You're Nothing Without Me

Writing a book is hard enough (believe me, I've done National Novel Writing Month three years in a row) but transferring that book to the silver screen? Now that's gotta be tricky, especially when the director keeps making you rewrite your own screenplay so much so that your main character hops right out of the page. Literally! That's the plot of the Broadway musical "City of Angels" which opened on Broadway on December 11, 1989 and closed on January 19, 1992, for a total of 879 performances.

In this song, "You're Nothing Without Me" Stine, the author, is confronted by the star of his novel: Detective Stone. Stone is fed up with all the changes being made to his story, rewrites encouraged by producer/director Buddy Fidler, and decides to have a little chat with his creator. What ensues is a powerful, jazzy, and extremely witty song. Unfortunately, the Broadway recording of this song is not available online, so I have instead the Original London Cast Recording! Stine is played by Martin Smith and Stone is played by Roger Allam.

I absolutely adore the intro to this song. I think it's played on a harpsichord? It's so upbeat and chaotic; it really sets the tone for the song. Stine comes in at :23, and really hits each of his words with an accent. It almost sounds like "You. Are. Some. Gum-shoe. You. Just. Don't. Think-well." Smith does an excellent job of phrasing, and I love his little slides, such as on "only" at :35, and his over-exaggeration of the vowel on "I" at :36. Then, Smith gets low and intense on the line "Just what you are I'll spell out" but comes back to more excellent phrasing during the next few lines by really bringing out the annoyance in the word "pain" and in the word "picked." Also, the way he says "brain" at :41. It's almost as if he's rolling his r's! I also just have to point out how fantastic these lyrics are. "You come from my inkwell" "Your brain only holds thoughts I put in there" "You are a novel pain. One speck of lint that fell out the last time that I picked my brain."

Genius! What else would you say to something of your own creation?

But then Stone comes in at :52, handy with his own set of witty lyrics, in a singing voice that often drops into a talking range and tone. Listen to his first line: "You are so jealous of my track record." He starts off talking the first few words, "You are," then sings the next two, "so jealous," then reverts back to talking "of my," and then finishes the phrase with some vibrato for "track record." And then he goes and calls his creator "Tolstoy." That always gets me. Allam continues his talking/singing phrasing, which makes his lines, "You drool at my adventures. Your broads in bed are bored. Go home and soak your dentures. Your pen is no match for my sword" really neat. His "you" at 1:07 is gravely, but then is "drool" is light and full of vibrato. He pulls out the gravely tone again for "broads" at 1:12, and then elongates the vowel on "bored" at 1:13, which really plays on the alliteration of the line. Allam repeats this phrasing by vibrato-ing "home" at 1:16,  then letting the word "dentures" fall at 1:17. And then "Your pen is no match for my sword" is another example of the fabulous lyrics written by David Zippel.

And then the real world and the fictional world combine in a blare of trumpets! I find it really funny that both Smith and Allam drop the "g" off of "nothing." This is where Zippel's lyrical skills are really shown off. Listen to the internal rhyme at "a no-one who'd go undefined" at 1:28. It also helps that the rhymes are accented by the singers. And then comes my favorite line at 1:35. "I tell you you're out of my mind!"

Isn't it great? Cause, you know, it's the author singing to his creation, so Stone came from Stine's mind so instead of Stone being out of his mind, he's out of Stine's mind, and-yeah. It's great.

I love the harmony that starts at 1:39. It's really very well accented with the trumpets. But the two can't work together for long, and soon Stine is back, trying to assert himself over Stone at 1:55 with the lines, "You're in my plot, I'm still your creator. I call each shot, I'm your private dictator." I love the separation of "dic" and "tator" at 2:01. It's very definite. Stone retorts back, and how does Stine respond to his fiction being called cheap? Why, by showing off his literary skills, of course! "Gloating ignoramus." I mean, just come on...And Smith accents it so well! He elongates "you" as well as "glo" and then makes each syllable sharp and distinct, so the line sounds like, "youuuuuu glooo. ting. ig-nor-a-mus." Smith follows it up by bringing out the "sh" sound in "shame" at 2:15, something you don't hear very often. In my opinion, Stone accepts this insult, as he claims that he's a "famous shamus" and that Smith is the one people don't remember.

Now that's something to think on. Are characters remembered more than their authors?

Anyways, back to the song! We jump back into the trumpet-filled chorus, with plenty bam and pizzaz. What's really fantastic about this chorus is the way Smith and Allam hold the note on "disappear" until it blends into the word "right" from 2:35-2:37. As the song ends, we get back into harmonies and internal rhymes, such as "let's deal with the issue: you wish you were me" at 2:56, all leading up to the slow, deliberate finish of the song. Each word from 3:01 to 3:07 is accented by the trumpets, so the tempo seems to be slowing down as the ending builds. It's a cool effect. And of course, the song ends the only way a powerful confrontation between author and creation can: with a harmonic blending of voices holding out until the video cuts off.

So who wins? Does Stine conquer his main character, or is it the other way around? Better watch the show and find out!