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exigencelost · 3 years

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A non-comprehensive list of lines from earlier versions of Hadestown that were cut from the Broadway version and which I mourn daily. Might add to this later. Might also someday make a list of lines that were added for Broadway that bopped enormously to create spiritual balance. Bold is actually meant as emphasis for once.

Ruminations on Hades and industrial capitalism:

“King of diamonds, king of spades / Hades was king of a kingdom of dirt / miners of mines, diggers of graves / they bowed down to Hades who gave them work / and they bowed down to Hades who made them sweat / who paid them their wages and set them about / digging and dredging and dragging the depths of the Earth to turn its insides out / singing la la la la la la la.”

—Epic 1, original concept album and Epic 2, NYTW live recording.

(note: Anaïs Mitchell said ¡¡Keep it in the ground!! Also, “dangerous this jack of hearts” in His Kiss The Riot makes far more sense if playing cards get brought up in the first act. I am constantly floored by the fact that they cut this line, I think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry I’ve ever heard and that it sets the stage of this story absolutely perfectly. The stakes and the setting and the title character are all right here. Also establishes "la lalalala lala" as a song sung by laborers before anything else, which has very sexy implications for the divine natural power of the proletariat.)

“Heavy and hard is the heart of the king / king of iron, king of steel. / The heart of the king loves everything / like the hammer loves the nail.”

—Epic 2, original concept album, and Epic III, NYTW live recording.

(note: I fell in love with this line at 13 and never got over it. This line actually permanently shares a file in my brain with a Zadie Smith quote from White Teeth, “Oh he loves her, just as the English loved India and Africa and Ireland.”)

“And Hades is king of the scythe and the sword / he covers the world in the color of rust / he scrapes the sky and scars the earth / and he comes down heavy and hard on us.”

—Epic 2, original concept album and Epic III, NYTW live recording.

(note: the condemnation of industrialization and urbanization..skyscrapers and mining as a physical wound inflicted on nature...also the consonance...)

“Oh he said he’d shelter us,/ he said he’d harbor me, / he said we’d build them up / and then the walls would set us free....Oh, he said he’d shelter us / He said he’d harbor me / He said we’d soldier on/ And then the war would bring us peace. I’m gonna count to three /and then I’ll raise my head, singing, /Is it true? Is it true what he said?”

—Chant II, NYTW live recording.

(note: I actually quite like the worker’s chorus lines that replaced this on Broadway, but I miss the lyrical callbacks to Hey Little Songbird and Why We Build The Wall. Also like the brief reference to U.S. militarist rhetoric, even if war’s not really a theme of this musical.)

“[Fates] Everybody dresses in clothes so fine / Everybody’s pockets are weighted down / Everybody's sipping ambrosia wine / [Eurydice] In a goldmine in Hadestown...[Orpheus] Everybody hungry / everybody tired/ everybody slaves by the sweat of his brow / the wages is nothing and the work is hard / it’s a graveyard in Hadestown.”

—Way Down Hadestown, original concept album and NYTW live recording.

(note: Orpheus’s verse about sweat and labor made it to Broadway, but moved into Hermes’s mouth. The Fates singing about wealth and luxury got cut. I have a lot of thoughts on this. First, moving the labor-exploitation verse from Orpheus to Hermes IMO turns it from in-character consciously sung propaganda to a general announcement to the audience by the narrator, which I find less fun. Second: the Fates in this show say what people are thinking, fearing, dreaming of. When the Fates sing of tantalizing wealth here, it shows you what people are hoping when they ride the train to Hadestown. Elegance and riches and the wine of the gods. The land of milk and honey. They’re singing the promise of industrialization and capitalism; the promise made to migrants and immigrants; they’re singing the American Dream. Eurydice sings “goldmine,” an ambiguous line because it could mean “lucrative endeavor” or “literal mine where I personally have to work incredibly hard underground in the dark,” an ambiguity that foreshadows some things about Eurydice. Then Orpheus (a communist) sings a verse in the same meter, same sentence structure, perfectly paralleling and refuting the promise made by the Fates, and landing “graveyard” in the exact place in the meter that Eurydice’s “goldmine” landed. He’s doing consciousness-raising. He’s combating capitalist propaganda. He’s also issuing a warning directly to Eurydice, although it’s possible he doesn’t realize it.

