Our Nothing in Common writers love the two new songs, so in they go. I really felt that the original versions were very wrong for the characters and weren't doing what they needed to do and at the reading that was soooo apparent. So, I talked through the first of them, the mom's song, first with the lyricist, who immediately started sending me new lyrics along the lines of what I said, which I told her not to do until I had the story exactly right. But she gets very gung ho about stuff. What I really wanted to do was have a conversation with Kerry O'Malley, who read the role. I told her my thoughts and she told me hers, which were excellent and from that the story became clearer. So, the lyricist got all that information and sent me a new draft, which was too on the nose and filled with statements rather than words from the heart and character. At that point, I told her not to send me more and that I'd write the tune first. I came up with a tune I really liked - simple, heartfelt, not overwritten, and no way for her to make with a lot of words, so it forced her to get to the essence of the lyric. So, she wrote to that and it got better - then there was our usual back-and-forth with my usual suggestions and by the end of all that, we had that one right.
The father's song was much harder. I absolutely hated the original - I wrote nice, bluesy music for it to match the lyric, but the story of the song was so wrong, so awkward, and came out of nowhere - it should never have been a bluesy feel and we were telling the wrong story. So, first I worked with the writer, who I asked to write a monologue about what I felt we needed to get to. He did, but it wasn't quite there and still had aspects of the old story. I knew I had to write the tune first - that always seems to work best with this lyricist, although we've done nice stuff the other way, too. And I had this really strange notion to take the tune in 1000% opposite direction. So, I wrote what I was feeling, musically, and it was really intriguing to me because of that totally different feel.
Then I felt we had to get to the essence of what it needed to be about and I had this thought rambling around in my head. I discussed that with the author briefly and he agreed with the overall thought and feeling I was having about what this song had to do and be about. I then discussed that with the lyricist. I told her about the tune and then sent it to her and she began doing drafts - and again, we went through our back-and-forth routine until I felt it was all coming from the character, rather than just writing statements that don't sound like the character. I think we did five or six tries before I felt it was telling the story and again the tune forced her to be succinct. The simple notion I had after reading the monologue was - well, there was one line in the monologue that said that the father's father was also a womanizer. That led me to that no matter how hard we try not to, many times we become our parents, and not the good side. It happened to me in a way, early on, and I saw it and stopped it. So, that's what the song became about - that that's a really hard chain to break but we have to and he can already see his son, the Tom Hanks character, becoming like him in the way he treats women. I revised the monologue and cut the stuff that was germane and it all seemed to really work.
And now, they have to do the other revisions to the script that we've already discussed, including a new coda to the ending, which hopefully will provide a better finish and be more satisfying.
