Stars and the Moon (from Songs for a New World)

Is this the ultimate cabaret song? Host writer/composer David Rackoff dives deep into one of his (and every songwriter's) favorite cabaret songs. Jason Robert Brown's gorgeous, diabolically manipulative "Stars and the Moon" is so much fun to watch, perform, and analyze. 

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Nothing Like Broadway podcast.
I am writer-composer David Rakoff, writer-composer of the upcoming Off-Broadway Musical Nothing
Like Broadway, and this is a podcast which is also called Nothing Like Broadway, but
on this podcast we pick a song each week from musical theater, we pick it apart to see how
it works in the context of the show and how the music works and how the lyrics work, and
how it all works together.
And just to be clear, the musical Nothing Like Broadway, which I wrote, is a different
thing than this podcast, but if you like this podcast then definitely check us out on Instagram,
Nothing Like Broadway, and on Facebook, and get into Nothing Like Broadway the Musical
because if you like this podcast, hopefully you will like that too.
So this week we are picking apart the song Stars and the Moon by Jason Robert Brown.
And this was one of the first suggestions, and also probably the most suggested song that I have
gotten, and you can suggest a song by emailing us NothingLikeBroadway at gmail.com or you
can DM me on Instagram at Nothing Like Broadway, but this song keeps getting requested and I
keep almost doing it, but I kept resisting it because one of the main things that I like
to do on this show is, in addition to the music and the lyrics, is to look at how the context
of this song affects the song and how the song affects the entire storyline of the whole show.
And this is a self-contained song. It comes from the review, Songs for a New World,
that is a review of Jason Robert Brown's songs, and they're sort of like loosely, I guess, sort of
connected. It's like a song cycle kind of, but it really is more self-contained songs. And so this
song Stars and the Moon doesn't really have a context, but then I was like, you know what,
maybe the context to talk about here is that there is no context, because that is a whole category
of songs, I've written many of them, songs that are not from a musical, but they're not like a pop
song, they're still a musical theater song, but they exist on their own like a little one act play
with the beginning, middle, and end. And so let's talk a little bit first about how that works.
So when you have a song that is, has no context, as a musical theater song that's usually in a
review or people will do it in an audition or in like a cabaret or nightclub setting, there's
basically one of two ways it came about. One is that the songwriter just wrote this song out of
context, the wrote just wrote a self-contained song from the beginning, they set out to do that.
And the other way is that it was originally in context, it was from a show, either from like a
better known show that the song got cut at some point, or it's just a song from a show that you've
never heard of that never went anywhere. Because that's something that happens a lot of times,
you'll start a show and then like, you know, four songs in, you're like, I think I want to work on
something else. And so then you might have a couple of songs that you really like, but that
just have no context anymore. But what makes a successful out of context song is that you
basically tell a complete story without having anything come before it or after it, like a one
act play. Now as you're writing it, you know, you of course need to have some idea of what this
character was going through before it, and presumably what will happen after it. But
there's no necessary setup for the song to work. I've written many songs that were intentionally
out of context, just to be done in like a nightclub act or whatever. But then there's also some
songs that got cut from things that I still really like. And then there's a couple of times,
that's slightly embarrassing, where either me or me and a collaborator wrote a song that we were
really, really happy with. And we were like, what if we wrote a whole show based around this song?
And so far, that has not panned out at all. Like the whole fond of a song like this,
like Stars and the Moon, is that it is self contained. And so let's talk a little bit
specifically about Stars and the Moon. So if you know anyone who is a musical theater cabaret
kind of writer, and if you meet them and they tell you that they are not jealous of this song,
they are lying to you. This is like the perfect out of context cabaret song. And like the first
time you hear the song, you're like, oh my God, I want to hear it again. And I want to hear everything
else that this person wrote. And I want to watch everything else that this performer performs.
Like it is just a really, really great self contained cabaret song. I mean, possibly like
the platonic ideal of a self contained cabaret song.