Edit: I realized that while the above is true in NYTW, in the original concept album, it’s actually Eurydice who sings the lines “everybody dresses in clothes so fine...sipping ambrosia wine.” Which makes Orpheus’s verse (which again parallels hers perfectly in format) a direct argument that he’s having with Eurydice. The concept album also doesn’t have the “she called your name before she went” exchange between Hermes and Orpheus. There’s no shocked Orpheus reaction dialogue after Gone I’m Gone; Eurydice goes underground and Orpheus’s next line is "wait for me, I’m coming.” Nor is there a mic-drop reveal from Hades later that she “signed the deal herself” spoken over Orpheus’s horrified denial. There’s nothing in the concept album to suggest that Orpheus is surprised by Eurydice leaving. With the concept album you kinda have to bring your own plot to the party, but without any textual shock from Orpheus, and without the emphasis that “Storm Coming On” in the Broadway version placed on Orpheus’s obliviousness, it’s not hard to draw a line between the tension in Wedding Song and this conflict in Way Down Hadestown and say that Orpheus may have been expecting her to leave, or been trying to talk her out of it, for a while.)

Persephone’s voice:

“One at a time boys, straight line / what the boss don’t know, the boss won’t mind.”

—Our Lady of the Underground, original concept album and NYTW live recording.

(note: this was changed on Broadway to “tell my husband to take his time / what the boss don’t know, the boss won’t mind,” which, combined with the broadway staging choices, changes the entire context of the song and strips away Persephone’s implied role as head of Hadestown’s black market. I didn’t see the NYTW production so I don’t know how they staged Our Lady, but on Broadway, where this line change is made, Persephone sings Our Lady to an empty stage. The worker’s chorus is not present. She’s singing to herself, apparently about her own addiction, and the one line that explicitly addresses a crowd of customers is removed in favor of a personal reference to her marriage. This totally alters her role in the underworld and overworld, the power dynamic between her and Hades, her relationship to Orpheus and Eurydice and to the worker’s chorus, and makes her in my opinion a lot less interesting both as a character and an allegory.)

“When I was a young girl/ sister I was hungry too / hungry for the Underworld/ when I was a young girl. / Now you know how it tastes / the fruit of Mr Hades’ ways / sister it’s a bitter wine/ spit it out while you still have time. /Take it from a woman of my age / love is not a gilded cage / all the wealth within these walls / cannot buy the thing called love. / Love was when he came to me / begging on his bended knee / to please have pity on his heart / and let him lay me in the dirt. / I felt his arms around me then / we didn’t need a wedding bed / dark seeds scattered on the ground / wild birds were flying around / that’s when I became his wife / that was in another life / that was in another world /when I was a young girl.”

—Chant II, NYTW live recording.

(note: Hello? Hello!!??? I can’t get too much into the absurdity of cutting Persephone’s Chant II verse and what it does to the show’s gender politics and the balance of this track, it’s all been said and it’ll eat the post. But some lyrical notes on this version of the verse are, 1, the direct reference to the actual myth of Persephone and the fruit that she ate that sealed her fate, which, combined with the “hungry for the Underworld” line synthesizes the production’s version of Persephone with the mythical one and tells us exactly how much of a choice she did or did not have in this version: she chose willingly but she could not retract her choice later. 2, the story of Hades kneeling in the dirt comes first from Persephone’s mouth here, so Orpheus is echoing her later when he sings this same scene to Hades, which makes it ring more true. And 3, I’m just in love with “let him lay me in the dirt” from the lips of the wife of the god of the dead employed as a reference to both sex and the grave. addendum: 4, the we-don’t-need-a-bed calls back to Wedding Song.)

