Sunday 1st September 2013 by Will Langdale
This week, internet radio station JemmThree asked its listeners to choose their favourite musical of all time. As one of the only stations out there entirely dedicated to musical theatre their listeners should know what they’re talking about! And happily they do. Taking the top spot was the fantastic Les Miserables, and in honour of the victory, here’s a countdown of our top five songs from the show.
5) On my own
We’ve raved about this tune before – it’s a wonderful little song of unrequired love and we appropriately advocated it on Valentine’s Day. Achingly beautiful, heartbreakingly tender, all around a fantastic evocation of a feeling some of us know far too well.
4) At the end of the day
Not to everyone’s taste, but this song really brings home the coolest part of Les Miserables: the brutal people’s revolution that ties the epic story together. A glorious song about poverty and desperation crystallising into rage, juxtaposed with the normative societal values that divide a cohesive worker’s revolution.
3) One day more
The final song of Act I, it’s a great look at what the characters wants, and how their struggles intertwine. The way it concludes is a textbook example of how awesome musical theatre can be, as the mishmash tonality of the characters mirrors their varying moral outlooks – both conflicts contain both harmony and discord.
2) I dreamed a dream
A fantastic establishment of Fantine’s poverty-stricken situation, the song easily stands on its own outside of Les Miserables, but bears a brilliant brunt of storytelling weight within it. A gem of a song.
1) Do you hear the people sing
It’s like At the end of the day 2.0 – this is a searing, uplifting, epic revolutionary hymn, and if it doesn’t make your heart soar, and your secret rebel form an authority-defying raised fist, then you’re probably The Man, or have at least enjoyed his company at a dinner party. That the audience doesn’t leap from the cheap seats in the Upper Circle and occupy the Stalls to this song is of constant surprise to me, and also the primary reason I’m banned from the Queens Theatre.