For example, in the phrase "I’ve slept in shanties, Guest of the W.P.A. At the request of director Mike Nichols, Stephen Sondheim wrote special lyrics for MacLaine to sing in the film. Sondheim borrowed the phrase for the song title. "Windsor and Wally’s affair" refers to King Edward VIII, King of England in 1936, and Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee.[4]. [3] She describes rising from poverty during the Great Depression through luck and perseverance despite limited training. "I'm Still Here" was introduced in the musical Follies, which premiered on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on April 4, 1971. Since the original production many performers have included the song as part of their concert performances, often rewriting it to reflect their own careers, including Barbra Streisand, Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis Jr.. "I'm Still Here" was written during the out of town tryout for Follies in Boston, when Sondheim decided that another song ("Can That Boy Foxtrot") was not working. She expressed her frustration that the many women who perform the song in their fifties or forties lack the life experience necessary, demanding to know "where have they been?"[8][9]. "I'm Still Here" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1971 musical Follies. ", "W.P.A." The librettist James Goldman suggested it should be a song about survival that said 'I'm still here.' "I'm Still Here" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1971 musical Follies. The next verses describe surviving the excesses of show business success, including alcoholism, drug addiction and rehabilitation, as well as going through the Hollywood Blacklist. The character Frederica Norman, played by Patti LuPone, sang the song in Pose (TV series), season 2, episode 6. The character Lillian Bennett, played by Carol Burnett, sang the song in Touched by an Angel season 4, episode 10: "The Comeback. Sondheim noted that "the song develops through decades" (p. 181). 183). Stephen Banfield (Elgar Professor and Head of School of Performance Studies at the University of Birmingham) calls the song a "blues song" (p. Among them are: Nancy Walker in Sondheim: A Musical Tribute (1973); Millicent Martin in Side by Side by Sondheim (1976); Gemma Craven Songs of Sondheim (1977); Carol Burnett Follies in Concert (1985); Julie Wilson Sings the Stephen Sondheim Songbook (1988); Cleo Laine Cleo Sings Sondheim (1988); Dorothy Loudon The Stephen Sondheim Album (2000); Elaine Stritch At Liberty (2002) and Sondheim the Birthday Concert (2010); Elaine Paige 2011 Broadway Revival Cast Recording; [10] and Shirley Bassey Hello Like Before (2014). TVLine gave the performance an A. Other performers who have played Carlotta in Follies on Broadway include Ann Miller in the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production, Polly Bergen in the 2001 revival and Elaine Paige in the 2011 revival. The character Doris Mann, played by Shirley MacLaine, sang the song in Postcards from the Edge. In this song she sings about the many adventures she has been through during her long career, and explains that she has outlived it all. As she goes through an outline of her life, skimming through the pages of her mental scrapbook, she builds up to the realization that, good or bad, she managed to get through her life and that she is a survivor. With that realization there is a confidence and a sense of triumph, but with an edge to it. [5] This shows up in the line 'First you're another sloe-eyed vamp/ Then someone's mother/ then you're camp/ then you career from career to career/ I'm almost through my memoirs/ and I'm here!'. The song is an example of a "list song". June Abernathy provided an explanation of some of the terms and references in the song. This song had been written as a throwaway song for a minor character, but Yvonne De Carlo was a high-profile name in the cast, and the creative team felt she deserved a more substantial song. [1] She was played by Tracie Bennett in the recent National Theatre production. Sondheim loosely based the song on the career of Joan Crawford, stating "She [Crawford] started as a silent film-star, then she became a sound-star, and she eventually became superannuated and started to do camp movies [...] she became a joke on and of herself, but she survived." [11], id=dLf1_FutpusC&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=Sondheim+%22I'm+Still+Here%22&source=bl&ots=JVvU8M2XiO&sig=OPasF1EhxNa_JmvUpuwlpi8JaQ8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SRWHU_y8PJaoyATAtILABw&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAjgo#v=onepage&q=Sondheim%20%22I'm%20Still%20Here%22&f=false "The List Song", "Elaine Stritch Performs 'I'm Still Here'", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=I%27m_Still_Here_(Follies_song)&oldid=947189874, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2017, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 24 March 2020, at 20:55. Musical Follies suggested it should be a song about survival that said ' I 'm Here! Government agency song, including cast albums and other recordings is sung by former Follies showgirl, Carlotta.! Song as `` electric '' by Stephen Sondheim wrote special lyrics for MacLaine to in! Should be a song about survival that said ' I 'm Still Here '. An actress has only earned the right to perform the song once reach... 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