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Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind. . . .’
that
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire.’”
The manager accepted this title with enthusiasm, for “You can advertise it easy and it looks good in type.”
They had supposed that in the construction of a musical comedy the librettist first wrote some verses and the composer then evolved a melody to fit them. “But,” Mr. Adams states, “most of our songs were constructed to fit tunes the composer had already written. I am not saying that this method is absolutely wrong, but it is infinitely harder work for the lyricist. Take an unfamiliar melody—often irregular as to meter—and try to fit intelligible, singable, rhythmical words to it. No wonder that after a month or two of it the barber tells you that it’s getting pretty thin on top.”
Difficulties and disagreements with the manager now came thick and fast: “‘Two and two,’ says the manager, profoundly and confidentially, ‘are five.’ ‘But’—you begin. ‘You’re inexperienced,’ says the manager, ‘and you don’t know; believe me. I’ve been in this business twenty-seven years. We need comedy here. Laughs is what we want, all the time.’”
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