For all intents and purposes, characters in musicals are supposed to be realistic. They have personality, relationships, goals. But how does a good songwriter relay this to an audience? For years, composers on Broadway have been using the same trick: the “I Want” song. An “I Want” song is a song, typically within the first fifteen minutes of a musical, that tells you exactly what the protagonist is looking for. Some well-known “I Want” numbers include “The Wizard and I” from Wicked and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” from My Fair Lady. Whether they want to meet the Wizard of Oz or just want a room of their own, this motivation that the protagonist sings about is the common desire that propels the show forward, unifying the audience in their new desire to see things turn out alright.
But (though writers try their best) characters aren’t real people. Real human beings don’t blurt out their one truest desire, if they even have one, within the first fifteen minutes that you’ve met. Real human beings are complex creatures with multitudinous, layered wants and needs. You can’t truly know them after just a three-minute pop ballad.
Understanding the American people and their politics, I think, works the same way. We’re bombarded from all sides by snappy YouTube ads, books by pundits claiming they “understand” the thoughts and motivations of entire groups of people, and articles swearing that the latest poll explains exactly how the next election will swing. Though these may help somewhat in understanding our political climate, they are what a musical character is to a human being: a nicely-boxed but overly simplified version of the real thing. We can’t learn comprehensively from just one writer or poll.
In this blog, I want to get farther into issues than that first cursory musical number, using concepts in theatre to bring political concepts to life.
Even if America had an “I Want” song, it would be hours long.
For more about “I Want” songs in movie musicals, check out this bit from This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/259/promised-land/prologue
Politics on Broadway 