Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1966
The Boy From...
Buy The Boy From... now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
"'The Boy From...'" is a song with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and music by Mary Rodgers, originally performed by Linda Lavin in the 1966 Off-Broadway revue 'The Mad Show'.[http://www.sondheimguide.com/other.html#Mad "'Mad Show'"] Sondheim Guide, accessed July 3, 2011
The song is essentially a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema"Suskin, Steven. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_3mOZv6OaUIC&pg=PA266&dq=Sondheim+%22The+Boy+from...%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Sondheim%20%22The%20Boy%20from...%22&f=false "Stephen Sondheim"] 'Show Tunes', Oxford University Press US, 2010, , p.266 and bossa nova style in general. The melody and lyrics are relatively close to the original, and Lavin's original delivery of the song was reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto's simple, breathy style.
The song's context differs from the original in that it is sung in reference to a male character. Though both songs are about unrequited desire for the title character, the humor of "The Boy From..." stems partly from the fact that the narrator is completely unaware of her crush's blatant homosexuality,Banfield, Stephen. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dLf1_FutpusC&pg=PA28&dq=Sondheim+%22The+Boy+from...%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Sondheim%20%22The%20Boy%20from...%22&f=false Listing] 'Sondheim's Broadway Musicals', University of Michigan Press, 1995, , p. 28 as, for example, illustrated in the song's second bridge: "Why are his trousers vermilion? / Why does he claim he's Castilian? / Why do his friends call him Lillian? / And I hear at the end of the week, / he's leaving to start a boutique."
The other humorous aspect of the song comes from the fact that every verse ends with a repetition of the name of the title character's hometown (hence the title), a fictional village called "Tacarembo la Tumba del Fuego Santa Malipas Zacatecas la Junta del Sol y Cruz" ("Cruz" pronounced as "cruth" with distincin): with the narrator becoming slightly more out-of-breath with each verse. This is only enhanced by the ending, where the narrator laments that her beloved is "moving to Wales / to live in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch."
Sondheim wrote the song's lyrics under the pseudonym of Esteban Ro Nido.
"The Boy From..." was also featured in the 1976 revue 'Side by Side by Sondheim',[http://www.sondheimguide.com/sideby.html#OP "'Side by Side by Sondheim' listing"] Sondheim Guide, accessed July 3, 2011 performed by Millicent Martin.
In 2020, Linda Lavin performed "The Boy From..." as part of 'Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration'.
References
Buy The Boy From... now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 1966