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Just sitting outside and listening to “Something Just Broke” from Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. I don’t think there has ever been a song that so eloquently described when any faith you had in the system shatters.
I remember when the 2004 revival happened, some people complaining it’s inclusion in the show detracted from everything else the show was saying, and the older I get, the more I disagree.
If you’re unfamiliar with the show, this song takes place towards the end, right after the culminating moment of JFK’s assassination, and it’s sung by the ensemble from the point of view of your average American.
And specifically it is about a presidential assassination, but the language itself suggests something bigger. It’s a song of extreme shock and pain that ends with a very pathetic plea for things to get fixed quickly, for this to just be a passing moment
Except the last line is one woman again repeating, ominously, that something is broken.
It then slides into the finale, where all of the successful and would-be assassins of American presidents sing a reprisal of the upbeat song “Everybody’s Got the Right to be Happy”
It then slides into the finale, where all of the successful and would-be assassins of American presidents sing a reprisal of the upbeat song “Everybody’s Got the Right to be Happy”
I’ve always loved the dissonance of how Everybody’s Got the Right soundings like a Sesame Street song—it really hammers home how Americans, especially white Americans (and lbr, Assassins is specifically about white, middle class rage), are told they are entitled to happiness.
It is not the pursuit of happiness, but happiness itself. And so when they sing “rich man, poor man, black or white” and you see that it’s a line of white middle class people waving guns in the air.. rjrjdjsjsjs.
So that moment, that last utterance of “something just broke” sliding into a celebration of using gun violence in the pursuit of happiness still continuing in spite of a collective moment of horror ... is ... just .... truly, this might be Sondheim’s masterpiece.
The last fifteen years have felt like one long string of “Something Just Broke”s back to back, and the response of sticking our heads in the sand and hoping things go back to as they were is... a lot
Anyway, that’s the thread. Give Assassins a listen, if you can.
