Stephen Sondheim: Look, I Made a Hat & Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics
As a long-time fan (and yes, I am unashamed to use that term which i normally avoid like the plague) I felt sure that these would contain some interesting material.
I was wrong. Both volumes are packed with riveting, funny and fascinating gems. His awareness of and extreme sensitivity to language and this necessary connection with word-setting is riveting. As an English teacher I really appreciated these remarks. Were I still teaching IB English I could see using some of this as stimulus and material for developing language awareness in students.
The other eye-opening aspect of these volumes was just how much material he has written. He talks of the songwriters ‘trunk’ - the place where unused material sits and may then be revisited. His trunk seems to contain almost as much as he has published!
These are books that I still from time to time pull off the shelf and dip into - and rarely am I disappointed not to find some perceptive gem of observation.
