We remember Broadway composer Charles Strouse, who died May 15 at age 96. He wrote the music for the hit musicals Bye Bye Birdie and Annie, which included such songs as "Put On a Happy Face," "A Lot of Livin' to Do," and "Tomorrow." Jay-Z sampled "Hard Knock Life," from Annie, on a Grammy-award-winning rap recording. Strouse understood why: "I wanted that song to be gritty. I didn't want it to be a fake. I wanted it to show these desperate times and these maltreated girls." Strouse spoke with Terry Gross in 2002. Also, critic-at-large John Powers reviews Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who was Charles Strouse and why is he significant?
But had we realized that it would have that kind of commercial clout, that is, that high schools and camps and... And prisons. I don't know. Everybody does it. It's incredible. And it keeps picking up in performances. I think we would have said, oh, let's do that show. But at the time, it was actually even a little strange.
It was a bit of an embarrassment in a funny way to me and to Mike because... Well, to me particularly, because I'd been in serious music all my life. I'd studied classical music. I was embarking on a serious music career. And that this would be the first opportunity that I'd have for a major public hearing. And then that we had this silly name, Bye Bye Birdie.
It was not the show that I wanted to write, which taught me something about myself, which is... I don't know where the hell I am half the time.
Let me ask you about writing the telephone hour from Bye Bye Birdie. And this is a series of phone conversations that the teenagers are having with each other. And it's not a straightforward song. I mean, you're basically setting a series of conversations to music with little interruptions and phones ringing. So what were some of your considerations when you were writing the music for that?
Well, you know, before I just answer that, I have four kids and it's come back to haunt me because I have four telephone lines and it's still every second everybody's on the phone. Anyway, beside the point, my considerations were, first of all, that it was rock and of its sort.
It is rock music, though such an innocent sort that, you know, I don't like to listen to it and say I'm Mick Jagger or anybody like that. but it was rock and, and, and, uh, I paid attention very strongly to the guitar chords, you know, that all guitarists play on it. You know, a lot of rock music in those days particularly was very... There were certain patterns. It became patterned in a way.
And I did model it on that. But then I used a lot of... I used a lot of changes of time and a lot of interjections, which is into the exact rock beat. But I kept the beat going very much. And then I used just, you know... Lee and I sat and kind of carved it out together. Hi, and, you know, the things, did they really get pinned?
Well, here's the telephone hour from Bye Bye Birdie music by my guest, Charles Strauss.
Did they really get pinned? Did she kiss him and cry? Did he pin the pin on? Or was he too shy? Well, I heard they got pinned. I was hoping they would. Now they're living at last.
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Chapter 2: What are some famous songs written by Charles Strouse?
That was her genius. That's why I can laugh at it. I can also laugh at it because I've had, you know, some successful shows. But her genius was really taking a young kid like me. I was quite young when I was there. I was around 18 or so. And I know from my own experience with my own children what it is to be searching for an identity. And she...
in her soft, brilliant way, was able to contribute to my identifying who I was.
I want to close with the story behind one of your most famous songs, and this is the song from Annie, Tomorrow. Tell us about writing this song, what you intended when you wrote it, and this song has really taken on a life of its own. This song seems to alternate between major and minor keys, no?
Yes, it does. Well, there are a number of feelings I have about the song. The first one always had been and still stays with me. It's the one song in this show of a personal nature in the show that could not have been written in the 30s. And I could say the same perhaps for Hard Knock Life, but Hard Knock Life was a bit of dramatic music where I was kind of outside it in a way.
But here's a song of a girl during the Depression, and this song definitely could only have been written in the 70s, the harmonies and the kind of melodic. So I thought... If nothing else, I mean, I didn't think the show was going to be successful, but I certainly felt as though critics were going to say, now wait a second, how could they write this?
Everything else was, we'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover, and I don't need anything but you. They were kind of pastiches using Harry Warren and Cole Porter and those kind of Gershwin composers as the filter, so to speak. But that song, no. And it was just out of another era completely. So that was my first thing about it.
The second thing about it was that nobody could sing it because it was so rangy. And the third thing about it, which is... It's just curious. I've worked with a number of collaborators... though I've worked mostly with Lee Adams, but, you know, I've done a show with Sammy Kahn, with Alan Jay Lerner, with Richard Maltby. I mean, there have just been a lot of them, Stephen Schwartz in my life.
Though not those particularly, but all the collaborators along the way, I had the song and I played it for many of them. And they all said, yeah, okay, what else do you have? And Martin and I were looking for a song of hope at that moment. And I played him. Actually, it wasn't a whole song. I had written it for a movie.
this theme for an industrial film that I did, and I always liked the theme, and Martin picked up on it, and I had no idea. I certainly didn't think it was going to be a big success. I did think that it got an awfully big hand in the theater when Andrea sang it, but I thought it was the set. Martin had made a nice move with the set that had changed.
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Chapter 3: What was the inspiration behind 'Tomorrow' from Annie?
No, no. That was a – this would be a part of Sammy that's typical of him and probably partially meaningless to anybody else. He brought me down there. He said he wanted to see me for a conference. And I remember one of the things, you know, we all introduced ourselves around. Believe me, I was not as proud of my physique as they of theirs.
And so I was, and he said, this is my composer, Charles Strauss. Oh, hi, Charlie, you know, da-da-da-da-da. And it was basically, in my opinion, looking back, that he wanted to show them that he had a composer, a Broadway composer, who had written Bye Bye Birdie, That was his composer. And I remember asking him later, why do you... I don't say this is my actor, Sammy.
Why do you say this is my composer? That was one of the times that he didn't argue the point with me, but I think he saw the emptiness of having me down there. Although, by the way, it's always made an amusing story, and a true one. But it was basically a kind of... His day in the sauna with the guys, you know, I was the drop-in guest.
Charles Strauss speaking to Terry Gross in 2002. We couldn't end this tribute without considering the impact of perhaps his most enduring musical. In 2010, Terry spoke with the rapper Jay-Z about how one of the songs from Annie inspired his own distinctly different interpretation.
Let's talk about another one of your tracks. I want to play Hard Knock Life, which really surprised me when I first heard it because you sample the song Hard Knock Life from the Broadway show Annie, which I thought was a real surprising choice for you.
To say the least.
Yes, to say the least. So how did you decide to use that?
Well, what happened was my sister's name is Andrea Carter, and we call her Annie for short. So when the TV version of the play came on and it was like there's a story called Annie, I was immediately drawn to it, of course. This is my sister's name. Like, what is this about? So I watched it, and I was immediately drawn to that story. And those words, instead of treated, we get tricked.
Instead of kisses, we get kicked. it immediately resonated with me. So fast forward, I'm on the Puff Daddy tour, and I'm about to leave stage, and a DJ by the name of Kid Capri plays this track, no rap on it, just instrumental. It stopped me in my tracks. It immediately brought me back to my childhood and that feeling.
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