So let's take a look specifically about how a song like this gets written. So when people ask me,
as somebody who writes music and lyrics, people ask all the time, like, which comes first, the music
of the lyrics, people who are collaborative teams get that question all the time. And the answer
pretty much almost, almost, almost always is the concept, like the idea comes first. And when you
have a really good idea, like this song, let me just explain what the song is. So it's called Stars
on the Moon. It is a woman who is talking about how she was sort of looking for love. And then she
meets three guys over the course of her lifetime. And the first guy is poor, but like sweet. And so
she talks about all the things that he says that he's going to bring to her life. And then she meets
a second guy who is sexy, but like left his wife and kids, but is really romantic and sexy and has
his view of what he would bring to her life is just incredibly passionate and exciting. And then
she meets a third guy. Oh, sorry, each time she's like, you know what, I think I would like to be
wealthy. And so then finally she meets a wealthy guy. And he says all of the exciting, glamorous
things that he will give her. And she's like, yes, great. And so that third man is the one she chose
and is currently still in that situation. And at the end, she realizes, Oh, God, my life is empty
because I was pursuing the wrong thing. And so it's a pretty simple idea, but it's a great idea.
And so one of the things when you're talking about songwriting, and like I talk about the craft
of songwriting and just like the, you know, like the scan and the lyrics and the making the music
interesting, but knowing how to use it to help, you know, build emotion and everything, like having
these muscles and these techniques and this training is really helpful. But we've all heard
songs from incredibly talented and trained people that are just kind of right. And so you need to
have a really good idea. And an idea as good as this one comes along, not that many times in a
writer's life. But when it comes, if you are someone like Jason Robert Brown, who has a
tremendous amount of training and technique and talent and tenacity, you write a song like this
very early in his career. So if you are, you know, newly studying writing musical theater,
it's great to have great ideas, but you also do need to like know what you're doing and like know
how to rhyme things and know poetic terms and have the some theory and all that kind of stuff so that
when you have a good idea, you will be able to do it. And in the meantime, you will write some
technically really proficient songs that might not be that exciting, but that will help you stretch
and grow. So the main concept for this song is that we meet someone and she says what she is
looking for, which is not love or passion or excitement or romance, but it is wealth. And
then you see her turn down several exciting opportunities. And then in the end, she chooses
a man who can give her that wealth. And then the sort of punchline or like the reveal at the end
is that, oh, gosh, my life is empty. I made the wrong turn. And what's so hard about this song is
that it's like, obviously, like, of course, nobody's writing a song where the ending is,
that's right, you should, you know, screw passion and love and commitment and compassion. It's all
about getting a yacht. And so the trick of this song and the thing that it has to execute on and
that it executes on brilliantly is that it basically is tricking you. It's like trying to seduce you
down the wrong path. So you think, hmm, maybe this is the right choice for her. So that then
when you get the final reveal, it's actually surprising instead of like, well, of course.
So basically the way that it does this is that it has this incredibly catchy chorus. It's sort of
like a movie that's like a thriller, like a who done it. And in the end, it ends up being like the
person who's the most obvious villain that can still work if the movie is able to trick you
the whole time into thinking that it's this person, then it's this person, it's something else,
it's something else, something else. And then in the end, it's like, nope, it is the person who
you thought it was. The killer is that guy after all. And that's what the song is doing. It's basically
like giving you red herrings so that you are surprised when the thing that, you know, kind of
obviously is the answer is the answer. So musically, the song is, I don't know, simple is the right
word. We'll go with the word simple for now, even though it's incredibly clever. But the song is
basically like the chord progression of the song is almost entirely the root chord. It's almost
always just the chord of the key. So let's hear that. And then there's also a sus four version of that
and a sus two version of that.
The relative minor of that same chord.
And then a flat seven chord, it's basically like the root chord with the seventh without the fifth.
Sorry if that's complicated, but here's what that sounds like.
And they're basically all sort of fun house mirror versions of the same chord,
which is very clever. And then so what makes it interesting is that it is rhythmically,
it's really exciting. And also this thing that we've talked about many, many times on the podcast
is the hook of this is on the fifth degree of the root chord, right? With bring him home is it's the
same note that bring him home is right? It's the fifth degree of the scale. And what are the songs?
I can't say no has that feature. There's a couple of other ones recently we've talked about.
But that is like your easiest money pretty note is the fifth degree of the scale on the root chord.
And so that is what this song, the chorus of the song is just
that is that first part is just all on the fifth degree of the scale. And it sounds really,
really pretty. And it is seductive. It seduces us. And there's also this cool piano motif, which is this.
And that is basically the root chord.
And then the sus four chord.
And then the sus two chord.