“When I was a young girl / the Underworld was younger too / everything was possible / when I was a young girl. / Now we’ve been down so long / in this town of steel and stone / I forgot what feeling was / and then I heard your Orpheus. / Something in the way he sings / I believe that he could bring / the mightiest of kings to tears / even after all these years. / Sister even at my age / I believe the world can change. / Sister this is how it starts / a change of heart!”

—Chant II, National Theater London

(note: Our Lady of Hope in the Dark!! This version does the least backstory heavy lifting but works beautifully with the shift in political climate happening with the workers’ chorus in the background of this track. Amber Gray’s growled delivery of “a change of heart” is stunning, check out the link to anais-mitchell’s post below with audio from all the cut Chant II verses.)

“When I was a young girl like you / this old world was younger too. / We set it spinning hand in hand / me and a young man. / Now you see what he’s become / Hades and his heart of stone. / I forgot what true love was / and then I heard your Orpheus. / Take it from a woman of my age, / there is nothing love can’t change. / Even where the bricks are stacked, /love is blooming through the cracks. / Even when the light is gone, / love is reaching for the sun. / It was love that spun the world / when I was a young girl.”

—(big shocker this one’s also) Chant II, Broadway previews.

(note: I’m obsessed. The concise reference in the first 4 lines to her status as a primordial god. The prison abolition mood. This almost made it into Broadway, Anaïs turn on your location I just want to talk.)

(Thank you to @anais-mitchell for the this post with the London and preview Chant II verses.)

#hadestown #persephone #hi i'm back on my bullshit

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gatherround · 2 years

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is this a hadestown blog? this is technically a hadestown blog, in the way that https://search.marginalia.nu/ is a search engine.

all of it? everything here relates to hadestown. loosely. allegedly.

why is this a hadestown blog? because i am interested (in alphabetical order) in borders, cyclical narratives, environmental justice, folk and other activist music, labor movements, meta commentaries on myth and folktale, migration, orpheus and eurydice, translation and adaptations, trainhopping, and theater, among other things, and anais mitchell was nice enough to put all of them into one show. it’s a very nice and large umbrella.

do I need to be into hadestown to enjoy this blog? it will increase your score on I Can Identify The Connection To Hadestown bingo, but otherwise, no. if you don’t like the above list of interests though, you might not dig it.

will you explain how the posts connect to hadestown? sometimes but mostly no. i feel self conscious tagging things like labor movement history with thoughts on blorbeus from my folk operas.

will you explain if i ask? probably have a ramble ready to go but no promises. please ask away tho!

what if i only want to read posts with your commentary? then i want to kiss you on the mouth! also check out this tag.

is this a hadestown blog because you think hadestown is a perfect show? nope! in fact, i find many choices made with this show to be endlessly (and yet, productively) frustrating. a not insignificant portion of my engagement is with these limitations and frustrations and unrealized potential, so if you’re not into alla that critique you might not enjoy this. and at the same time, it’s managed to land precisely at the intersection of a bakers dozen of my interests, and so it’s largely a very useful umbrella upon which to dangle all these shiny things.

why don’t you like hadestown!hades? he’s henry ford, and henry ford can always get fucked.

is this blog 18+? this blog may have Grown Folks Stuff on here from time to time, and I do not keep up with tagging. if that works for you, then I’m happy to have you sit round this fire with me. if not, then shalom good bye and happy trails

what is your age / gender / location / religion / various other identities? what are you, a cop?

tags? My tagging is very inconsistent, and i’m sorry to say i generally do not keep up with tagging for content warnings. I recognize that tagging for content warnings is incredibly useful, and I’m glad Tumblr is one of the only social media where you can curate your experience that way; that said, Tumblr is I place I come to repost things with my brain 80% off and I can’t promise to keep up with cw tagging with consistency & fidelity, so I’d rather not commit to something I can’t follow though on. if you need tags for certain triggers then please use your best judgement on if you’d like to follow this blog. I do have some tags I use (inconsistently) for various content / ideas though:

