The third, and final (for now) installment of our series looking at “I Want” songs from musicals will air on this week’s Dress Circle (8/13 7:00 p.m.).
As a reminder, an “I Want” song usually comes near the beginning of a musical and allows the audience to see the often inner-thoughts of a character and what will be the driving force that shapes the rest of the musical.
For instance, in the recent musical, “Mrs. Doubtfire,” when Daniel loses custody of his children, he sings “I Want to Be There,” and it’s that desire to be with his children that causes the character of Mrs. Doubtfire to be born.
So far, we’ve looked at songs that had “I Want” and “I Wanna” actually in the titles. In this segment, we’re looking at the “I Want” songs that aren’t declared in the title, and, sometimes, “I Want” doesn’t even appear in the lyrics, but the sentiment and explanation is there.
We’ll hear from some familiar shows this time including “Ragtime,” “The Music Man,” “My Fair Lady,” “Chicago,” “Cabaret,” and “Gypsy,” and we’ve included songs from three Disney scores for “The Little Mermaid,” “Tangled,” and “Hercules.”
We’re going to give you some homework for this program: if you know the scores to some of these shows, see if you can think of which songs we’ll be using that say “I Want” without saying it!
