Hi everybody; thank you so much for tuning in!

For those watching for the

first time, welcome! My name is Dan Pardo, and this is Episode 8 of Pardo's
Turn, my weekly Wednesday web series where I do some song analysis from
a music director's point of view, and perhaps shed a little light on what makes
the gems of our musical theater canon so great.

Today I'm so happy to bring on the warm and generous Susan Haefner, seen
on Broadway in State Fair, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and 42nd Street, and
seen annually as the the unquestionable darling of the Weston Playhouse.
Right now, she's starring as Helen in our production of Fun Home, but today,
we're stepping away from “Days and Days,” and instead taking a look at the
iconic “It's Only a Paper Moon.” Written for the Broadway flop The Great
Magoo by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg in 1933, it has become a standard
of the American Songbook, featured in multiple movies, and recorded by
countless artists, from Cliff Edwards to Ella Fitzgerald.

Yip Harburg's terrific lyric, inspired by the carnival façades of Coney Island,
sets up a beautiful premise that those assortment of stage props and circus
attractions would simply become real with a little bit of love. That “It
wouldn't be make believe if you believed in me.” That magical, conditional
turn of phrase was the key for Harold Arlen's beautiful melody, which,
like /many of his other jazz age songs, most notably “Over The Rainbow,” is
a heartbreaking mix of hope and sorrow, light and dark.

To illustrate this idea, he sets up a series of large leaps, that subsequently fall
down the scale. (play first two phrases) The melody, like the set pieces,
collapse under scrutiny. To me, the jump signals the initial response to these
handsome façades, and the walkdown is the disappointment when you realize
it's all a sham. In Over the Rainbow, Arlen leaps an octave from Do to Do,
solidly on the tonic, then lingers around there before returning. That makes
sense; there's no place like home, right? Conversely, the center of gravity in
Paper Moon's melody is sol, the 5th scale degree. It, too, starts off by jumping
an octave, but can't linger there. On the five, and harmonized with this
unstable diminished chord, it's unsettling. It needs to find a resolution.
First, it walks down to re, over the dominant V, then jumps again from sol,
this time up a minor 7th, and walks down to Do, though with the 5 in the bass,
we're still not quite there. But then comes that phrase: “But it wouldn't be
make believe if you believed in me.” The music changes. It's no longer
dramatizing failed expectations; the music is playful and charming, skipping
around, and ending with an optimistic step up into the tonic.

The 2nd A section is the same as the first, with some more clever lyrics, and
perhaps a slightly more upbeat performance, now that the thesis has been
stated. The bridge, built on the IV chord, chugs forward like a train, with a
catchy chromatic hook, “without your love” that repeats at the beginning of
each phrase. Even though it's framed as a negative in Harburg's lyric, the
music tells us that we're starting to believe we no longer need to play pretend.
That carries through the final A section until we get to tag, and the once
phrase of comfort is met with a deceptive cadence. The singer realizes that
nothing is guaranteed, and repeats “if you believed in me,” as a final plea.