Pretty Women

Pretty Women
by Stephen Sondheim

Proof of Heaven
as you’re living,
Pretty Women!
- Sweeney Todd and Judge Turpin, in Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sometimes you find love songs where you least expect them. And sometimes the most unlikely pair sings a duet. Now, I’m not just talking about those strange hybrid albums that Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, and just about every popular music icon feels obliged to make these days. That’s Minor League – although I would be interested to know what you think the strangest pairing is to date (and no fair using Celine Dion).

For my money, I would pick the beautiful duet Pretty Women from the aforementioned Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The two men singing together could not be more different, but they are rhapsodizing about women in general and about the same particular woman – well, in particular:

Pretty women
Fascinating,
Sipping coffee,
Dancing . . .
Pretty women
Are a wonder.
Pretty women!

Sitting in the window or
Standing on the stair
Something in them cheers the air.

It is a beautiful, uplifting piece of music – and it couldn’t be more inapposite to the story’s arc. If you are unfamiliar with the storyline for Sweeney Todd, I’m not sure I can get you up to speed here (even the “synopsis” on Wikipedia runs for a couple of hundred lines of text). Suffice it to say, Fleet Street in London is light years removed from Main Street in River City, Iowa: the world of Sweeney Todd is an unrelentingly dark place of revenge, murder, cannibalism, dashed dreams and bad food. Sweeney (whose former name was Benjamin Barker) was a naïve, young barber. The wicked, corrupt Judge Turpin coveted Benjamin’s beautiful wife and so he had Barker sent to Australia’s penal colonies for 15 years on trumped-up charges. (Think Uriah and David, except Mrs Barker was not a willing Bathsheba.) When Barker returns to London, he believes his wife has died. Driven mad with grief and revenge, he adopts the new name of Sweeney Todd and opens a barber shop for the purpose of someday getting the Judge into his chair. In the meantime, he “will practice on less honorable throats.” And he does.

One day, the fates smile on Sweeney. Judge Turpin enters the shop and requests a shave. As he settles into the chair, Sweeney raises his freshly honed razor high. But then, even at this most opportune moment, Sweeney is overtaken by love’s power, and even the dark-hearted Judge joins him in song:

Pretty women
Silhouetted,
Stay within you,
Glancing . . .
Stay forever,
Breathing lightly,
Pretty women,
Pretty women!

Blowing out their candles or
Combing out their hair,
Even when they leave
They still are there.
They're there

Musically, the song Pretty Women also differs from every other moment in the show. Mr Sondheim populates every song with the augmented fourth “tritone” interval (also called “the devil’s interval” in music). Pretty Women is filled with the tritone, as well, but instead of using it as dissonance, Mr Sondheim utilizes it as a leading tone continually calling us upward to a new chord. Similarly, every song in the show uses the four-note theme of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) in the Latin Requiem. You’ll notice that Pretty Women is filled with four-syllable phrases (“pretty women”, “fascinating”, sipping coffee” and the like). But here, the Dies Irae musical theme is literally turned upside down (get it?) as the two men sing the glories of women:

Ah!
Pretty women,
at their mirrors,
in their gardens,
letter-writing,
flower-picking,
weather-watching.
How they make a man sing!

Proof of heaven as you're living,
Pretty women! Yes, pretty women!
Here's to pretty women,
Pretty women,
Pretty women,
Pretty women . . .

Well, their reverie is interrupted and the razor misses its mark, at least for the time being. But there is a whole Act and a quarter left in the show, and the darkness gets worse. Sweeney Todd is not a “musical comedy” by any stretch. In fact, depending on the venue and singers, it is sometimes performed as an “opera”. But “musical tragedy” might be a more appropriate term (especially in the classical definition of a “tragedy”), if there is such a thing.

We could go a lot of different ways with today’s post. There’s the “vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” aspect of Deuteronomy 32:35 (quoted in Romans 12:19). There’s the warning in Philippians 3:19 about people “whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” . . . “and whose end is destruction”. But let’s focus today on the Virtuous Woman of Proverbs 31. The Book of Proverbs ends with a bang, and these last verses, talking about the “wife of noble character”, are an acrostic poem: each successive verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So, just like Pretty Women’s tritone interval that keeps leading us upward, so the Virtuous Woman’s verses call us to the next letter and to nobler characteristics:

10 A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her women servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
29 "Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
31 Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

One more thing: today is my cousin Ellen’s birthday. She is all those things described above: pretty woman, wife of noble character, PhD, devoted mother, professor, teller of good jokes, and even appreciator of Broadway musicals – tragedies, comedies, or otherwise. Happy Birthday, Ellen!