Over at the Frankenstein Place (from The Rocky Horror Show)

I'm sure you shiver with anticip-- SAY IT! --pation for today's episode. We look at the music, lyrics, and extravagant weirdness of this song, and this show. Host writer/composer David Rackoff also looks at the cultural significance of The Rocky Horror Show. And why does this song beckon to queer high school theater kids so strongly? Get your rice and newspapers ready, and let's dive in to "Over at the Frankenstein Place".

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Nothing Like Broadway podcast.
I am your host, writer-composer David Rakoff of the upcoming Off-Broadway Musical, Nothing
Like Broadway, and this is the podcast where every week we pick a song from musical theater
and then we pick it apart to find out how it works.
And today we are doing Over at the Frankenstein Place from The Rocky Horror Show and The Rocky
Horror Picture Show, which is the movie version of the show.
And Rocky Horror is kind of one of those things that you either know a lot about or you know
very little about.
So either way, it's a really fun song and this should be a good time.
So The Rocky Horror Show and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it's the story of Brad and
Janet, who are these two very like square sort of upstanding young people.
And they are coming from a wedding, driving through the darkness, and their car breaks
down and they see a light in a castle, strangely, in the distance.
And so they decide to go there to find shelter and to call for a tow truck or a cab or whatever.
And then the castle ends up being inhabited by these very strange people, who it turns
out are actually aliens and all sorts of crazy, weird stuff happens.
And this song over at the Frankenstein Place is the transition from the Squaresville world
where Brad and Janet live and the crazy, weird location where the rest of the musical
happens.
And so this song is basically, it's like an incantation, like it's sort of mystical and
magical and spooky.
It's very like Halloween-y.
And it is seducing Brad and Janet to this weird alien sexual strange world.
So the lyrics of the song, it's pretty short lyric wise.
It's like four paragraphs, basically, with a little bit of repeating.
And it has a lot of contrast in between bright and night and dark and light.
And the main thing to note about the lyrics for this song, because it's not that
rhyme-y, it's not that much to talk about as far as like scanning and rhyming and stuff
like that, is it's very purple prose, like actually not prose, it's a very purple verse.
It is very over the top.
It's like music of the night, how like, you know, sensual and tender or whatever.
So like this, the opening of the song is in the Velvet Darkness, Velvet Darkness, nice.
Of the blackest night, burning bright.
There's a guiding star, no matter what or who you are.
Pretty simple, rhymy, time-y wise.
But it's just, it really lets you know, OK, we are in a different world now.
And it's a really good example of how good writing is not just a matter of, let's
say, some words that make sense.
And then if it's a song having it rhyme or have it fit the scan, it's like making
a really strong choice before you start writing.
The question is like, what is the show's voice?
The character of Riff Raff is the soloist in the song.
And so it's like, what kinds of words would that person and this world use?
It's like weird and sensual, overly ornamented.
That's a choice that the writer, who's actually Richard O'Brien, who played
Riff Raff in the movie and the original stage versions of it, he made this choice
to instead of having it be like the previous song was Dammit, Janet, which is
like this very rhymy square, kind of like fun peppy song.
This is now all of a sudden creepy, spooky, sexy, sensual, but in a really over the top way.
Darkness must go down the river of night streaming.
Flow more fiasco.
So like looking at the lyrics from a technical standpoint, I was kind of wondering
like, whose point of view is this?
Like, who's actually singing?
There's a light over at the Frankenstein place, which is I think the full title of
the song, is sort of like the combination of Brad and Janet's point of view.
And the characters in the, the Transylvanians is what they're called.
There's a light over there is something that only Brad and Janet would say,
because the people who were in the castle are in the castle, there's no over there.
They're here.
They would be saying there's a light right here at the Frankenstein place.
But Brad and Janet don't know that it's called the Frankenstein place.
It's kind of an interesting choice.
Like sometimes this kind of thing, if you're looking at it, you could think it's sloppy,
but I don't think it is here.
I think it's an interesting choice that it's sort of melding in one sentence.
