Today, 25/3/18, is the day of the next instalment of Song Of The Week Sunday - where I will be sharing a piece of music that I listened to more than any other during the space of the previous. In this instance, from week beginning 19/3/18 and ending today, 25/3/18, the song I listened to the most was the following:
Found Tonight by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt
Link - Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aQykuIaJVI
Link - Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tivcf-zIOU
I happened across this piece of music on Monday morning at
6am. I was scrolling through intsagram and thought it was going to be a mash-up
made by crafty hands of a Broadway fan. How wrong I was, the first thing I
heard was Lin-Manuel Miranda singing “have you ever felt like nobody was there”
and I shrieked, making such an inhuman sound. Because that was Lin-Manuel
Miranda singing lyrics from Dear Evan Hansen. I saved the song and played the
clip over breakfast with my housemates and watched one of them react in the
same manner I did. Sheer awe. She, like me, is a great fan of the newer
musicals on Broadway, her personal favourite being Dear Evan Hansen.
We watched the full video in the library after eight hours
of lecture and then subsequent classwork. We were dumbstruck by the culmination
of lyrics and the additions of lines from songs from other pieces from the
musicals. For example, the one that made my heart shatter was the “it’s only a
matter of time” from the song Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story, the
closing song of Hamilton. That song in particular, holds great emotional
significance with me and to hear just one line made my eyes well up with tears.
The way in which the piece is constructed is beautiful and
thought provoking at the same time, with minor edits to the lyrics to fit the
wider context of the piece. For example: We may not have reached our glory, is
an altered version of the first line of The Story Of Tonight, the original goes
as follows: I may not live to see our glory. The edit was put in place to refer
to the wider story of the song – a declaration of support for the March For Our
Lives campaign. Which wasn’t stated until the end of the beautiful mash-up.
Once I saw the #IWillMarch I knew this piece would just have to be my Song Of
The Week as this piece offers such a vast talking point into social change.
For those of you who are not aware of the March For Our
Lives campaign, it is a movement that took place to resist the lack of gun
control and the severity of gun violence in the USA. There have been several
peaceful protests demonstrated in order to reflect what is happening and the
lack of patience people are having for it now, such as Walk Out. However, the
bigger campaign was the national movement of March For Our Lives, where, across
the USA, members of the public came together to protest.
I have played Found Tonight multiple times on loop, each day
since its release and cried when I watched the live performance that took place
yesterday (24/3/18). There is a lot of emotional resonance with the lyrics, the
way that the song is put together reflects the idea that our generation, this
generation is making an effort to make changes and the people that are older
than us are letting us lead the way. But that doesn’t mean this fight is
exclusive and only centres around the young people – no this issue is prevalent
and therefore, people of many different ages are coming together to demonstrate
what people can do.
I may not live in the USA, but I am behind these people and
I know that change will happen. History has its eyes on us.
Thank you for reading!
And remember:
Per Ardua Ad Astra!
- Imogen. L. Smiley
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