Act II of The Beautiful Game starts of with the cheerful pealing of wedding bells.

14. “The Happiest Day”

John and Mary are getting married. This first, short song starts with each reflecting nervously on the upcoming ceremony. Elton’s lyrics for Mary are better than those he crafted for John, but neither of the two verses is brilliant – the images evoked are only partially satisfying because they’re too forced into stanzas that too compactly structured – and the question “Is this the happiest day of my life?” is awkwardly tagged onto the end of each. Elton also offers up some another sequence of poor and partial rhymes in this song: ‘decision/prison’, ‘night/rites’ and ‘rice/life’. The song also seems a trifle too cynical in the way that none of these jitters are positive: surely at least one of them would be looking forward to the wedding just a little?

In contrast, the music succeeds in capturing perfectly the energy of the moment: it is joyful, and filled with equal measures of anticipation and pre-wedding jitters. The music changes tone when Father O’Donnell starts the service by singing:

We’re gathered here together to join these two forever
And put asunder never, until death do them part
Our Holy Saviour Jesus is watching now and sees us
Binding these two as one single beating heart.

The ‘together/forever’ “rhyme” rears its head once again, but otherwise the lyric does its job. What is completely bizarre here is the music that has been used for this start to a very sacred ceremony: it is the second musical theme used in the song “Off to the Party”, where the boys list all the different kinds of drunkenness they are hoping to achieve. It is a disastrous choice and I am shocked that nobody on the creative or production team protested this decision. (Of course, given the song that follows the ceremony on the honeymoon night, perhaps I am giving everyone involved too much credit here.)

15. “To Have and to Hold”

“To Have and to Hold” communicates John and Mary’s wedding vows. It is another moment in which the show intersects with both Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story, but this song doesn’t have the same impact as either “Sunrise, Sunset” or “One Hand, One Heart”. It simply is not able to muster the same sense of gravitas and sincerity and I think that is a problem as this song should show just how much John and Mary’s relationship has developed since “Don’t Like You”.

Lloyd Webber provides a folk rock accompaniment for the song, which certainly plays a part in that: it is pleasant without being transcendent. Elton’s lyric, consisting of a stock series of clichéd wedding phrases, doesn’t help much. Interestingly, Elton has arranged these in a kind of free verse with no rhymes at all other than in the bridge. This spares us from more half rhymes but leaves the song feeling unfinished. One feels rather unsatisfied by something that really should be an affirmation of love and joy, an emotional setup for what is to follow in the rest of the show which stands in contrast to what we see here.

A cynical reprise of “The Happiest Day” in which the guests offer up their thoughts follows:

God, we hope they’ve made the right decision.
Will their fate be forty years of strife?

I don’t think I have ever heard such blatantly bad thoughts offered to a bride and groom at a wedding. Like so many small things in this scene, the lyric strikes me as being rather odd. I would say this entire sequence needs to be thought through painstakingly if the show is ever revisited by Elton and Lloyd Webber.

16. “The First Time”

The next scene takes place in a hotel room where Mary and John consider for their first night together as a married couple. This is the worst song in the show by far. Musically, it is not bad, although it sounds distinctly in both its melody and orchestration like a song that should be in Aspects of Love. However, it is the sophomoric lyrics that sink the song completely. Take a look at the first two verses, for example:

Mary:
Can this be, you and me –
Scared of each other?
Why do I tremble?
The first time‘s not a crime
So let’s not wait, it’s our fate
Make me your lover
This moment must be so sublime
A night of pure bliss, for us this first time

From now on, the only girl you need is me
I am yours until our dying day
From this night when we share our – virginity
We will be together come what may

John:
What if I’m not sublime –
No Casanova?
I’ve had a couple –
Birthday suit, brewer’s droop
I’m so shy, how can I get my leg over?
Hope there’s lead in my pencil when
I lose my cherry this very first time

Have I got all the right information?
Which position does a girl prefer?
I fear premature ejaculation
Cos my God, I don’t half fancy her.

The rest of the song follows suit. This is a laughably bad set of lyrics. Instead of drawing the audience into the character’s emotional states of being, this apparently sincere attempt at realism in Elton’s lyrics alienates us from both of them and the situation.

It also doesn’t help that the tone of the lyrics contrasts the lush romanticism of the music. This poor marriage of these two elements of song is even further compromised by an erratic pairing of the melodic line with the metre of the lyrics, with lines starting and ending in uncomfortably and emphases landing on incorrect syllables. Combined with more sloppy rhyme-work, the usual minor infractions like ‘other’/’lover’, ‘suit’/’droop’ and ‘seem’/’keen’ and major ones such as the rhyme scheme that is established in the first verse (‘time’/’crime’/’sublime’/’time’) which is isn’t followed through in the others (follow the green rhymes in the verses above), this song is left without a single virtue. It should (have) be(en) cut and replaced.

Purchases from Amazon.com

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. The Beautiful Game Original London Cast CD.
2. The Beautiful Game Vocal Selections.