Brad and Janet's point of view and the Transylvanians' point of view.
So rhyming, it's just all couplets, just A, A, B, B, the blackest night, burning bright.
There's a guiding star, no matter what or who you are, over at the Frankenstein
place, burning in the fireplace.
But something that's interesting, and because this was written by Richard O'Brien,
music and lyrics, we can really look at, there's something called a melisma.
If that's a term that you don't know what it means, it is when one syllable of a
word takes place over many syllables of a note.
So like, it's, riffing is a kind of melisma.
But this melisma is written into the score.
And so when they're singing, there's a l-a-a-a-a-ight.
It's just, it's sort of wandering all around.
So why is it wandering around like that?
So like, one reason that you would do this is if you are a singer and you want to
riff, that is something that you could do, basically to show off your voice,
but also to give more emotion or emphasis or whatever to a word.
Here, I think it's seducing Brad and Janet to come toward them.
So it's like this sort of wafting, we play that part now.
It's like in a cartoon where you have a pie on a windowsill and you can see like the
smell lines that are sort of drifting and then they go and find whatever character
wants to eat that pie.
And then it sort of pulls them in.
Like that's exactly what this melisma is doing here.
And so then it goes from this very drifty sort of mellow thing.
And then all of a sudden it hits you with that harmony of burning in the fireplace.
Burning in the fireplace.
And so it's such a fun contrast of like hard and soft.
And then at the end of the bridge, which is a riffraff solo, he has this very long
melisma into my life, into my life.
And it's a riff over like many bars.
Let me see what that is.
Yeah, it's like five bars.
And then sometimes in the live versions of it, the actor will opt up.
So it goes to all of a sudden you're like, basically have this octave jump.
And it just sounds great.
And it really is like seducing the audience and seducing Brad and Janet into this world.
I'm going to let me play you the awesome opt up.
Actually, no, I'll play at the end.
Yeah.
All right.
I'm not going to play it now.
And there's something really cool about this song is like a sirens call to Brad and Janet,
but also to the audience and like, especially to like the weird and queer theater kids in
the audience.
Like it's like when you're watching this as like a teenager with your drama club,
which is literally how I first experienced Rocky Horror was going with my drama club
friends in high school.
It's like a midnight show, which was very dangerous seeming.
And this song is like where you're like, oh, I get it.
I'm home.
This is for us.
The reason that this song and the show really speaks to originally like high school weirdo
theatery kids is that it is big and theatrical and over the top.
It's not sexual.
Like there's a big debate online that I was in the middle of recently.
Where somebody was asking whether it was okay for their teenager to be in a community
theater production of Rocky Horror.
And there was a lot of pro and con.
And like people were like, it's really sexual.
It's too sexual for like a 15 year old to be in.
And like the people who have done Rocky Horror are familiar with it.
It's like, it's not sexy.
Like it's not a show that turns anyone on.
It like uses sexuality and stuff, but in like a intentionally ridiculous fun over the top
kind of way.
And as like the sort of weird theater kid in high school, like you get it right away,
especially with the song, especially at the bridge going into the last chorus.
It's like, you get it.
Like this is fun, theatrical.
It's these amazing actors, Susan Sarandon before she was famous is in it.
Tim Curry, obviously giving like this unbelievable Oscar worthy performance.
And so it's all these like really good actors letting their hair down and just
taking these big swings.
Like everybody is making these big, crazy choices.
And when you're in high school and like if you're like a drama kid in high school,
especially if you're talented, that's the kind of acting that you're into at that point.
You know, like you're not into naturalistic acting.
You're into big, crazy choices and like everything you do, you want to have like a
limp and have an accent and you want to be really good at playing a 60 year old.
Because like when you graduate from theater school at 22, you're going to be playing 60
year olds all the time, which is like, of course, not the case.
But like as an ambitious, talented theater kid, you're looking at Tim Curry in the movie
of this and just thinking like that's acting, man, that which it is, it is an unbelievable
performance.
