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next_to_normal ([personal profile] next_to_normal) wrote2010-05-23 02:45 pm

Musical Sunday!

Heh, I think today's pick is definitely indicative of my dismal mood. Hey, at least I didn't go with Les Miserables.

Ragtime, based on the novel by E. L. Doctorow, is a musical about the intersection of the lives of three families at the turn of the 20th century: an unnamed upper-class white family living in New Rochelle, NY, chafing against the boundaries of society; Coalhouse Walker, Jr., an African-American ragtime piano player from Harlem, and his lover, Sarah, hoping for a better future for their son and pursuing justice at a terrible cost; and Tateh, a widowed Jewish Eastern European immigrant, and his daughter, seeking a better life in America.

This song is the Act 1 finale, after Sarah has been killed. I thought about posting the lovely and uplifting "Wheels of a Dream" with the follow-up, "And then she dies and he becomes a terrorist," but that seemed cruel, so let's just go straight to depressing. :)