Sondheim’s “Not While I’m Around”: A Chilling Take on the Soaring Ballad
Today marks the 94th anniversary of the birth of Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in 2021. Sondheim’s multifaceted songs were always conceived with a dramatic situation in mind. Taken as stand-alone works, they become vignettes of character and drama. Not While I’m Around comes from the second act of Sondheim’s 1979 musical thriller, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which a vengeful barber gives multiple victims the ultimate close shave, …