Sunday marks the 96th anniversary of the birth of American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021).
In 1952, long before musicals such as West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods brought him fame, the 22-year-old Sondheim submitted a song to Kukla, Fran and Ollie, a popular television show involving puppets. Broadcast from Chicago between 1947 and 1957, the show was created for children, but it gained an even larger adult audience.
Speaking of the gentle and touching song, The Two of You, Sondheim said,
I sent it, they rejected it. Burr Tilstrom, the show’s creator, never even knew of it; his executive producer sent it back without even listening to the song. I finally gave “The Two of You” to Burr, though. When he did “Side by Side by Sondheim” in Chicago in 1978, he sang it with the spot very tight and Kukla on his arm and then, I think for the first time in his career, the spot came up and you saw his arm inside the puppet. He’d never revealed the puppets as puppets before. It was very moving.
The song is filled with innocent childlike intervals. The lyrics contain a simple message of unconditional love. Outwardly cheerful, the song contains a poignant undercurrent. Sondheim experienced none of this warmth in his own childhood. As a teenager, he found refuge in the home of Oscar Hammerstein II, who would become his mentor.
Sondheim’s original demo of the song has been released. Here, it is sung by Crista Moore:
Recordings
- Sondheim: The Two of You, Crista Moore Amazon
Featured Image: Burr Tillstrom with Kukla, Ollie and Fran Allison, 1954