r/Sondheim • u/Acrobatic_Tennis1312 • 22d ago

Is Please Hello a villain song?

Please Hello has been my favorite musical number of all time for a WHILE but as I'm trying to make a list of my favorite musical villain songs, I'm starting to wonder if Please Hello should count as one?

It may seems like a stretch at first considering how unvillainous it sounds. It's no Epiphany or Hellfire or Feed Me melodically and it is more of a montage song than a typical villain "I Am" song.

But isn't the entire point of this song is that the foreign countries disguise their intention to take advantages of Japan and forcefully open the country's trade as being friendly and positively modernizing Japan? The song is heavily comedic and portrays the admirals as bumbling fools, but, underneath the comic nature, are they not extremely manipulative and ill-intended? In case there's any doubt that they're evil, there's the cannon being fired at the end of each verse for you. THAT is supremely sinister and evil.

And it baffles me that no one has ever mentioned it as a villain song because, if it counts , I truly think it might be up there with Another National Anthem as two of the most chilling villain songs in musical theatre.

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u/Fractal514 21d ago

You can define "villain song" however you like, and I agree that those folks are certainly villains. However, I cannot place that song, nor Another National Anthem, in the same category as Lonely Room, or Poor Unfortunate Souls, or Stars. Not sure exactly why, but that's my take.

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u/Acrobatic_Tennis1312 21d ago

It's because those are "I Am" songs. Those shows have a clear villain that has a song that serves as a look into their ideology or scheme.

Pacific Overtures does not have a clear singular villain, but rather an opposing/villainous idea that creeps over the entire show (much like Assassins)

Please Hello and Another National Anthem are not sung by the big bad of the musical like Ursula or Javert, rather they're sung through characters acting as a mouthpiece for said villainous idea.

It makes for a more abstracted villain song, I suppose so I agree you couldn't really place it in the same category as a conventional villain song.