Of all the same chord. And it has actually like Jim Steinman like beatloaf those songs,
like it has that sort of playing around with sus chords and like the main chord and then the sus four
then the sus two. That has a very like modern kind of rocky but like piano and kind of just very
exciting sound. I love that. And so just pulling you back in to the main chord, which is just very
exciting. And the song is all about yearning and returning home. And the only chord that isn't a
variation of the root chord is there's a five seven chord occasionally, which basically is the chord
that makes you want to go back to the root chord. So here I play the five seven and then the root.
This song, unlike a lot of modern musical theater songs, is not very rangy. Like it really is not
like like meadowlark is a song we did a couple weeks ago that's unbelievably rangy. And there's
just not that many people on the planet who can really sing that song well. This is a song vocally
that almost anybody can sing well. Young old belter head voice, whatever, which takes a lot of
discipline because when you're writing a song, it's always nice to add an extra high note. And
then what about the note higher than that? What about a little higher than that? This song does
not do that. The song is very disciplined and it just lets you because it's such a small range,
it lets the singer put it in like whatever the best little octave and a half is of their voice.
Another thing the song does really well musically and also illustrates is just the whole idea of
why we have a verse and a chorus. And it's because we need variation. And this song,
the verse, sounds one way and the chorus sounds another way. And they are completely different.
The actor gets to do completely different things. So they're sort of telling a story
thoughtfully for the verse. And then the chorus is like you're zipping along and it's exciting.
And they're really, really different. There's no bridge or anything because the verse and the
chorus are so different from each other that every time we get to a verse and it's about to be the
chorus. We're like, oh, here comes that catchy part again. But then once we're done with that,
we're like, oh, here comes the thoughtful part again. And so this song is a really just good
example of like why verses and choruses exist. Okay, so given that the music for this is catchy
and gorgeous, but very straightforward and sort of simple, the lyrics are where you need to have
all the complexity come in. And so the rhyme scheme for both the verse actually and the chorus
is A-B-A-B-C-C. And what that means is the first and third line rhyme with each other,
the second and fourth line rhyme with each other. And then after that, there is just a rhyming
couplet. And this song is not overly rhyming. Like it's not about that. It's not a showy, showy,
rhyming song. Although just remember, one can do that. This is just not that kind of song.
Although the chorus does sound kind of patterny. It sounds like a pattern song,
except for the fact that it's not that rhyming. But it's like spitting out words to emphasize
the beat, which as we said before is really exciting. And the words in the chorus, they're
really punchy. So like, let me look at the lyrics. I'll give you stars and the moon and the open
highway and the river beneath your feet. I'll give you days full of dreams if you travel my way and
a summer you can't repeat. Right? So those are, it's not legato. It's not like gooey, like bring
him home. We talked about his really legato. This is like, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup,
right? It emphasizes the beat. So it's always like that in the chorus. But then in the final chorus,
which is where we're having to be sold on the fact that her choosing this wealthy guy,
you know, who she's not in love with is a good idea. Jason Robert Brown actually gives you extra
punchy words. I'll give you cars and a townhouse and turtle, bay and defer and a diamond ring.
And we married in Spain on my yacht today and well, honeymoon in Beijing. Right? So it's like
even more punchy. It emphasizes the rhythm even more. It gives us what we've been getting from
that chorus each time, but even a little bit more because this is where the salesmanship has to come
in as a songwriter. Because if we don't buy this in the moment while we're watching it,
we're just like, oh, you idiot, why are you choosing this? Right? We just want to be like
swept along in her excitement of the moment. Each verse ends on a joke, basically. So the first
one is it really like a jokie joke. I mean, like it's, it's, I'll give you truth and a future
that's 20 times better than any Hollywood plot. And I thought, you know, I'd rather have a yacht,
right? Which is like a, it's a solid joke, but it also is like, that's the first twist in the song.
Hearing the first chorus, we're like, oh my gosh, of course she's going to go with this guy. What's
the story about? Is it going to be about the two of them falling in love or like maybe he dies and
it's sad? But no, she's saying I had this chance for true love or something that seemed like true
love. And she's like, I want a yacht. And so having a word like yacht that is really punchy and just
ends on the yacht. It's like one syllable has the sound. It's how you want to land a joke. But it
also, you know, makes the main point of the song. And each chorus ends in that. The second one is
no strings, just warm summer rain. And I thought, you know, I'd rather have champagne. And there's
something about having a joke in a not like a comedy song that is a really, sometimes talks about
this a lot, is that having a joke like that in the middle of a serious song, make sure that
everyone is on the same page. You know, like an order for that joke there to work, the audience has
to get the proceeding thing was really romantic. We're accustomed in songs like this that we are
going to want to go with the romance. And yet this character is choosing the opposite. And it gets a
laugh and it gives the performer a chance to, you know, show off a little bit of comedy chops.
