Goodbye For Now - Unsung Sondheim

Performed by: Liz Callaway

According to Stephen Sondheim, Warren Beatty revealed two things to him rather late in the game, after Sondheim had sweated quite a bit trying to create a score for Beatty's 1981 film, Reds, that satisfied the seemingly unsatisfiable writer/producer/director/star. First, Beatty announced his intention to use prominently in the movie "The Internationale" - one of his favorite tunes, and one of Sondheim's least favorite. More subtly, Beatty shared with Sondheim his hatred for pictures where underscoring tells audiences what to feel, leading Sondheim to finally conclude that Beatty did not in fact want a score at all for his film but rather a theme song, a love theme. Beatty according to Sondheim, blushed and acknowledged that this was probably true.

So Sondheim wrote one. He made a piano recording of it on a pocket tape recorder and gave the cassette to Beatty with the stricture that Beatty not play the crudely performed tape for anyone. Shortly after, Beatty called Sondheim to say he'd played the tape for Barry Diller, then head of Paramount Pictures, and that Diller had loved it. Sondheim chided Beatty and reminded him again to stop playing the tape. A few days later, Beatty called, this time sounding worried. The tune ("GOODBYE FOR NOW") was slated to appear as an instrumental at various points throughout the film, most pointedly following a painful scene in which Beatty, as John Reed, leaves for the last time his lover Louise Bryant, played by Diane Keaton, to return to Russia and the revolution. Beatty's exit refrain in the scene was the line: "I'll be back by Christmas." "I played the tape for some of the guys in the office," Beatty was now saying to Sondheim. Sondheim groaned. "You know the song, 'I'll Be Home For Christmas'?" "Beatty asked. Sondheim said he truly didn't. "Well some of the guys in the office think your song is 'I'II Be Home For Christmas.' "Warren, "Sondheim said," I want you to listen to this tune carefully. And then I want you to listen to 'The Internationale' carefully. This tune is not 'I'll Be Home For Christmas.' It's 'The Internationale'. I took 'The Internationale' and reharmonized it." And you know what? "Sondheim now adds bemusedly, "It's my favorite song on this record."

[samosullivan]

This hits much harder now Sondheim himself has said Goodbye!