#poor boy working on a song: Orpheus / rad musician vibes

#poor boi working on a song: orpheus but make em queer / butch / trans / better

#a song to fix what’s wrong: the work of art in the world

#all alone your blood runs thin: solidarity babyyy

#this is the shape of a story

#make you see how the world could be: i haven’t actually used this in a while

#orpheus is a punk mood board: what it says on the tin

#a suitcase full of summertime: solar punk ish

#our lady of the underground: persephone

#it’s a love song - love & orpheus/eurydice

#a tale of love from long ago - hades/persephone, love that’s been alive too long

#it’s a goldmine it’s a graveyard - haunted architecture, this place wants to kill you, etc

#we’re gonna sing it again - circular narrative, repeated narrative, time loop, help i’m stuck in a story and I can’t get out

#hot labor summer

#i remember fields of flowers

#how to put a crack in the wall

#advertisements for power

#why the winds have changed: climate change, climate chaos

#the house is the shape of a story and that story is shaped like a person

#hadestown #gather round you vagabonds

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phoenixwrites · 7 years

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Phi, what's hadestown?

I’M SO FUCKING GLAD SOMEONE ASKED.

Hadestown started out as a folk rock opera written by Anais Mitchell. You all know how Hamilton started out as a mixtape idea by Lin Manuel? Similar thing. Anais Mitchell had the idea for a folk rock opera stage show–but it started out as a concept album, put out in 2010, with her doing the vocals of Eurydice, Bon Iver doing the vocals of Orpheus, Greg Brown as Hades, and Ani DiFranco as Persephone. Oh, and Ben Knox Miller as Hermes and the Haden Triplets as the Fates. It is a “postapocalyptic 30′s depression hillfolk” kind of setting. Orpheus is a traveling musician with a guitar strapped to his back, Persephone runs a speakeasy in Hadestown, Hades is a hardened capitalist brainwashing his minions to build a wall…

In 2016, it has been adapted as an off-Broadway show and I want to see it sooo badly, but from what I’ve seen, is fucking fantastic. The EP of the cast album is out, but not the full album, and I am dying to hear the rest of it…

And now I’m going to talk about all the songs in excruciating detail YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE ASKED ME ALLI, I’M MAKING MY ROOMMATE SICK OF IT FROM ME TALKING ABOUT IT SO MUCH.

“Wedding Song” A love duet between Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice pointing out that they are both broke as fuck–”Lover, tell me if you can, who’s gonna buy the wedding bands, times being what they are?” With Orpheus being slick as fuck, “Lover, when I sing my song, all the rivers sing along, and they’re gonna break their banks for me, to lay their gold around my feet…” FUCK THAT PUN AND WORDPLAY I MEAN COME ON.

“Epic (Part 1)” Orpheus explaining who Hades is and what kind of town Hadestown is. “King of diamonds, king of spades! Hades was king of the kingdom of dirt, Miners of mines, diggers of graves, they bowed down to Hades who gave them work and they bowed down to Hades who made them sweat…” He also talks about Hades brainwashing his workers.

“Way Down Hadestown” Now Hermes takes a spin talking about Hadestown, with Eurydice joining in about all the good things she’s heard about Hadestown. “Everybody dresses in clothes so fine, Everybody’s pockets are weighted down, Everybody sipping ambrosia wine, In a goldmine in Hadestown!” Because, well, it’s the postapocalyptic Depression and the idea of having a job, even in Hell, is appealing. This is also our first introduction to Persephone, who sings grumpily, “Winter’s nigh, summer’s o’er, I hear that high lonesome sound, of my husband coming down, to bring me home, to Hadestown!” In the off-Broadway cast version, we hear Persephone groan at the beginning of the song and complain, “It has NOT been six months!” and her snap at Hades at the end, “You’re early.”, with him kind of sexily saying back, “I missed ya.” (Hades’ voice is like this deep gravelly tone and it does bad things to your ovaries.)

