A friend once commented that I love to love un-POP-ular music. Which mostly means songs you won’t be familiar with just by listening to the radio. That’s true, for no particular reason other than my never-ending search for songs that could feed my need for words and melodies that go together well and mean together well.

Having said that, I’ve added a new playlist in the Music section just because my sisters suddenly had this downloading frenzy of old musicals over the weekend. I, being the one who introduced them (at least I’d like to think so) to that wonderful, wonderful world, couldn’t help but get caught up despite my seeming nonchalance.

We had our ears focused on a local production, The Little Mermaid. I was able to watch it at the Meralco Theater about four(?) years ago, and it’s that sudden rush of nostalgia that had me listening to the songs all over again and frantically searching for the Hans Christian Andersen classic. [I think musical adaptations of literature are the best kind. You get to enjoy the story twice over.]

This is not the usual Disney story of happy ever after. In brief, the mermaid becomes old enough to swim to the surface, and saw her first human (she fell in love with the prince); the prince fell to the waters, the mermaid saved him and brought him ashore before hiding; a beautiful princess found the prince, the prince and the princess fell in love; the mermaid gave up her voice in exchange for a pair of legs (her contract with the witch requires her to make the prince love her; otherwise, she’ll die); the prince met the mermaid, unaware that it was she who saved his life, but he had nothing but brotherly love for her; sympathetic to her fate, her mermaid friends made a bargain with the witch to allow her to return to the sea – but for that to happen she would have to kill the prince; unable to do this, the mermaid sacrificed her life by falling back to the sea and turning into foam.

Well, the musical had a lighter ending than the book. Here, the mermaid acquired a soul for her sacrifice. In the book, she had to wait 300 years. Her eternal destiny lies in the power of mankind’s children – once dead, the mermaid becomes a daughter of the air, who enters the house of men unseen. For every good child she finds, her probation is shortened; for every naughty/wicked child, a day is added to her time of trial. Heavy stuff, whew!

What I appreciated most about the musical is the fact that the entire production was written by and for Filipino artists. Beautiful music. I hope they’re still doing reruns.