Tomorrow for me

“When I showed [Stephen Sondheim] the finished film, he said, ‘You treated me gently and royally, for which I’m grateful,’” says [Lin-Manuel Miranda]. “And then he wrote me and said, 'But the last phone message to Jon, the language feels a little trite. I don’t feel like I would ever really say that. Can I rewrite it?’ I was like, 'Gosh, a rewrite from Stephen Sondheim — do I accept this?’”

There was only one problem — [Bradley Whitford] had already wrapped his work on the project and was unavailable to re-record it. Sondheim offered to record the new version for Miranda, and it’s his voice that audiences can hear in the final cut.

To any Tick, Tick.... BOOM! fans, I urge you to listen to Valentines Day.

It was one of Jonathan Larson's favourite songs that he had ever written (if not his biggest favourite), and is one of his best.

His best friend, Victoria Leacock remembers, "He swore it would be a big hit [....] he loved that song."

There's a demo of him singing it,

And a version with much cleaner production and vocals from the Jonathan Larson Project.

He originally wrote the song for a musical called Prostate of the Union, one of his political satire cabarets and one of his Micheal Lindsay collaborations. The idea for the song coming from it being performed on February 13th.

The song is about a tragic sexual abuse victim that deals with her trauma with hyper sexual behaviour, even when that behaviour harms her.

He tried to rework the song into a couple other projects, including RENT.

In RENT this was the original 'valentines day' song instead of Take Me Or Leave Me. It was sung by Mimi Marquez as Roger watched her path of self destruction, unable to stop her.

Sometimes the universe pulls all the strings at once. The film of Jonathan Larson’s pre-Rent musical, Tick Tick Boom, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who saw Rent on his 17th birthday and beat his own ticking clock with a Tony at age 28, opened on Netflix on November 19. Exactly one week later, the legendary Stephen Sondheim, a profound influence and mentor to both Jonathan and Lin, passed away at the age of 91.

Almost as if Mr. Sondheim was waiting around to see how a show whose writer he had supported turned out when it was directed by another kid whose work he had supported. As if he said, in the words he wrote for West Side Story in 1957, “You done good, buddy boy[s]” and knew he was leaving things in good hands.

Mr. Sondheim wrote a lot of words. These are the ones I’ve been listening to since Friday, from Into the Woods:

Sometimes people leave you

Halfway through the wood

Do not let it grieve you

No one leaves for good

You are not alone