Greatest Hits Nine: "You Can't Stop The Beat"
For our penultimate Greatest Hits blog, we’re returning to our roots of five years ago with one of the very first songs we learned as Bristol Show Choir: “You Can’t Stop The Beat” from Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s 2002 musical Hairspray.
Set during 1962 in Baltimore, Hairspray follows Tracey Turnblad, a teenager with dreams to inspire change. After auditioning for a role on The Corny Collins show and becoming a celebrity overnight, Tracey decides to use her status and platform for good and campaign for the show to become integrated.
The musical explores themes such as racism and freedom of expression, and as a whole the score is really fun, peppy and upbeat, featuring dance style and “downtown” rhythm and blues influences which reflect the setting. “You Can’t Stop The Beat” is the show’s finale, apparently inspired by Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep Mountain High”, the number sees many of the show’s principal characters return to celebrate progression and positive change, which reinforces the message and spirit of the musical. It’s incredibly catchy and a joy to sing, but yeesh is it a challenge!
We at Bristol Show Choir are no strangers to lyrically heavy songs (hello, Hamilton Medley!) but I think it’s fair to say this song is, to borrow a phrase from The Wizard of Oz: a horse of a different colour! Why? The challenge is twofold: precision in lyrics, and speed. The rhythms in the verses are notably slower than the chorus, but it’s important to keep the pace strong and slowly build the momentum, as the song won’t hit the powerful stride we know it can by the time we get to the chorus. Not forgetting the lyrics in the verses: we talk of avalanches racing down the hill, stopping seasons, hearts keeping time with the speed of sound, shimmy and shaking, and so on, and we have to make sure these are not only clearly heard, but understood: enunciate! Make your consonants and beginnings and ends of words crystal clear.
Though it’s a wonderfully joyous song, and its tempting to speed up just out of sheer enthusiasm (or perhaps the relief that I’ve got the lyrics right), but the critical thing with this song, is pacing yourself – because you need to keep that speed for the choruses! Where they’re so fast as well as wordy, this is a tough sing and there’s little or next to no time to breathe… but if and when you must just remember the cardinal Show Choir rule: “whenever you like, just as long as it’s not at the same time as your neighbour!”
As always, it does get easier with repetition and it’s a great feeling when you can end the song not hugely out of breath! When we first started learning this, we were brave (or some might think, foolish) to choreograph our arrangement as well, which gave it another level of difficulty, but it was always a Show Choir favourite!
Like with our song from Dear Evan Hansen, this one has taken a bit of a backseat for our Spring term, but watch this space come summer…
