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re: Ryan's 2004 Review Of "The Confidence Man" CD

Posted by:
rockfenris2005 07:39 am UTC 03/10/11
In reply to: Ryan's 2004 Review Of "The Confidence Man" CD - steven_stuart 11:49 pm UTC 03/09/11



> Ryan reviewed the CD of "The Confidence Man" seven years
> ago on Amazon. He gave it five stars. His review:
>
> "One of the undiscovered classics of the century. I hope
> to produce the first Australian production in November
> 2005. This show has a long and winding history, but I'll
> leave all that to the liner notes. Ray Errol Fox is one of
> the greatest lyricists of all time. I have never seen
> another talent like him - expect for Rupert Holmes - and
> these are the men I hold among my chief inspiration. Jim
> Steinman, the composer, whom many of you will remember
> from Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell has actually re-used many
> of these tunes in his subsequent projects. If you want the
> original version of his closing song from Pandora's Box,
> listen to Track One. "Milady" and "Something of this
> Masquerade may Follow" were re-used for TANZ DER VAMPIRE.
> Thank God this was finally released. It's a beautiful,
> heroic and courageous, discovered-at-last masterpiece of
> American musical theater. "

It's a horrible review. I wish I could take it down.

But "The Confidence Man" is among my Top 12 favourite musicals ever. The others are "Carousel", "My Fair Lady", "Jesus Christ Superstar", "The Rocky Horror Show", "The Confidence Man", "Evita", "Sweeney Todd", "The Phantom Of The Opera", "Miss Saigon", "Titanic", "Tanz Der Vampire" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel".

All of these musicals have very beautiful moments that almost reduce me to tears. (You're probably wondering why "Les Miserables" wasn't mentioned. It's undeniably a great musical but I was much more moved by "Miss Saigon", and I still am to this day. It's not like that with "Les Mis".)

But "The Confidence Man" has so many beautiful moments, for me, but the most beautiful of all is the last song, "Something of this masquerade may follow". Wow. You hear so many Steinfans saying that "For crying out loud" is their favourite Jim song, and I agree with them, but this is definitely up there.

I knew that it had the same tune as the chorus for "Braver than we are" but there were all these other parts that he didn't reuse (Thank God.)

"Something of this masquerade may follow
Enter someone in disguise
Clad in truth and cloaked in lies"

The music there is the chorus for "Braver than we are", then it changes (and it's very pretty):

"Baring and unmasking every hollow
And something of this masquerade may follow

Something of this big parade may catch us
Enter someone beating drums
Tempting fate and down it comes
Threatening to discover and dispatch us
And something of this big parade
Something of this mass charade
Something of this masquerade may follow"

Love it. Love it, love it, love it, love it, LOVE IT!!!



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Next: "Something Of This Masquerade May Follow" - steven_stuart 04:08 am UTC 03/13/11

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