Working on a Song

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Working on a Song Page 8

by Anaïs Mitchell


  This was always my favorite for poetry. The stone by stone / row by row lines were hard-won. I was stuck on that verse for weeks at home in Vermont. I walked outside in despair, into the neighbor’s woods, and the lines came while I walked. Ultimately, though, they didn’t survive in the theater show, because once I reframed the la la melody as the forgotten love song of the gods, it felt essential that their meaning remain consistent. In the version above, the la las seem to become the sound of the mindless workers, the song of Hades’s compulsion—not the song that’s going to bring the world back into tune.

  London & Broadway

  In an effort to give a consistent meaning to the choruses, I rewrote the verses for London. There, they were similar to Broadway, with one major distinction—they were written in the past tense. Ken, with his dramaturgical focus on change and arc, had been craving more clarity around “the way the world was” versus “the way the world is now.” Bringing Orpheus’s present-day observations into the present tense, he thought, would help with that. I resisted for a time because any tense change messed with the rhymes, especially the internal ones. But I saw Ken’s point, and for Broadway I made the switch.

  I also tried for a long time to bring home an alternate version of the first verse. If you saw the show on Broadway in early previews, you’d have heard this on a few nights:

  Orpheus: But for half of the year, with Persephone gone / In the dark of the mine he is trying to fill / The hole that his lover has left in his arms / With the silver and gold / He can have and hold / Not half, but whole / All to himself

  To me, it expressed an ineffable truth about Hades, compulsive capitalism, the unslakable thirst for more. Hades’s separation from Persephone—the woman he loves but can never fully possess—leaves a hole in his heart. He tries to fill the hole with material wealth and industry, but this is impossible. He is filling a hole that will never be filled was a line I attempted in “Epic III,” and in fact this whole image was meant to tie into a revised version of “Epic III” that I couldn’t finish in time for opening night. I always found the “Epics” exceedingly hard to write, because of the long lyric lines, the internal rhymes, the metaphors, and above all, the pressure I felt for Orpheus to be “the world’s greatest poet.” There were years of struggle with these songs, and the beginning of every dramaturgical meeting went like this: “Anaïs, what’s your priority?” Me: “Rewrite the ‘Epics.’” Team Dramaturgy: “You know, the ‘Epics’ are fine, but you really should look at (such and such) . . .”

  CHANT

  Workers & Fates

  Oh, keep your head, keep your head low (kkh!)

  Oh, you gotta keep your head low (kkh!)

  If you wanna keep your head (huh! kkh!)

  Oh, you gotta keep your head low

  Keep your head, keep your head low (kkh!)

  Oh, you gotta keep your head low (kkh!)

  If you wanna keep your head (huh! kkh!)

  Oh, you gotta keep your head

  Persephone

  In the coldest time of year

  Why is it so hot down here?

  Hotter than a crucible

  It ain’t right and it ain’t natural

  Hades

  Lover, you were gone so long

  Lover, I was lonesome

  So I built a foundry

  In the ground beneath your feet

  Here I fashioned things of steel

  Oil drums and automobiles

  And then I kept that furnace fed

  With the fossils of the dead

  Lover, when you feel that fire

  Think of it as my desire

  Think of it as my desire for you

  Orpheus

  La la, la la, la la la la la

  La la, la la, la la la la la

  Laaaaaaa, la la la la la

  Laaaaaaa, la la la la la

  La, la, la la la la la la

  La la la la la la

  La la la la la la

  La la la la la la la . . .

  Workers & Fates

  Oh, keep your head, keep your head low . . .

  Eurydice (to Hermes)

  Is it finished?

  Hermes

  Not yet

  Eurydice

  Is he always like this?

  Looking high and looking low

  For the food and firewood I know

  We need to find and I am

  Keeping one eye on the sky and

  Trying to trust

  That the song he’s working on is gonna

  Shelter us

  From the wind, the wind, the wind

  Workers & Fates

  Aooh! Kkh!

  Aooh! Huh! Kkh!

  Persephone

  In the darkest time of year

  Why is it so bright down here?

  Brighter than a carnival

  It ain’t right and it ain’t natural

  Hades

  Lover, you were gone so long

  Lover, I was lonesome

  So I laid a power grid

  In the ground on which you stood

  And wasn’t it electrifying?

  When I made the neon shine

  Silver screen, cathode ray

  Brighter than the light of day

  Lover, when you see that glare

  Think of it as my despair

  Think of it as my despair for you

  Orpheus

  They can’t find the tune

  Hermes

  Orpheus . . .

