Oh, No
Fred Ebb, the man who wrote the lyrics for Broadway musicals including Cabaret and Chicago, has died.
He is believed to have been in his early-to-mid ’70s, but as the AP obit writes “Ebb always was ‘sweetly vague’ about his age, said director Scott Ellis.”
I wrote in a review of a book Ebb published last year with his composing partner John Kander that they were “arguably second only to Stephen Sondheim among their generation of theatrical songwriters.” I stand by that.
ETA: Here’s an example of one of Ebb’s most lovely lyrics, from the musical Flora, the Red Menace:
When it all comes true
Just the way you planned,
It’s funny but the bells don’t ring
It’s a quiet thing
When you hold the world
In your trembling hand,
You’d think you’d hear a choir sing,
It’s a quiet thing.
There are no exploding fireworks.
Where’s the roaring of the crowds?
Maybe it’s this strange new atmosphere
Way up here above the clouds…
