My song today is, ‘Somewhere’ which is sometimes referred to as ‘Somewhere (There’s a Place for Us). This is a song from the 1957 Broadway musical ‘West Side Story’ that was made into a film of the same name in 1961. The music is composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and takes a phrase from the slow movement of Beethoven’s ‘Emporer’ Piano Concerto, which forms the start of the melody, and also a longer phrase from the main theme of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’.
In the original Broadway production, ‘Somewhere’ was sung by Reri Grist who played the role of Consuelo. At the end of the show, when Tony is shot, Maria sings the first few lines of the song as he dies in her arms.
In the 1961 film, the song occurs at a pivotal point, after the rumble in which Tony (acted by Richard Beymer) has stabbed Maria's brother, Bernardo, (acted by George Chakiris). Having nowhere else to go, Tony runs to Maria ( acted by Natalie Wood), who has just been told of her brother's death and who killed him. When Tony comes to her room through the balcony window, Maria, in shock, pounds against his chest. In spite of her anger, Maria realises that she still loves Tony, and begs him to hold her. After Maria cries out, "It's not us...it's everything around us." Tony replies, "Then I'll take you away, where nothing can get to us." He then begins singing ‘Somewhere’ to her. His comforting voice draws her in, and it becomes a duet of hope that their love will survive "somehow, someday, somewhere." Maria sings the first few lines of the song as Tony dies in her arms.
In 2004, this version finished at Number 20 on AFI’S ‘100 Years of the Best 100 Songs in American Cinemas’.Many popular singers have recorded ‘Somewhere’, and they include The Supremes: Barbra Streisand: Phil Collins: Pet Shop Boys: and P.J. Proby. The version which I recall and which moved me most of all was hearing P.J. Proby’s single that reached Number 6 on the ‘British Singles Chart’ and Number 7 on the ‘Australian Singles Chart’. Proby’s version of ‘Somewhere’ also charted well in various European countries.
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I remember being moved so much by P.J. Proby’s version of this song that I had it played during my first wedding ceremony. The song holds out that distant hope of all couples whose love for each other is threatened after their world has collapsed around them, that ‘somehow, someday, somewhere’ they will find peace of mind in a place where they can begin to live a new life together.
During my 27 years working as a Probation Officer, I witnessed many collapsed marriages that failed for one reason or another (my own included). Whenever any marriage or loving relationship ends, it hurts all parties concerned, especially if there are children born to the union.
The love between a couple is such a precious and precarious thing that every effort ought to be taken to nurture and preserve it. When the love between a couple stops, communication ends, and bitterness begins, the breakdown of their relationship inevitably follows. it would be nice if the separating man and wife were able to forgive each other, and want only good things for the other person, and still move on without them, but alas, such is rarely the scenario played out. No matter how hard one’s heart is broken or how raw one’s emotions weep at the point of breaking up, a lack of understanding, a degree of anger, and a mountain of intolerance often prevails.
One's world is naturally turned upside down, especially where the lives and welfare of children to the marriage need to be determined. It is hard for either of the separated parties to understand that the world does not stop for them to get off, and remain paused in orbit until their emotions have settled down. There is always insufficient time after any marital separation that enables the couple to come to terms with their feelings of sadness, rejection, anger, and loss, especially if they are thrown immediately into the added difficulties of child access, financial hardship, maintenance matters, and the preparation for divorce proceedings. Separating couples often start to feel (rightly or wrongly) that friends and family are taking the wrong side and that nobody cares what degree of hurt has happened to them, and that they are on their own.
Then, there are cases of a stranger kind of love existing between two people that was never meant to be. The thing about love is that propriety goes out the window whenever love comes in the door. Love ‘happens’ between couples, whether it ever ought to or not, and is rarely planned.
I once knew of two married couples who were the best of friends. They had married around the same time and lived next door to each other in the same modern crescent. The four people became the closest of friends, and the two wives would go shopping together and their husbands would play golf and drink together. The four of them danced, dined, entertained, partied, and holidayed together for nearly three years, until one morning, both marriage relationships abruptly ended. One of the wives had started an extramarital relationship with her best friend’s husband, and without any warning, the two lovers ran off together, leaving one duplicated letter of explanation for their distraught partners whom they abandoned with no forewarning. Fortunately, neither couple had started a family, and so there were no children to consider.
The upshot was that within one year of having been deserted by their spouses, the two abandoned parties (who initially began comforting and emotionally supporting each other), started living together in a new and reformed partnership. It was a case of ‘he stole my wife so I might as well steal his’ type of response. I am not aware of whether the newly reformed relationship worked out well for either couple.
The couple who I most vividly recall, however, who mirrored anything like the tragic circumstances of the characters Tony and Maria in the West Side Story musical, did not involve a bloody killing but instead a blood kinship issue. They were a brother and sister who found themselves falling in love with each other and eventually becoming lovers.
18 months age separated the older sibling and his younger sister. Their parent’s marriage had failed early in their relationship, and after the birth of their second child, their father deserted his wife and children and broke all contact. He was never heard of again, even after his wife and the mother of his children died in her late thirties from cancer. Both brother and sister were in their late teens and were able to continue the tenancy of their council house in Holmfirth, Huddersfield. For several years, the nature of their secret incestuous relationship remained undetected and their unusual closeness caused little suspicion to the neighbours and outsiders, given their unusual circumstances.
I still remember first hearing about this situation between the brother and sister in the staff room at the Huddersfield Probation Office when the matter was raised in discussion. I wasn’t the Probation Officer concerned in the case of ‘incest’, but as the brother and sister were in their twenties, and their sexual relationship was considered as having been ‘consensual’, and because it involved no illegal marriage service, or any children born as a result of the relationship, no prosecution of the couple was ever proceeded with by the ‘Department of Prosecution’.
Once the relationship became public knowledge within their locality, and the gossip followed them wherever they went, the brother and sister moved out of the area. It is not known whether they eventually found another place together, ‘somehow, someday, somewhere’.
Love and peace Bill xxx