Rodgers and Hammerstein didn't mean anything to me. I just wanted to have a hit, I just wanted to be like those people on the radio. It was all of a case of the present tense with no projecting into the future, particularly.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
It's kind of hard to get deep with Rodgers and Hammerstein. I can't think of a moral in the music - it's just fun.
In their plush melodies and plummy platitudes, many Rodgers-and-Hammerstein songs were secular hymns, which so insinuated themselves into the ear of the Eisenhower-era listener that they became the liturgical music for the American mid-century.
Everyone goes through the ups and downs of living - fretting about the future, worrying about what happened. Music teaches us how to be in the moment.
After a while, though, you realize that a whole slew of young singer-songwriter piano players are getting compared to you. That's when you feel the passage of time is occurring.
In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.
If I was doing a musical, I would never listen to the cast album, because I wanted to do my version of something.
I feel very fortunate to have been associated with people such as Rodgers and Hammerstein. I think they were geniuses of their time.
Like Rodgers and Hammerstein, I'm not afraid to deal with themes about the ups and downs of life, yet which are still entertaining, and you still feel these stories.