But it also lets everybody in the room in that live room watching this in a nightclub or whatever,
let's everybody know, okay, we're all on the same page. We all get it. And so another thing
the lyrics do that is just really, really smart is because of again, the same major problem that
this song needs to solve, which is she's progressively choosing the thing that is normally the wrong
thing. She's actually going to choose that thing. And we have to be on board for it. So the lyrics
for the first verse in chorus are just nothing but romantic, right? A man without a dollar to his name,
who had no yearning or claim to fame. He said, I'll give you the stars and the moon and a soul
to guide you. I'll give you truth and a future that's 20 times better than any Hollywood plot.
Right. And so that's all just like a sort of naive, but exciting version of romance and love.
Right. Like, you know, in real life, we don't always choose the person who is
poor and has no plan and has no ambition. But the song knows that we normally in a song like this
would think that that's what we're supposed to choose. So when she chooses at the end to not like
that, and she's not choosing it because she wants somebody who's ambitious or who has like,
you know, a plan in life, she's saying, no, I want a yacht. Like, I don't want some guy who's like
the best teacher in the high school, which this guy is not. This guy is like, you know,
like a probably like a slacker or whatever, but like a sweet guy. She's saying, I want a yacht.
That's when we realized that, okay, so this really callow version of romance is not what she wants.
But she also doesn't sound like once like a real, like a great life partner choice.
She wants something really financially superficial. And so then the second verse
is where I think this gets really, really clever where the song gets like diabolical in controlling
our emotions and our thought process as an audience. So the second verse is,
I met a man who lived his life out on the road, who left a wife and kids in Portland on a whim.
So that line, who left his wife and kids on a whim, like that's where that song really is like,
just like an evil genius. Because now we're like, oh, this guy's romantic. But like,
what an irresponsible dick. Like he left his wife and kids. And so it makes you think, huh,
maybe there's more to this, the person singing the song than we thought, because like obviously,
yeah, you turned down the guy who left his wife and kids on a whim. But this chorus is like the
most seductive of all of them. I'll give you stars and the moon and the open highway and a river
beneath your feet. I'll give you days full of dreams if you travel my way and a summer you
can't repeat. Like how do you say no to that? Even if the guy is a jerk because he left his wife
and kids. And so it sort of gets us off our guard. Instead of thinking that we know where the song
is going, it's like, huh, all right, she's correct to turn this guy down, even though
it's so romantic. And the chorus is so seductive. There's one lyric in the song that is like,
not quite right. And like, we've all got him sometime in his look, I made a hat and finishing
the hat books talks about a whole bunch of his. But there's always like some word that you just
work and work and work and work and work. And you can't get it exactly right. But like, it's fine
because overall the song needs it. So the last verse here, I met a man who had a fortune in
the bank who had retired at age 30 set for life. I met a man and didn't know which stars to thank.
And he asked one day if I would be his wife. All great. And I looked up and all I could think of
was the life I had dreamt I would live. And I said to him, what will you give? So like, that's not
exactly like, I don't have any personal knowledge of this, but I would be willing to bet that Jason
Robert Brown spent a lot of time being like, Oh, can I do this? Because you want to be what will
you give me? Like you, you normally have an object of give, right? Like you normally don't say,
what will you give? It's what will you give to me? What will you, you know, but it just fits perfectly
in the way the song is going. And we're on to the next thing because the chorus that follows it is
absolutely spectacular. And so I just it's just one of those things where I'm like seeing it and
like, again, there's a million things in songs that I've written, where you agonize and agonize
and eventually you're like, for the good of the song, I got to have this one little
wrinkle in a, I don't know, like a project run away where they make like a
outfit and there's like one little pleat that shouldn't be there, but they couldn't undo it.
So that's that's to me, I think in this song is there's that one little imperfection there.
But again, I have plenty of those. And then you're right into the final chorus, which is
unbelievably great. And so let's talk a little bit about that final chorus. It's exciting because
it breaks the pattern because previously, all of the choruses have started out with,
I'll give you stars and the moon and then other stuff. Here, there's no stars on the moon. I'll
give you cars, which is a rhyme that was normally not a rhyme. It was just the same word over and
over again. I'll give you cars and a townhouse in Turtle Bay and a fur and a diamond ring.
