BEDA concludes: Wicked

For the past week or so I have been suffering from an earworm. Thankfully, despite the name, this isn't one of the less savoury parasites but rather the inability to get a song out of your head (Wikipedia informs me that I could also refer to this as involuntary musical imagery, but come on: earworm is a much better name). I suffer from earworms a lot and they vary widely. Sometimes I have a song that I don't know very well and the lyrics fade very quickly into dum de doo nonsense words. Sometimes the tune loops around I find myself repeating the same lyrics over and over. These are the worst types- it's much better when I know a song intricately and can play it completely in my head, but this type of earworm is rare.

This current earworm is even rarer- it's not a single song but an entire musical. A week ago I didn't know Wicked particularly well. I'd seen it, I'd listened to the soundtrack a couple of times; but I only had a passing knowledge of the music off the top of my head. Thanks to this earworm I have now listened to the soundtrack played through several times in quick succession, and so I felt the need to blog about it because I've noticed many little trinkets hidden in the lyrics.

For those of you who don't know, Wicked is set in Oz- the same magical land in which The Wizard of Oz is set. If you don't know The Wizard of Oz then I have no qualms spoiling it for you, because its target audience is so young that the story line is more predictable than the outcome of Taylor Swift's next relationship. Wicked is aimed at older children who have outgrown The Wizard of Oz and tells the back story of the characters. In Wicked the protagonist does not wake up and find that it was all a dream but instead has to deal with a vindictive world and learn valuable life lessons a bit more complex than "There's no place like home" (actually the story is about imagining people complexly). Dorothy is a character, but is so insignificant that they don't even have an actor to play her. Basically, Wicked is a much better story, and I will aim not to spoil it, even if that means not including my favourite line.

The Wizard and I, a version that looked ok to share.

I'm going to be concentrating on foreshadowing, because that's what I noticed most. Specifically I'll look at the song The Wizard and I in which Elphaba dreams about her bright future once she has been raised to glory by the Wizard. Although none of her dreams come true (obviously- she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, first clue was that she was born green), the song is rife with foreshadowing. Here are some lines from The Wizard and I:

Once I'm with the Wizard, my whole life will change!

 Which is such an ambiguous line. Not particularly surprising that the change wasn't in the direction she expected.

When people see me they will scream!

Meant in the way people scream for Bieber, not in the way that people scream when confronted with a Wicked Witch. It happens nonetheless.

I swear someday there'll be a celebration throughout Oz that's all to do with me!

Which also happens. Is everyone familiar with the song Ding Dong the Witch is Dead? Ok, that song is about a different witch (the Wicked Witch of the East is also a secondary character in Wicked, whose story is possibly more heartbreaking than Elphaba's [pun intentional if you spotted it]) but you see what I mean.

I'll be so happy I could melt.

Which is so obvious that I think I noticed it when I first saw the show, so I'll follow it up with a line from the song Thank Goodness:

 I hear her soul is so unclean clear water could melt her.

Which I definitely noticed when I first saw the show, but this one was even easier to spot since it was highlighted by another character commenting:

Water will melt her? People are so empty headed they'll believe anything. 

Which is itself foreshadowing something else, so I'll leave that there.

Aside from having spotted all the foreshadowing, I have been appreciating some of the songs because they really are very good. Kind of want to go see it again, but Les Mis is higher on my to re-see list of shows. Anyway, BEDA's been great, next up is the cold dark silence of May, or CDSM. Doesn't roll off the tongue does it?