New Version of Ariel's Way Script. Listen to Two New Songs!

Version 7.1 of Ariel’s Way is ready to go! This latest version of the script matches the dialogue in the professional premiere DVD. It also goes further in revealing the musical tastes and talents of Victor (Ariel’s Way’s central character) through the addition of two new songs. In preparing to make the show available to the public, I noticed that two pieces of incidental music in the video had previously been copyrighted by other composers and publishers. One of these songs is “Happy Birthday.” Yes, that one—the one everybody sings after someone blows out the candles. Apparently, it is copyrighted material!

Being a “lemonade out of lemons” kind of guy, I chose to see this problem as an opportunity to reveal more of the musical “genius” of Victor.

As you may know, Ariel’s Way takes place over the course of a single day, and that day happens to be the eighteenth birthday of Victor’s daughter, Miranda (Mandy). Victor records a happy birthday song for her, and, as a gift, plays it for Mandy in his Control Room. What kind of birthday song would Victor record? Pondering this question led me to reconsider the remarkable body of work created by The Four Freshmen. This is the group that inspired the vocal harmonies of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. It remains the male vocal group that’s won the largest number of Downbeat awards. Victor (a fictional award-winner himself) would have loved The Four Freshmen, or perhaps even produced them! After I wrote the melody and lyrics for “Happy Birthday, Mandy,” I got together with Tony Bowman, the arranger and producer of the Ariel’s Way music (and co-writer of a number of the songs in the show). We listened to some Four Freshmen tracks, noting features of their approach that we wanted to highlight. Two days later, Tony had recorded the tune.

The second new song in version 7.1 is “Rise and Shine.” You might remember that Victor wakes up his stepson, Carib, with a polka—music that Carib finds particularly annoying. Polka continues to have its powerful proponents, as well as a sea of knee-jerk detractors. Jimmy Sturr is pre-eminent among contemporary polka practitioners. Victor would have loved him, as I do. “Rise and Shine Polka” is a brief homage to the Jimmy Sturr sound, which epitomizes the American species of the polka genre, in my opinion.

Once again, I wrote the music and lyrics, and then took this sketch to Tony to realize. We wanted horns, so I played four sax parts and then arranged brass parts as well. Tony took care of the rhythm section and vocal parts, and we both enjoyed singing lead in front of a male choir that calls to mind the old “Sing Along With Mitch [Miller]” chorus—a sound guaranteed to highly annoy Carib!

 “Happy Birthday, Mandy” and “Rise and Shine” now have a home in Ariel’s Way—and are included with version 7.1’s five-disc production package. I personally think these two short songs are gems that light up the play with shafts of humor, even as they illuminate, and reflect, the sophisticated range of its powerful protagonist’s musical imagination.  CLICK screen below to hear these new songs!