Is anyone surprised that “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble,” the two new Stephen Schwartz songs in Wicked: For Good, aren’t all that memorable? While it’s not impossible, there are very few movie musicals that pull off adding a new song.
Wicked: For Good was fighting an uphill battle. The new songs aren’t actively bad, and there are a lot of bad songs added to movie musicals for one reason or another. “Suddenly” from Les Miserables? Terrible. “Learn to be Lonely” in Phantom of the Opera? Just in the credits, thankfully, but still boring. “Beautiful Ghosts” in Cats? Hard pass. “Evermore,” in the live-action Beauty and the Beast? With so much love and respect to Dan Stevens, no thank you. I don’t even like Dear Evan Hansen, but even I know that “The Anonymous Ones” was unnecessary. The two Wicked songs just aren’t as good as their Act 2 companions, and don’t necessarily pull the threads they needed to pull in order to expand this story.
Now, “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space” from Little Shop of Horrors is a good song, and maybe even a great song. But since I prefer the stage musical’s ending and love the original “Finale (Don’t Feed The Plants)” so much, I can’t fully endorse the change. Occasionally, a movie musical will use a cut song instead of a totally original song. “You Can’t Win” from The Wiz and several songs in tick, tick… BOOM are examples of that.
Occasionally, however, a movie musical gets it right with new material. More than one of them, in fact, did it off so well that the new songs got added back in to subsequent stage productions. There are more 20th century examples than more recent examples, sure; and they rarely get more than a nomination at the Academy Awards if that. Only “You Must Love Me” from Evita won Best Original Song, and do we really want to get into Evita right now? The point is, it can be done!
Bye Bye Birdie
The catchy title song, “Bye Bye Birdie,” was not in the original stage musical. It was written for the film! Granted, it’s more of a pop song than a musical theatre song. It doesn’t advance the plot or reveal character in any way. When it was added to the 2009 Broadway revival, it was used as a celebratory finale. But it doesn’t suck.
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music movie adaptation cut Max and Elsa’s songs, and that’s a shame. But it added “I Have Confidence” for Maria, which is a really good “I Want” song, and the love duet “Something Good” for Maria and the Captain. Both of those songs have made their way into later stage productions. It makes an already epic musical even longer, but can you blame them?
The Little Mermaid
Here, I’m gonna get a little controversial. Live action adaptations of Disney musicals are as notorious as Broadway musical adaptations when it comes to adding songs that are mid by comparison. I know that people like to make fun of the Awkwafina and Daveed Diggs joint “Scuttlebutt” that Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda added to the score of the 1989 animated film. But “Wild Uncharted Waters” is charming, and “For The First Time” is an absolute banger. Miranda is so good at capturing the rush you get when you’re about to see your crush in song, and that moment where the fantasy breaks and Ariel remembers that she gave up her voice? Chills.
Godspell
“Beautiful City” was not originally part of the Stephen Schwartz musical Godspell. It was written for the 1973 film for the ensemble and added to the 2011 revival as a solo for Jesus. Other professional stage productions have used the song in other ways. But since the film, it’s hard to imagine Godspell without it.
A Little Night Music
In the original 1973 Stephen Sondheim stage musical, “The Glamorous Life” is a chaotic ensemble song. In it, a theatre troupe travels from town to town and the leading lady and her mother write letters back and forth. The opening verse is sung by the star’s daughter, who introduces her own unconventional upbringing. For the 1977 film, Sondheim rewrote the song as a ballad entirely from the daughter’s point of view. The new version of “The Glamorous Life” is a sweeping, emotional song full that has had a life in concerts (see Audra MacDonald crushing it above) since the film.
Grease
The original musical Grease was very different in tone and tune to the movie we know and love. So many songs in the movie were not in the early versions of the stage play, including “Grease,” “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” “Sandy,” and “You’re The One That I Want.” To the surprise of nobody, those songs were very quickly added into subsequent productions of Grease on the West End, Broadway, and around the globe. (There was a different song titled “Grease” in the original Chicago production of the musical that has cropped up in some revivals… just to keep you on your toes!)
Dreamgirls
It’s hard to argue with a song when Beyoncé is singing it. (Now, do I wish that the live-action The Lion King had let her sing “Shadowland,” one of the best songs from that stage musical? Absolutely. We were robbed!) The movie added three other songs: “Love You I Do”, “Patience” and “Perfect World.” “Listen” is the best of the three. It was the lead single for the movie. Most importantly, however, they sang it on Glee. That’s how you know a song has really made it.
Annie
I personally will always begrudge the fact that “We’d Like To Thank You Herbert Hoover” was not in the 1982 movie adaptation of Annie. (It wasn’t in the 1999 television movie either, for that matter.) But I can’t act like “Let’s Go To The Movies” isn’t a bop. I’m even fine with it replacing “NYC,” which is in the television movie, because “Let’s Go To The Movies” is such a good showcase for Ann Reinking’s brilliance. The same goes for “We Got Annie,” a shorter addition that’s more dance than music. There are other adaptation changes in this movie that have aged pretty poorly. But the songs are innocent!
Cabaret
Like Grease, the 1972 Bob Fosse film Cabaret added more than one song that is now inseparable from the stage show: the devastating Sally Bowles solo “Maybe This Time,” which was a single on Liza Minelli’s first album Liza! Liza! that happened to be written by Cabaret composing team Kander and Ebb, as well as the 100 percent new group number “Mein Herr.”
A similar thing happened with Barbra Streisand’s cover of “My Man” in Funny Girl. That song was not written for the movie, but is now famous because of the movie. It was on one of Streisand’s albums first. It was actually written decades before, by different composers, and first popularized in the United States by the real Fanny Brice.
Hairspray
Even if it weren’t for so many classic examples of movie musicals with songs so good you didn’t know they were new, I will always defend a modern movie musical’s right to add new songs, because of Hairspray. An occasional swing and a miss is worth it, because “The New Girl in Town” and “Lady’s Choice” are so, so, so, soooooooo good. Especially “The New Girl in Town,” because it accomplishes so much in the film. It shows how white artists stole songs from Black artists in the Motown era. It’s pop lyrics indirectly verbalizes how Tracy is shaking things up in Baltimore as she rises to fame. And since it’s over a montage, the number is cinematic in a way that only a movie musical (obviously) can accomplish.
BONUS: Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
Finally, I want to give a special shoutout to the genius that Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again even though it’s an original film and a jukebox musical, so it doesn’t really fit the assignment. The 2008 movie Mamma Mia added “When All Is Said And Done” to the Broadway line-up. It’s not the best. But the sequel not only re-contextualized songs like “Waterloo,” “Dancing Queen,” and the title song, but added “Super Trouper,” “One Of Us,” “Angel Eyes,” “Fernando,” “When I Kissed The Teacher,” and so many other excellent numbers. The film is a great example of how to give new songs to old characters in creative and surprising ways. Learn something from this!
(featured image: Disney, Allied Artists)
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