And we'll be married in Spain on my yacht today, which is kind of cool that he is putting in the
word yachts. That was how the first chorus ended. And you'll meet stars at the parties. So now all
of a sudden we're using the word stars for the first time in this chorus. All the other words
start out with, I'll give you stars and the moon. Here, we're not using the word stars until
a different meaning of the word stars like famous people. And you'll meet stars at the parties. I
throw out my villas in Nice and Paris in June. And so now all of a sudden we've got June,
but we've not had the word moon here. We've only had the word stars and with a different meaning
and a different context and a different place than it's been in every previous chorus. But with
the last word of that chorus being June. And so then it ends with this long like list of things
that are not really rhymed. That it's just, and I thought, okay, and I took a breath and I got my
yacht and the years went by and I never changed and I never grew and I never dreamed and I woke one
day and I looked around and I thought, my God, I'll never have the moon. The last word of the song
is the word moon that has been missing from this and only this chorus. Right? So he's like making
us wait for a really long time to get to the word that we have been just getting spoon fed
five or six words into each chorus. All of a sudden it ends there and obviously that's the
perfect place to end this song. And it's absolutely perfect. And you get to the end of the song and
you're like, all you want to do is like, I remember the first time I heard it, I was like,
repeat. Like, I want to hear that song again. Oh my God. And so let's talk about performance
because this is a cabaret song, which is sort of by definition usually showcasing the performer.
This song is so well written and everything is right there for you and it's not super rangey
and it's not demanding that you particularly belt something or head voice something.
Basically any solid singer, actor can score a home run with this song and a home run for my
understanding is a good thing to do in sports. And so that's something that is often, I don't know,
underappreciated in songwriting is a song that is not about the high notes or like the rhymes or
like how fast somebody can sing a bunch of words, but that really is just there to let the performer
express themselves. Different people interpret this song very differently. Like I was going
through a sort of rabbit hole, a YouTube rabbit hole of this song and I suggest you do that.
There's just a million people singing this song, especially like, you know, like luminaries, you
know, this like the Donna Murphy, Sutton Foster, Betty Buckley and a million people, they all do
really, really well at it. Some of them like Sutton Foster, it's a little more comedic and
adorable. Until the end, then it's even more surprising when it's this sort of profound
depth thing that happens to her. Donna Murphy has a more sort of sophisticated,
rueful kind of a little bit of self-loathing, which Donna Murphy, of course, is great at.
But the song lets us see inside the brain of the actor, like moment to moment to moment,
as opposed to like a song, a song that people sing in cabaret, like I dreamed a dream is like,
I really like that song, but like that song is real hard to sing. And so you got to really,
you're belting out notes on like closed vowels at the end of it. And it's also so dramatic
that there's not a lot of room for nuance. Like you really have to just be at like a,
almost having a nervous breakdown. And then also have all these high notes. So it's a great song,
nothing wrong with it. But this song lets an actor breathe and let's an actor think and let's the
audience see inside their brain. Like you don't have to be Audra McDonald to perform this song well
vocally or acting wise. But if you are Audra McDonald, it's amazing. And yeah, so we're going
to actually listen to Audra McDonald's version of it. And if you're not familiar with the song,
look up Audra McDonald singing Stars on the Moon. It is just, it's just, it's a revelation. Like I
think there's a video of it when she was much younger, you know, you can just see the people
in the audience being like, what is happening? Who is this songwriter? Who is this actress,
singer? Like this is all just like amazing. And she sounds amazing. It's not, you know,
the hardest song that she's ever sung, but it sounds great because she has it in her like
mixy, heady place. And then she belts a little bit. And then also just her intelligence and acting
and like really transparent where you can like see inside of her brain. It's just really wonderful.
So this has been the Nothing Like Broadway podcast. Please follow Nothing Like Broadway,
the musical on Instagram at Nothing Like Broadway and look us up on Facebook, Nothing Like Broadway.
And if you have a question or if I got something wrong about something or if you have a suggestion,
for a song in the future, email us at nothinglikebroadwayatgmail.com. I'm David Rackhoff and
here is Audra McDonald singing some of Stars on the Moon by Jason Robert Brown.
And he said, but you don't understand. I'll give you stars in the mood and they open a highway and
a river beneath your feet. I'll give you days full of dreams if you travel my way and a summer you
can't repeat. I'll give you nights full of passion and days of adventure no strings just so high in
your rather have champagne.