The Boy From...
{{Infobox song
| name = The Boy From...
| cover =
| alt =
| type =
| artist = Linda Lavin
| album =
| released = 1966
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| genre = {{hlist|Bossa nova|Parody|Musical}}
| length =
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| writer = Stephen Sondheim
Mary Rodgers
| producer =
}}
"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.[https://www.sondheimguide.com/other.html#Mad "'Mad Show'"], SondheimGuide.com. Accessed May 8, 2025.
Synopsis
The song is essentially a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema"Suskin, Steven. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_3mOZv6OaUIC&dq=Sondheim+%22The+Boy+from...%22&pg=PA266 "Stephen Sondheim"] Show Tunes, Oxford University Press US, 2010; {{ISBN|0-19-531407-7}}, 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 oblivious to her would-be crush's blatant homosexuality,Banfield, Stephen. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dLf1_FutpusC&dq=Sondheim+%22The+Boy+from...%22&pg=PA28 Listing] Sondheim's Broadway Musicals, University of Michigan Press, 1995, {{ISBN|0-472-08083-0}}, 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 extremely long 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 distinción): 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 Ria Nido", which Sondheim described as "a part-translation and part-transliteration of my name."{{cite book|page=xi|title=The Almost Unknown Stephen Sondheim|publisher=Rilting Music, Inc.|date=2016}} In The Mad Show's playbill, the lyrics were credited to "Nom de Plume".{{cite book|page=36|last1=Rodgers|first1=Mary|last2=Green|first2=Jesse|date=2022|title=Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers|publisher=Farrar, Straus, and Giroux}}
Other performances
"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, 54 years after she debuted the song, Linda Lavin performed it again as part of Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration.{{cite news | last=Willman | first=Chris | date=April 27, 2020 | title=Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Audra McDonald and More Salute Stephen Sondheim in Birthday Tribute | work=Variety | url=https://variety.com/2020/music/news/stephen-sondheim-birthday-celebration-jake-gyllenhaal-meryl-streep-1234590377/ | access-date=May 2, 2020}}{{cite news | last=McNulty | first=Charles | date=April 27, 2020 | title=Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday bash reminds us why his music remains so radical | work=Los Angeles Times | url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-04-27/stephen-sondheim-90th-birthday-celebration | access-date=May 2, 2020}}{{cite news | last=Brantley | first=Ben | date=April 27, 2020 | title=Review: For Sondheim's 90th Birthday, a Collage of Aching Voices | work=The New York Times | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/theater/take-me-to-the-world-sondheim-review.html | access-date=May 1, 2020}}
The song was included in the 2022 revue Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends.{{Cite web |date=2023-09-24 |title=Old Friends Stephen Sondheim in the West End & Gala Concert: Full Song List {{!}} West End Theatre |url=https://www.westendtheatre.com/117491/news/old-friends-stephen-sondheim-gala-concert-full-song-list/ |access-date=2025-03-02 |website=www.westendtheatre.com |language=en-GB}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{IOBDB title|3545|The Mad Show}}
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