  Orpheus

  They can’t feel the rhythm

  Hermes

  Orpheus!

  Orpheus

  King Hades is deafened

  By a river of stone

  Hermes

  Poor boy working on a song

  Orpheus

  And Lady Persephone’s blinded

  By a river of wine

  Living in an oblivion

  Hermes

  He did not see the storm coming on

  Fates

  Ooooh . . .

  Orpheus

  His black gold flows

  In the world down below

  And her dark clouds roll

  In the one up above

  Hermes

  Look up!

  Workers

  Keep your head low . . .

  Orpheus

  And that is the reason we’re on this road

  And the seasons are wrong

  And the wind is so strong

  That’s why times are so hard

  It’s because of the gods

  The gods have forgotten the song of their love!

  Singing la la la la la la la . . .

  Workers & Fates

  Oh, keep your head, keep your head low . . .

  Eurydice

  Looking low and looking high

  Fates

  There is no food left to find

  It’s hard enough to feed yourself

  Let alone somebody else

  Eurydice

  I’m trying to believe

  That the song he’s working on is gonna

  Harbor me

  From the wind, the wind, the wind

  Fates

  Ooooh

  Ooooh

  Ooooh

  Ooooh . . .

  Hermes

  Eurydice was a hungry young girl

  Eurydice (to Fates)

  Give that back!


  Hermes

  She was no stranger to the wind

  Eurydice

  It’s everything we have!

  Hermes

  But she had not seen nothing

  Eurydice

  Orpheus!

  Hermes

  Like the mighty storm she got caught in

  Eurydice

  Orpheus!!!

  Shelter us!

  Hermes

  Only took a minute

  Eurydice

  Harbor me!

  Hermes

  But the wrath of the gods was in it

  Persephone

  Every year it’s getting worse

  Hadestown, hell on earth!

  Did you think I’d be impressed

  With this neon necropolis?

  Lover, what have you become?

  Coal cars and oil drums

  Warehouse walls and factory floors

  I don’t know you anymore

  And in the meantime up above

  The harvest dies and people starve

  Oceans rise and overflow

  It ain’t right and it ain’t natural

  Hades

  Lover, everything I do

  I do it for the love of you

  If you don’t even want my love

  I’ll give it to someone who does

  Someone grateful for her fate

  Someone who appreciates

  The comforts of a gilded cage

  And doesn’t try to fly away

  The moment Mother Nature calls

  Someone who could love these walls

  That hold her close and keep her safe

  And think of them as my embrace

  Workers & Fates

  Oh, keep your head, keep your head

  Orpheus

  Singing la la la la la la la

  Eurydice

  Shelter us!

  Hades

  Think of them as my embrace

  Workers

  Oh, keep your head, keep your head

  Orpheus

  La la la la la la

  Eurydice

  Harbor me!

  Hades (to Eurydice)

  Think of them as my embrace . . . of you

  Notes on “Chant”

  Off-Broadway

  “Chant” was one of the first “new” songs I wrote for Hadestown after the studio album era. At first it simply consisted of the chant itself (Keep your head low) and the Hades and Persephone verses (In the coldest time of year . . . / Lover, you were gone so long . . .), which changed very little over the years. Rachel was excited early on by the potential of both “Chant” and “Chant Reprise” to function as “set pieces” that allowed us to check in with multiple characters at once and feel their stories interlock, machinelike. At her urging, I added interludes featuring Orpheus and Eurydice. It always felt right to me for Orpheus and Eurydice to appear twice: he working on his song, she progressively more frustrated as the weather worsens. The language of those interludes, though, changed in every single production we did. Off-Broadway, Orpheus spoke very briefly:

  Orpheus: I’ll sing a song of a love gone wrong

  Hermes: A love gone wrong, alright! Every year they had this fight!

  Orpheus: Singing la la la la la la la . . .

  Orpheus: A mighty king, a mighty queen

  Hermes: This year their fighting made the mightiest storm you ever seen!

  Orpheus: Singing la la la la la la la . . .

  Eurydice’s interludes went like this:

  Eurydice: Lover, while you sing your song / Winter is a-comin’ on / See, I’m stacking firewood / See, I’m putting by some food / Orpheus! / All the pretty songs you sing ain’t gonna / Shelter us! / From the wind, the wind, the wind

  Eurydice: While my lover sings his song / Everything I’ve saved is gone / Nothing left up on the shelf / Fire ain’t gonna light itself / Now I see / All the pretty songs he sings ain’t gonna / Harbor me / From the wind, the wind, the wind

  Off-Broadway, the “storm” sequence was wordless, but featured the Fates singing a wind-swept oooh melody and performing what Rachel and David called, in every incarnation, the “Coat Ballet”—a sequence in which the Fates embody the elements, stripping Eurydice of her coat and belongings.