But Tim Curry is a really accomplished, serious actor who let his hair down after earning
the right to do that.
But as like a high school kid, that's all you want to do is like the big over the top
stuff.
But like you get that's what this is about.
And it's fun also because like other people don't get that's what this is about.
Like there's a lot of like concerned parents who think the show is like satanic or weird
or whatever.
And like as a theater kid, you're like, no, no, we get it.
They don't get it.
We're in the club.
They're out of the club, which is, you know, exactly what you want as an ambitious,
talented, weirdo theater kid.
And there's one other thing, sort of a tangent, which is the audience participation, sort
of talking back.
And so an example of that is in this song.
That's the part of the actual song.
But then when people say is of the blackest night, burning bright, what's up your ass?
And so in order to do that, everyone has to be sort of counting.
It's almost like when you're in a musical rehearsal and the music director is like to
the actors like, you guys, you've got to count.
You're not going to be able to come into the right place if you don't count.
And sometimes it happens, you know, subconsciously.
And so that's what's happening here is like the entire audience is counting correctly
so that they can all come in on what's up your ass.
So let's talk about the music for the song.
So first of all, there's like a baseline of just like, just like the root note of each
chord really, really low.
And it just sounds really cool.
And it's just a very like simple, but really effective, like sort of rock thing.
So let's just walk through the beginning of this song.
So in the Velvetech, it's just the root chord that we're in of the blackest night.
And then you get to burning bright, which is over the four chord, which is major
normally in this major scale that we're in.
And then all of a sudden there's a four chord minor substitution.
So it goes from the same chord to the minor version of that chord.
Let me play what that sounds like.
Then we have a substitution for the three chord.
And all of a sudden that's a major substitution.
So it's a surprise.
First, it's like we're going along and then we're expecting a major chord.
And then all of a sudden we get the rug pulled out and we get a minor chord.
We were expecting a major chord.
And then a couple of hours later, we're expecting a minor chord.
And they give us a major chord that would not normally be found in this key.
And so just really keeping you like off balance and like, is this a positive
thing that they're going to the Frankenstein place?
Is this a scary thing that they're going to the Frankenstein place?
And the answer is both.
And unexpected things are going to happen at unexpected times.
So the chorus of this has just these really cool harmonies.
And so it's there's a light over at the Frankenstein place,
which is the major root chord spread out among the voices.
Let me play that.
Then burning in the fireplace is that same minor chord for substitution
spread out among the people's voices, except it's inverted in such a way
that all of a sudden the high note is a little bit higher.
You get even more of like a dramatic rock, harmony, vocal,
wall of sound kind of situation.
So we play that together.
The sound is a light burning in the fireplace.
And in fact, all of the back and forth, I was actually kind of not sure whether
this is in a major key or it's relative minor.
I think I would argue that the song is in a major key, except for the bridge,
which is in the relative minor, but it's a little bit of a close call.
Like I wasn't 100 percent sure.
And so musically, it's not like the most sophisticated score in the world.
Like compared to like Sweeney Todd, which is like another dark horror
comedy musical, you know, this is not I mean, what is, but this is not that.
Or even like Jim Steinman, who a lot of people think this is,
who's the guy who's wrote a lot of meatloaf songs like Bad Out of Hell
and I would do anything for love, but I won't do that.
And meatloaf is in both Jim Steinman stuff and in Rocky Horror.
So I think there's a little bit of confusion, but it has a very sort of
Jim Steinman feel to it, even though it was not written by Jim Steinman,
even though it's kind of playing in the same sandbox.
But it's super effective and fun.
And the fact that it's a little bit simpler, it makes it easier to sing along
to and it makes it easier for it to be catchy.
You listen to the song twice and you're like, OK, got it.
Love it. Can sing along with it in a car ride.
Put that on. We're going to belt our guts out.
So that's talking about the lyrics and then the music of this song.
But the secret sauce for this song and for many songs is how pretty and poetic
the words are and how unsettling the music is.
