I'm just a girl who can't say no...

June 3, 2009 10:05 PM

Song suggestions for a pregnancy-themed musical recital? (Broadway or opera preferred)

A friend of mine who sings opera and musicals with various local organizations has recently become pregnant with her first child. She wants to put together a recital of pregnancy-themed songs, but she's having some trouble coming up with a good list. Can anyone suggest some fun and/or funny songs on the subject of pregnancy and childbirth that she can sing? She's a high soprano, if it makes a difference.

posted by fermion to society & culture (19 comments total)

Dave Wakeling's She's Having a Baby, from the movie of the same name.
posted by WCityMike at 10:24 PM on June 3

Also, I'm passing this question along to a friend of mine who I consider quite the expert in such things. I'll pass along his response..
posted by WCityMike at 10:26 PM on June 3

"Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" from Grease, for the irony? ("lousy with virginity...")
posted by GaelFC at 11:10 PM on June 3

Also: "Every Sperm is Sacred" from the Monty Python gang
posted by GaelFC at 11:26 PM on June 3 [1 favorite]

Thus Spake Zarathustra
posted by phrontist at 12:09 AM on June 4

There is/was a broadway show called "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" which was all about relationships through various phases. I don't remember it in detail but there were 2-3 songs about marriage and babies, and they were very funny.

The song "Soliloquy" from "Carousel" is a bit epic, but it's sort of a daydream of an expecting father about what his child might be like -- with verses about what it will be like if it's a boy or a girl. I think Frank Sinatra recorded it too. Haven't heard it in a while, so I'm not sure how easily it would adapt to a mother singing it.

A few songs in "Into The Woods" related to having children -- not specifically to pregnancy but to issue of parenthood. Some are on the melancholy side though...

Children of Eden's "Father's Day" is a nice song about having children -- I'm sure the lyrics could be adjusted easily for a mother. Also "The Hardest Part of Love," although that relates more to the child's growing up.
posted by Alabaster at 12:25 AM on June 4

Broadway:

"Gooch's Song" from Mame for a little post-pregger comedy.

"Don't Tell Mama" from Cabaret could be funny.

"Mama Who Bore Me" from Spring Awakening.

"Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods.

Opera is going to be kind of tough, since babies are rarely a cause for celebration in an opera. Usually pregnancy means someone cheated and is going to have to die a horrible and agonizing death after singing a very difficult song. And the only mother I can think of off the top of my head is a crazed Byzantine matriarch (in Respighi's "La Fiamma"). And don't mis-hear "O Mio Babbino Caro" as "O Mio Bambino Caro." In one song, you sing to your father about how you love a man and want to marry him. In the other, you sing the same song to your baby. Awwwkward...
posted by greekphilosophy at 1:06 AM on June 4

There was an entire musical called Baby, which was all about three couples dealing with expected pregnancy, unexpected pregnancy, and unattainable pregnancy.

The two songs I've heard were a duet and a trio -- one an upbeat song that one of the couples sang about how the baby was going to be a combination of the best of each of them, and wasn't that cool ("What Could Be Better Than That") and one where the three women all meet in the waiting room at an obstetrician's and discuss how their impending baby is going to change their lives ("I Want It All"). I've also read the book and libretto and I know there's a solo one of the women has where she first feels the baby kicking and has a profound I-Feel-Connected-To-My-Mother-And-All-My-Foremothers-Before-Me moment.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:46 AM on June 4

"My Name is Barbara" is a song by Bernstein. Streisand sang it back in the 60's, and I understand that it's actually a classical piece. The lyrics concern where babies come from (from a child's perspective).
posted by rtodd at 6:04 AM on June 4

And then there's always Rosalie Sorrels' song in which she sings "this is the day we give babies away" as a lullaby to the infant who will not sleep.
posted by mareli at 6:33 AM on June 4

Also "Distant Melody" from Peter Pan is a lovely lullaby.
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:21 AM on June 4

Not Broadway but Hollywood: the lullaby "Baby Mine" from the film Dumbo.

You could try asking this question on the All That Chat board too, which is Broadway-centric.
posted by Asparagirl at 8:36 AM on June 4

The song EmpressCallipygos is referring to from the musical Baby is "The Story Goes On" which is very appropriate. Lyric: "all these things I feel and more / my mother's mother felt / and hers before / a chain of life begun upon the shore / of some primordial sea / has stretched through time / to reach to me" Very dramatic, this-is-the-moment-I-realized-what-it-means-to-be-pregnant song.

Audra McDonald sings "Baby Moon" on her Way Back to Paradise album. It's an Adam Guettel song (musical theatre composer), but it's not directly from any musical. Lyric: "Curled up inside of me I feel you / Like a warm ball of light waiting for dawn" It's a fun, jazzy, cute little song.

Then there's "Me and My Baby" from Chicago, which Roxie sings when she's "pregnant." That's definitely got a more humorous twist.

And I'm sure there are hundreds more. I'll post again when they come to me.
posted by philotes at 8:41 AM on June 4

What's that song Barbra Streisand sings in "Funny Girl" when she's dressed as a bride and suddenly turns sideways and you see she's in her third trimester? Yeah, that one. (Might not work if she's early on.)
posted by Madamina at 9:43 AM on June 4

Seconding "Baby" the musical. It's amazing. There's a beautiful female solo called "The Story Goes On" about what it's like to be the one to carry on the path of life and the magicality of that and blah blah blah. It's also got a really funny song called "The Ladies Singing Their Song" about how women always want to tell a pregnant lady their pregnancy stories, when the pregnant lady just doesn't care.
posted by dithmer at 11:02 AM on June 4

There's a great song called "Babies on the Brain" in an otherwise fairly mediocre musical called The Brownstone. As an extra bonus, it's sung by the fabulous Brian d'Arcy James.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 11:27 AM on June 4

My friend didn't fail. Here's the results of his message board thread thus far:

• "Something Has Happened," from I Do! I Do!
• "Meeskite," from Cabaret
• "Soliloquy," from Carousel
• 'We're Having a Baby, My Baby and Me," from I Love Lucy
• "A Little Skipper," from Heaven Above
• 'Me and My Baby," from Chicago
• "The Pregnancy Song," from the new BMI Workshop Songbook
• "That's the Good News," from Picking Up The Pieces
• "Gooch's Song," from Mame
• "That's Enough for Me," from Romance in Hard Times
• "His Love Makes Me Beautiful"

posted by WCityMike at 11:32 AM on June 4

dithmer, thanks for reminding me of "The Story Goes On." Someone sang that at a high school revue I was part of, and it was nice to have that little bit of my memory restored back to the old active CPU. :)
posted by WCityMike at 8:39 PM on June 7

There is one song from Schumann's song cycle "Frauenliebe und Leben" ("a woman's love and life") that is the moment she tells him she's pregnant: "Süsse Freund, du blickest mich verwundert an." The next song, "An meinem Herzen, an meine Brust," is sung to the baby.
posted by Pallas Athena at 12:24 PM on July 21