A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context.[ "Show Tunes", AllMusic.com, accessed March 13, 2016]
Though show tunes vary in style, they do tend to share common characteristics—they usually fit the context of a story being told in the original musical, they are useful in enhancing and heightening choice moments. A particularly common form of show tune is the "I Want" song, which composer Stephen Schwartz noted as being particularly likely to have a lifespan outside the show that spawned it.
Show tunes were a major venue for popular music before the rock and roll and television era; most of the hits of such songwriters as Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin came from their shows. (Even into the television and rock era, a few stage musicals managed to turn their show tunes into major pop music hits, sometimes aided by film adaptations and exposure through .) Although show tunes no longer have such a major role in popular music as they did in their heyday, they remain somewhat popular, especially among niche audiences (such as ). Show tunes make up a disproportionate part of the songs in most variations of the Great American Songbook.
The reverse phenomenon, when already popular songs are used to form the basis of a stage production, is known as a jukebox musical.
Examples
Particular musicals that have yielded popular “show tunes” include:
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Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, The Sound of Music
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Jerome Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat
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Rudolf Friml, Herbert Stothart, Otto Harbach and Hammerstein's Rose-Marie
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Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's Pal Joey and Babes in Arms
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Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, As Thousands Cheer, Call Me Madam
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Cole Porter's Anything Goes, Kiss Me, Kate, Can-Can
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George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin's Girl Crazy, Oh, Kay!
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Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's Fiddler on the Roof
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Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, Gigi, Camelot
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Meredith Willson's The Music Man
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Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
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Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story
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Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's Stop the World – I Want to Get Off, The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd
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Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton
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Bricusse, Frank Wildhorn and Steve Cuden's Jekyll & Hyde
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Jerry Herman's Milk and Honey, Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Dear World, Mack and Mabel, La Cage aux Folles
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Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, , A Little Night Music and Into the Woods
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John Kander and Fred Ebb's Cabaret, and Chicago
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Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Starlight Express, Sunset Boulevard, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
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Stephen Schwartz's Pippin, Godspell, and Wicked
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Jonathan Larson's Rent
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Claude-Michel Schönberg's Les Misérables, Miss Saigon
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Charles Strouse's Bye Bye Birdie (with Lee Adams) and Annie (with Martin Charnin)
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Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's Grease
Bibliography
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Green, Stanley. Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976
External links
