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Show tune

A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most

Examples#

Particular musicals that have yielded popular “show tunes” include: * Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, The Sound of Music * Jerome Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat * Rudolf Friml, Herbert Stothart, Otto Harbach and Hammerstein’s Rose-Marie * Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s Pal Joey and Babes in Arms * Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun, As Thousands Cheer, Call Me Madam * Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, Kiss Me, Kate, Can-Can * George and Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy, Oh, Kay! * Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s Fiddler on the Roof * Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, Gigi, Camelot * Meredith Willson’s The Music Man * Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying * Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story * Jule Styne’s Gypsy, Funny Girl, Gentleman Prefer Blondes * Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s Stop the World – I Want to Get Off, The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd * Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton * Bricusse, Frank Wildhorn and Steve Cuden’s Jekyll & Hyde * Jerry Herman’s Milk and Honey, Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Dear World, Mack and Mabel, La Cage aux Folles * Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music and Into the Woods * John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Cabaret, and Chicago * Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Starlight Express, Sunset Boulevard, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat * Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin, Godspell, and Wicked * Jonathan Larson’s Rent * Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Misérables, Miss Saigon * Charles Strouse’s Bye Bye Birdie (with Lee Adams) and Annie (with Martin Charnin) * Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s Grease

Bibliography#

  • Green, Stanley. Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976
  • Show Tunes at allmusic.com