New Year is a reorientation. We all wonder if we’re on the right track from time to time. I still don’t really know where I’m going. Or at least I hope I don’t. What would be the fun in that?
Some people see their lives as a clear path, but I think most of us are like Charity, taking the roads that present themselves and feeling from time to time sort of like a prostitute. Surely I’m still just a taxi dancer - I haven’t crossed a line?! We’ve all sold out on something we were sure we believed in. We all look at our days sometimes and think “there’s gotta be something better than this.” We all want someone to tell us what the answer is. The truth is, we can accept these things in a hooker with a heart of gold a lot more than we can accept them in ourselves.
The movie had two endings by the way: a happy ending where the fella figures out that he’s man enough to stay with Charity despite her background and the other where she wakes up on a park bench alone and is given a flower by a group of hippies and decides that today is another day.
The ambiguous or downright sad endings of movies in the 60s were a real moment, like optical art. There was The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, every single Paul Newman movie, every play by Neil Simon too really - hilarious plays, great modern plots, and endings that always left you a little unfulfilled. Of course, America was coming down from its post-war hero high. It had seen some reality and that happy endings weren’t a given.
So here we are in our moment of history, our medley of time and darkness and light. And hopefully we can meet it all with the spirit of the medley that is Sweet Charity.
Put all these songs, these highs and lows, together on one piano roll? Sure, you get tired pumping the pianola for 7 straight minutes, but you get to go through it all with Charity. And charity is a generosity of goodwill that can be used, as she did, towards ourselves. It’s forgiving and naive and hopeful, merciful and benevolent. If Charity looks with favor on us, we can look forward with hope too.
Cheers to 2023.
Hope! I think you must be an optimist, because every time I think of the ending of this movie, my heart breaks again. I’ll try to remember to think about hope next time. It’s a beautiful way to look at her. Thanks for that! ❤️
Hey there and happy 2023! You did a good thing, you did, started this bloggy observation email thing. There's a word. Anyway, you do a wonderous travel through this trope. It is always that prostitute knows best, pure despite her choices. Oldest profession that it is, the woman who chooses to use her closest, most dear possession of her own body to make a living has to stay strong or give in. What a high expectation that culture puts on a woman in survival mode. So many songs, so many stories and reviews. But do they want to consider what her work really is and what it does to a woman's soul? or why the heck does it have to be "dirty"? Because it IS a choice and it IS HER body to use as she wants or needs to.
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I'm ranting. I loved your piece here and thank you for your insights and music. And. Remain awesome, looking forward to your next share.