“Hey, Little Songbird” Hades seducing Eurydice–well, not literally, but basically him trying to convince her to come to Hadestown. See, Hadestown has an interesting take on the Eurydice legend–rather than her being bitten by a snake and ripped from this world unfairly, she chooses to go to Hadestown, because she’s starving to death and workers are fed in Hadestown. “Hey, little songbird, you got something fine, You’d shine like a diamond down in the mine, And the choice is yours if you?re willing to choose,Seeing as you’ve got nothing to lose…”

“Gone, I’m Gone” Eurydice giving up and succumbing–”Orpheus, my heart is yours, always was and will be…it’s my gut I can’t ignore…Orpheus, I’m hungry…oh, my heart it aches to stay, but the flesh will have its way…” And then we hear the Fates chide us, warning us not to judge her. “Wouldn’t you have done the same? In her shoes, in her skin, You can have your principles, When you’ve got a bellyful, But hunger has a way with you, There’s no telling what you’re gonna do, When the chips are down…”

“When the Chips Are Down” And then those fickle Fates taunting Eurydice for her decision to leave Orpheus for Hadestown! “What you gonna do when the chips are down, Now that the chips are down, Help yourself, to hell with the rest, Even the one who loves you best!”

“Wait for Me” Hermes explains to Orpheus the second way to Hadestown, aside from the train. (He ain’t got no ticket) “How to get to Hadestown, You’ll have to take the long way down, Through the underground, under cover of nightLaying low, staying out of sight, Ain’t no compass, brother, there ain’t no mapJust a telephone wire and the railroad track, Keep on walking and you don’t look back, Til you get to the bottomland…” With Orpheus singing, “Wait for me, I’m coming too, wait I’m coming with you…” Another interesting choice! Instead of Orpheus vowing to rescue Eurydice, he only vows to be with her.

“Why We Build the Wall” THIS FUCKING SONG. This fucking song was written in 2010, but it fucking predicted 2016…ahem. This is the song Hades sings to his workers, who sing back while they are fruitlessly building a wall around the River Styx. Listen to these lyrics and prepare to be fucking haunted: “(Hades) What do we have that they should want? My children, my childrenWhat do we have that they should want? (Chorus) What do we have that they should want? We have a wall to work upon! We have work and they have noneAnd our work is never done, My children, my children, And the war is never wonThe enemy is poverty, And the wall keeps out the enemy, And we build the wall to keep us free, That’s why we build the wall, We build the wall to keep us free…” Also the cast has no fucking chill and posted this little anti-Trump video on their website including the song.

“Our Lady of the Underworld” PERSEPHONE’S SONG. PERSEPHONE RUNS A SPEAKEASY IN THE UNDERWORLD AND SNEAKS SUNSHINE AND RAIN TO THE DEAD WHO MISS IT. “I can give you what it is you crave, A little something from the good old days, I got the wind right here in a jar, I got the rain on tap at the bar, I got the sunshine up on the shelf…a little moonshine ain’t no sin!” I love the idea of Persephone sneaking things from earth to please the dead.

“Flowers (Eurydice’s Song” Eurydice expressing regret for choosing to leave Orpheus. This song is haunting because it’s an incredible metaphor for depression. “What I wanted was to fall asleep, Close my eyes and disappear, Like a petal on a stream, a feather on the air, Lily white and poppy red, I trembled when he laid me out, You won’t feel a thing, he said, when you go down, Nothing gonna wake you now, Dreams are sweet until they’re not, Men are kind until they aren’t, Flowers bloom until they rot and fall apartIs anybody listening?” Also has an interesting little allusion to Eurydice considering her choice as an infidelity to Orpheus–like, by choosing to go down to Hadestown, she was unfaithful to him. “Hey, Little Songbird” also uses this metaphor.

“Nothing Changes” The Fates try and convince Orpheus that it’s pointless to reunite with Eurydice. “Why the struggle, why the strain? Why make trouble? Why make scenes? Why go against the grain? Why swim upstream? It ain’t, It ain’t, It ain’t no use, You’re bound, You’re bound, You’re bound to lose, What’s done, what’s done, what’s done is done…” The three-part harmony is to die for.