  Edmonton

  At the Citadel, Orpheus’s interludes remained unchanged, but I took Eurydice’s back to the drawing board. Team Dramaturgy would often ask, seder-style: “What makes this day (or season, or year) different from all others?” In Edmonton, I wanted to make it explicit that what we were dealing with aboveground was not merely a change of seasons, but a climate in chaos. So while our off-Broadway Eurydice sang of preparing for winter, our Edmonton Eurydice described unnatural weather events:

  Eurydice: Lover, do you hear that sound? / Now the wind is all around

  Spinning every weathervane / You said it would never change . . .

  Eurydice: Lover, can you hear me now? / Answer if you can somehow

  Orpheus, in all my years / Never seen a storm like this . . .

  The storm sequence itself still felt abstract, so I added the detailed narration by Hermes that culminates in: Only took a minute / But the wrath of the gods was in it!

  London

  In London I put Orpheus’s interludes on the table. I was trying to illustrate—with many stanzas of language—the poet hard at work on his “Epic.” His first London interlude went like this:

  Orpheus: He put trains on the tracks, grease on the skids / Smoke in the stacks of his factories / But whatever he did, he could never be rid / Of the doubt and the dread that his lover would leave / In the back of his mind was an engine that whined / Ringing in the king’s ears, spinning wheels, grinding gears / Till he fell out of tune and he fell out of time / With the song he once knew but could no longer hear / Singing la la la la la la la . . .

  His second interlude was twice as long as the one on Broadway, and began with this stanza:

  Orpheus: He fell out of time, out of rhyme, out of rhythm / He kept the queen with him and the winter dragged on / And sometimes he’d come aboveground and he’d summon / Her down, before summer was meant to be done . . .

  Eurydice’s interludes were similar to those in Edmonton, but in London we’d hung a blazing lantern on the phrase working on a song, so they began this way:

  Eurydice: While you’re working on your song / There’s a storm a-comin’ on . . .

  There was also this very pointed exchange with Orpheus:

  Eurydice (to Orpheus): Is it finished?

  Orpheus: Not yet

  Eurydice: Finish it!

  Broadway

  The accumulating Orpheus language gave us a real-time glimpse of the poet at work, but in the “set piece” frenzy that is “Chant,” the content of the lines was lost. The song felt fatiguing. Also, I began to truly suspect that no amount of poetic imagery or internal rhyming prowess was going to make us fall in love with Orpheus. It was the naive, heart-on-the-sleeve beauty of his singing alone that might move us. Similarly, it wasn’t wordsmithery that was going to conquer the heart of Hades, but the wordless gift of the forgotten melody of his own song. For Broadway I tried to roll back Orpheus’s lyricism, and allow him instead to explore his simple musical gifts—hence, the expanded la la melody. Allowing Hermes to approach him, unheard—Orpheus—Orpheus!—again depicted him as a boy lost in his own world.

  As for Eurydice, Ken mentioned in the lead-up to Broadway that he wished she would fight a little harder for the relationship, not give up on Orpheus so quickly. That made sense to me, and I rewrote her interludes to in
clude language about her “trying to trust” and “trying to believe” in Orpheus and his song. I reassigned her darkest thoughts (It’s hard enough to feed yourself / Let alone somebody else) to the Fates, as the voices in her head. I also gave her some verbal lines (Give that back! / It’s everything we have . . .) to hurl at the Fates during the Coat Ballet. Rachel was in support of any language that might provide access (a favorite word of hers) to Eurydice during her moment of crisis, and it had the added benefit of painting a less victim-y portrait.

  HEY, LITTLE SONGBIRD

  Hades

  Hey, little songbird, give me a song

  I’m a busy man and I can’t stay long

  I’ve got clients to call, I’ve got orders to fill

  I’ve got walls to build, I’ve got riots to quell

  And they’re giving me hell back in Hades

  Hey, little songbird, cat got your tongue?

  Always a pity for one so pretty and young

  When poverty comes to clip your wings

  And knock the wind right out of your lungs

  Hey, nobody sings on empty

  Eurydice

  Strange is the call of this strange man

  I wanna fly down and feed at his hand

  I want a nice soft place to land

 

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