A MARTIN CHARNIN APPRECIATION By Peter Filichia
The lyricist of TWO BY TWO who wrote “I feel like I’m ninety again” would have been 91 this week.
Alas, Martin Charnin only made it to 84, for he died in 2019 – but not before leaving behind two hits.
First came TWO BY TWO in 1970. No, the musical about Noah and the Ark wasn’t a smash; no musical in the latter part of the 20th century that closed after 351 performances could be called such.
Still, it was a hit by Broadway’s Official Definition, which does not take into consideration the length of a run or critical reception. The only true criterion of a hit is whether the show paid back its investment, which TWO BY TWO did.
It might have run substantially longer, too, if star Danny Kaye hadn’t injured himself and taken the opportunity to shamelessly ad-lib, often employing anachronisms. NO, NO, NANETTE wasn’t around for any of Noah’s 40 days and 40 nights, but Kaye felt free to mention it during performances. Luckily, the cast album is not corrupted by any of these inanities, for it was recorded months earlier, when Kaye still believed in the musical.
However, no matter what yardstick one uses to define a hit – critical approval, number of performances, or money returned to investors –
the next Broadway musical for which Charnin wrote lyrics was a winner in all three categories.
What’s more, ANNIE wouldn’t have even existed had Charnin not come up with the idea. He also recruited Thomas Meehan to write the book, although the man had had no Broadway experience. That didn’t rankle Charnin; he knew Meehan could do it, and indeed Meehan did.
Charnin did more than just write words to Charles Strouse’s excellent melodies; he directed ANNIE as well. Some have alleged that Mike Nichols, who later was smart enough to come in as a producer, really staged the show. Take it from someone who saw the musical at Goodspeed before Nichols became officially involved: ANNIE had solid direction already in place.
Conceiver, recruiter and director, yes, but Charnin was first and foremost a wordsmith, and a first-class one at that. I’ll celebrate his birthday week by citing some of his lyrics that I like best.
No, he didn’t traffic in uber-clever rhymes in the “hopelessly shattered by Saturd-ay night” vein. What Charnin did splendidly was have people say what they would have said when placed in certain situations. These observations were often ones that made theatergoers smile.
For example, TWO BY TWO had Noah doing battle with his three sons who insist that the ark they’re building requires a rudder:
NOAH: If God would have wanted a rudder, then God would have said “Make a rudder.”
But they persist, so he uses a sterner voice:
NOAH: If God would have wanted discussions, then God would have said “Let’s discuss it.”
And the sons still persist:
NOAH: If God would’ve wanted four captains, then God would’ve hired four captains!
Not that Charnin couldn’t come up with a clever rhyme:
NOAH: This discussion is concluded!
I won!
THREE SONS: We won!
NOAH: You won?!
THREE SONS: You did?!
That quick volley of quips led to a fine way of rhyming the last two syllables of “concluded.”
Ham, one son, is married to Rachel. But he neglects her terribly:
RACHEL: All the special feelings?
Why don’t they begin?
Where’s the love I’m supposed to be in?
That’s an eloquent way for her to express frustration without too much self-pity.
Noah’s wife Esther forgives who he is because he’s “An Old Man”:
ESTHER: To himself, he’s a wit;
To the world, he’s a pest…
Many a senior can relate to that…
BMI Workshop founder Lehman Engel said he most appreciated lyricists when “their words are music.” You get that in “Ninety Again,” when God magically reduces Noah’s age from 600 to a “mere” 90.
NOAH: You got a newer Noah on your hands.
In the title song, Noah and family are getting the animals on the ark:
ALL: Two by two,
Two by two:
Careful!
Careful!
Careful!
Careful!
Ooooh!
Yeah, bringing pairs of animals is challenging, so there would be many an “Ooooh!” Smart of Charnin to think of it and use it.
On to ANNIE, whose heroine still believes in the parents she’s never known. She graciously forgives them where many an orphan wouldn’t:
ANNIE: Their one mistake was giving up me.
Not that she denies the hard realities of the hard-knock life:
MOLLY: Santa Claus, we never see.
ANNIE: Santa Claus? What’s that? Who’s he?
She’s not the only one who suffers. There are the homeless people who are freezing and aren’t pleased at how the president is handling the economy:
ALL: In this blue heaven that you gave us,
Yes: we’re turning blue.
As we’ll see, Charnin paid attention to the era in which he was writing. “Blue heaven” was a popular expression in the 1930s, thanks to two musical theater songs: “My Blue Heaven” from ZIEGFELD FOLLIES OF 1927 and the title song of THE DESERT SONG, whose chorus begins “Blue heaven and you and I.”
WARBUCKS: What other town has the Empire State
And a mayor five-foot-two?
The Empire State Building, then the world’s tallest building, would come to Warbucks’ mind because it was built in 1931, only a few years before ANNIE’s time frame. The just-elected, five-foot-two mayor Charnin mentioned was Fiorello LaGuardia.
(Those who lived in N.Y.C. in 1977 also chuckled because their mayor at the time was Abe Beame, who was either five-foot-two or a tad shy of it, depending on whom you believe.)
And from the same song:
WARBUCKS: No other town in the whole forty-eight
Can half compare to you …
Another fine period reference reminds us of a time before Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the union.
Another period reference is less obvious, but nevertheless as apt in
from “I Don’t Need Anything but You”:
ANNIE: Yesterday was plain awful.
WARBUCKS: You can say that again!
ANNIE: Yesterday was plain awful!
In the ‘30s, “You can say that again” was a popular catchphrase that people used to mean “What you said was accurate and I agree with you.” Again, Charnin’s attention to period detail resulted in a good joke and an honest one by citing how those who had just heard “You can say that again” would joke around by repeating word-for-word what they’d just said.
And from the same song:
ANNIE: And what’s that bathtub tune you always ba-ba-boo?
“Ba-ba-boo” was a trademark of Bing Crosby, then the nation’s Number One male singer. Here’s where Charnin, we presume, added a clever bit of direction. He had Annie situated behind Warbucks and had him push his ears forward.
(Crosby was famous for ears that stuck out mercilessly.)
There are so many others, but let’s move on to two other points: Charnin always gave credit to a collection of Little Orphan Annie comics for giving him the idea to create a musical about her. Fine – but we must wonder if the idea somehow crept into his head in 1963 when he wrote the lyrics to HOT SPOT. In Act Two, Scene Seven, one character, despite living in an obscure foreign country, is reading – yes! – a Little Orphan Annie comic book.
Or was the idea for an ANNIE musical subconsciously planted six years earlier, in 1957? That’s when Charnin, then an actor, created the role of Big Deal in WEST SIDE STORY. Along with his fellow Jets, he sang “Gee, Officer Krupke,” which includes the phrase “Leaping Lizards!” – the exclamation that Annie often gave in the comic strip.
In Peter Bogdanovich’s book This Is Orson Welles, he quotes the Citizen Kane auteur’s belief that “you only need one” hit. The one that Charnin initiated and saw to fruition will see hundreds of productions throughout the globe in 2026. Wonder how many times in the last 42 years of his life Martin Charnin quoted his own lyric when thinking of ANNIE: “I don’t need anything but you.”
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His new day-by-day wall calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY – 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon and The Drama Book Shop.