“If It’s True” Basically Orpheus telling the Fates to fuck off, he doesn’t care if it’s pointless, he’s going after Eurydice. “But the ones who tell the lies, Are the solemnest to swear, And the ones who load the dice, Always say the toss is fairAnd the ones who deal the cards, Are the ones who take the tricks, With their hands over their hearts, While we play the game they fix…”

“How Long?” This duet destroys me. This is the song where Persephone sings to Hades, asking him to release Eurydice. “Hades, my husband…Hades my light…Hades…my darkness.” That introduction just says it all, just explains the beautifully dark and complex nuances of Hades and Persephone’s relationship. (I know Tumblr likes a fluffy Hades/Persephone, but I like my Hades/Persephone dark as chocolate). And Hades demanding of her, “You and your pity don’t fit in my bed, You just burn like a fire in the pit of my bed, And I turn like a bird on a spit in my bed, How long, how long, how long?” How long is she going to keep bothering him about this? And Persephone retorts, “How long? Just as long as I am your wife, It’s true the earth must die, But then the earth comes back to life, And the sun just goes on rising…” Her pointing out that death is a part of life but so is resurrection is the most brilliant AUGH IT’S JUST SO FUCKING CLEVER and of course would work on Hades. Their final duet is just the saddest, most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.

“Epic (Part 2)” Now that Persephone has finally convinced Hades to at least listen to Orpheus, Orpheus sings the most beautiful song to Hades. “The heart of the king loves everything, Like the hammer loves the nail, But the heart of a man is a simple one, Small and soft, flesh and blood, And all that it loves is a woman, A woman is all that it loves…” Orpheus buttering up Hades, talking about how the “heart of a king” is different from a heart of a man…but then… “But even that hardest of hearts unhardened, Suddenly when he saw her there, Persephone in her mother’s garden, Sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair, The smell of the flowers she held in her hand, And the pollen that fell from her fingertips, And suddenly Hades was only a man…” That verse destroys me, because you can suddenly imagine Hades the way he first saw Persephone and it makes you cry and I think it makes Hades cry and everything is tragic and wonderful.

“His Kiss, The Riot” Hades’ gay panic song. I’m kidding. Kind of. There is a kiss somewhere after Epic Part 2 and you sort of assume Orpheus kisses Eurydice and it incites a riot in Hadestown, but Hades sings…”The devil take this Orpheus, And his belladonna kiss, Beautiful and poisonous, Lovely! Deadly!Now it thickens on my tongue, Now it quickens in my lung, Now I’m stricken! Now I’m stung! It’s done already! Dangerous this jack of hearts, With his kiss the riot starts…” Like that’s a pretty damn graphic description of that kiss…also I tweeted Anais Mitchell asking who Orpheus kissed, Eurydice or Hades and she just liked my tweet because she’s a fucking troll. Anyway, this is the song where Hades tells Orpheus he can bring Eurydice back if he does not turn back to look at her once.

“Doubt Comes In” Orpheus singing, the creeping doubt following him…”Doubt comes in, And kills the lights, Doubt comes in, And chills the airDoubt comes in and all falls silent, It’s as though you aren’t there, Where are you? Where are you now?” With Eurydice trying to reassure him, “Orpheus…You’re shivering, Is it cold or fear? Just keep singing, The coldest night, Of the coldest year, Comes right before the spring…” But of course…we know how the legend ends.

“I Raise My Cup” Persephone and Eurydice toast to Orpheus. So sad. So beautiful. So perfect. “Wherever he is wandering, Alone upon the earth, Let all our singing follow himAnd bring him comfort, Some flowers bloom when the green grass grows, My praise is not for them, But the one who blooms in the bitter snow, I raise my cup to him…”

#allisquish #Hadestown #Hasephone #Orpheus #Eurydice #this is the greatest thing ever guys

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