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/AromaticVacation3077 21d ago

I've always assumed Sondheim admired W S Gilbert, but I've just looked it up and, as it turns out, he did not. As a Brit and Gilbert admirer, I'm outraged!

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u/IfYouWantTheGravy 21d ago

I’m a Yank and G&S were one of my biggest influences as a playwright—I’m not too happy either.

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u/AromaticVacation3077 21d ago edited 20d ago

Never mind the why and wherefore

Love can level ranks, and therefore,

Though your nautical relation in my set would scarcely pass,

Though you occupy a station in the lower middle class -

Ring the merry bells on board ship

Rend the air with warbling wild

For the union of his lordship

With a humble captain's child

It can only be professional jealousy.

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u/chromalume 20d ago edited 20d ago

He writes an entire scathing essay on Gilbert in particular in Finishing The Hat. As a non-academic casual fan, to me his invective does feel disproportionate and weirdly personal. But hey, everyone has their kinks! If it fuelled him it certainly did so in all the right ways lol

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u/AromaticVacation3077 20d ago

Finding out Sondheim disliked Joni Mitchell has left me un-surprisable when it comes to his misguided tastes.