There's like a lot of examples of how basically the music and the lyrics
being kind of opposite from each other can be a really effective tool to have
the music and the lyrics working at cross purposes.
Like normally we talk about wanting to have the music and the lyrics working
well together, but it's really cool when you have the irony of pretty words,
unsettling music.
So some other good examples of irony being used in musicals where the music
and the words are either in cross purposes with each other or in cross
purposes with what is actually happening on stage or with the audience is feeling
like pretty women from Sweeney Todd.
It's just like a beautiful song.
The lyrics are beautiful. The music is beautiful.
But watching it, we're just anticipating on the edge of our seats that
Sweeney Todd is going to slash the throat of the judge.
So it's really tense and it uses the irony of this most beautiful, beautiful
songs that just really makes it wrong in a great way.
Everything's Coming Up Roses, which you did on the podcast a few months ago,
where even though she's saying everything's coming up roses, it's going to be
swell, it's going to be great.
And the music is mostly backing that up and like rah, rah, rah.
What's actually happening is a horror show of this woman who is emotionally
abusing her daughter, Hasa Degi Iboai, which we did a couple of weeks ago,
actually, on the podcast, right, where the music is really uplifting and peppy.
And yet what they're saying is sort of terrible and offensive.
Our time from Merrily, We Roll Along, which is a beautiful song out of context.
But in the context, it's just so upsetting because you know where these
friendships are heading.
It's kind of gut wrenching when you're watching it because the song is so pretty
and the context makes it so horrible.
And waving through a window, actually, from Jarvan Hansen is a really good
example of this too, because it's this kid who is, we find out later,
spoiler alert for Jarvan Hansen, who's recently attempted suicide.
And like he's talking about this, but the song, the music is so peppy.
Even though the things that he's saying that he's learned to slam on the
brakes, he's waving through a window like he feels disconnected from the rest of
humanity, the music is so catchy and up that it really tricks us into thinking
that it's a peppy song, even though, even in context at the moment, we know
that this kid is not OK.
And then later on in retrospect, it's like, wow, this kid was really not OK.
So a couple of other little odds and ends about this song.
So this song is it's like a triptych of great songs, which is it's a worth
a rancid someplace, then Time Warp and then Sweet Transvestite, which are just
like three all time great songs just smushed right up against each other.
There aren't that many examples of like three awesome songs back to back, not
like three songs that you like, but three songs that are each really different
from each other and each really serve a story purpose and are just like, you
know, three of like the big hits from that show.
Examples I could think of were we're talking about Sweetie Todd a lot, but
the end of Act One is Sweetie Todd with Pretty Women, Epiphany and A Little
Priest.
Like those are three songs that, you know, are three of the top hundred songs
ever in musical theater in a row at the end of Act One.
The end of the show Gypsy, You Gotta Get a Gimmick, The Strip and then Roses Turn.
But there's not a lot of examples.
Like I really was trying to think of other ones and again, not like three
songs that you like, but like three songs that are each wildly different from
each other that are incredibly important to the story in different ways and that
are all like bangers.
So if you ever have a chance to be in Rocky Horror, do it.
It is so much fun.
I have been at it.
I play riff-riff.
It is so much fun to do.
It is a party every single time and you get to show off and you get to like add
notes where you want to add notes and you sort of tailor everything to the people
who are in it.
It's just a super, super fun show.
This has been the Nothing Like Broadway podcast.
I am your host writer, composer David Rakoff of the upcoming Off-Broadway Musical,
Nothing Like Broadway.
Please follow us on Instagram at Nothing Like Broadway.
If you have a suggestion for a song in the future, because I would really love some
suggestions because I'm getting a little bit like, ah, what song am I going to do?
Email me nothinglikebroadway at gmail.com.
And if you are listening to this podcast, please give us a review right now.
Stop what you're doing.
Pause, review us, give us five stars.
Say some nice words about us, hopefully it really helps us out.
So we are going to go out now listening to some of Over at the Frankside Place by
Richard O'Brien performed by Matthew Stewart Price and Ensemble from The Rocky Horror Show.