They're the best ballads for men in musicals. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the best slow songs for men on stage.
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00:00 "Agony! Oh, the torture they teach!"
00:05 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the best slow songs for men on stage.
00:12 "I'll never stop saying...
00:16 ...Mario."
00:25 Number 10. Joanna - Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
00:29 "I feel you, Joanna. I feel you. I was half convinced I'd wake up."
00:45 "I feel you, Joanna"? More like "We feel you, Stephen Sondheim." Particularly the way you
00:51 wrote this gorgeous ballad for the musical Sweeney Todd.
00:53 "Do they think that walls can hide you? Even now I'm at your window."
01:01 The song Joanna is sung by a young sailor named Anthony who falls in love with the titular girl.
01:06 Joanna, like Rapunzel, is locked away in a tower. The song conveys Anthony's infatuation with the
01:12 beautiful girl, but Sondheim's soaring melody betrays a real sense of love at first sight.
01:18 It's naive, perhaps, but lovely in its execution. And when it's sung well,
01:22 it's one of the best numbers in the show.
01:24 "Till I'm with you, then I'm with you fair, Sweetly buried in your yellow hair."
01:34 Number 9. Santa Fe - Newsies.
01:36 "So that's what they call a family. Mother, daughter, father, son.
01:42 Guess that everything you heard about is true."
01:48 From Christian Bale to Jeremy Jordan, we can't get enough of this ballad.
01:52 But as much nostalgia as we have for Bale's performance of the song in the 1992 Disney
01:57 film Newsies, Jeremy Jordan really brought this ballad to life on the stage.
02:01 Santa Fe serves as the Act 1 closer for Newsies.
02:04 "Just the moon so big and yellow, It turns night right into day.
02:11 Dreams come true, Yeti do, In Santa Fe."
02:18 Although it's just a solo number, it never fails to bring down the house.
02:24 The character of Jack sings the song at his lowest point as he dreams of a better life out west.
02:29 "Santa Fe, my old friend. I can't spend my whole life dreaming,
02:38 Though I know that's all I seem inclined to do."
02:43 Because he's been brought so low, the song requires a great deal of strength.
02:47 This is a ballad that needs to be sung with real force.
02:50 "I got nothing if I ain't got Santa Fe."
03:08 Number 8. If Ever I Would Leave You, Camelot.
03:11 "Your hair streaked with sunlight, Your lips red as flame,
03:18 Your face with a luster."
03:22 Frederick Lowe and Alan Jay Lerner. What can't they do?
03:28 We're not sure of the answer to that question, but it's definitely not
03:31 "Write a Beautiful Ballad."
03:33 Camelot is a musical that came out in 1960,
03:35 but that gorgeous Lerner and Lowe score still holds strong today.
03:39 "But if I'd ever leave you, It couldn't be in autumn.
03:46 How I'd leave in autumn, I never would know."
03:54 In particular, the ballad If Ever I Would Leave You is regarded as one of the best.
04:01 Robert Goulet starred in the original Broadway production of the show as Lancelot,
04:05 and his version of the ballad quickly put him on the map.
04:08 When sung like Goulet did it, the ballad has the chance to be a real showstopper.
04:13 "No, never could I leave you at all."
04:26 Number 7. It All Fades Away, The Bridges of Madison County.
04:30 "There are places that I've traveled, And so many things I've seen,
04:38 And it all fades away."
04:42 We could listen to Stephen Pasquale sing anything, but we have to admit,
04:46 when it comes to ballads, that man sings them better than most.
04:57 [Singing]
05:04 He proved that once again in 2014's The Bridges of Madison County,
05:09 with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown.
05:11 There are so many stunning tunes in the show, but the best is It All Fades Away.
05:16 "Pass the speaking, pass the breathing, pass the beat of my heart.
05:23 Will it all fade away tonight?"
05:30 The song comes towards the end of the show,
05:32 as the character Robert reminisces about his one true love, Francesca.
05:36 All these years later, he's still in love with her.
05:39 It's hard to convey that depth of emotion with just one song,
05:42 but Brown's composition does it well.
05:44 [Singing]
05:54 Number 6. Maria, West Side Story.
05:57 [Singing]
06:08 When you pair Stephen Sondheim's lyrics with Leonard Bernstein's music,
06:12 you're bound to get something unstoppable.
06:14 In 1957, West Side Story became that unstoppable force.
06:19 All these years later, the musical score is still timeless,
06:22 particularly the ballad Maria.
06:24 [Singing]
06:37 The character Tony sings the song after he learns the name of the girl
06:40 he's fallen in love with.
06:41 It's not a particularly complex song lyrically,
06:44 but the way the music supports those lyrics gives the song so much emotional heft.
06:49 The performer has to keep up with that soaring feeling,
06:52 and when they're able to, the end product is magical.
06:55 [Singing]
07:15 Number 5. Bring Him Home, Les Miserables.
07:18 [Singing]
07:30 One of the slowest entries on our list, but also one of the most powerful,
07:34 and one of the hardest to sing.
07:36 Les Miserables is filled with grandiose, powerful songs from top to bottom.
07:40 Bring Him Home, however, is a bit different.
07:42 [Singing]
08:00 The song functions as a prayer that Jean Valjean sings,
08:03 wishing for his daughter's love, Marius, to make it out of the revolution safely.
08:07 It's a plaintive ballad that stays quiet for the most part,
08:10 sometimes bursting into gorgeous moments of desperation.
08:13 [Singing]
08:22 It stands out from the crowd of the songs in the show,
08:24 which in a musical like Les Miserables is hard to do.
08:28 [Singing]
08:43 Number 4. Being Alive, Company.
08:45 [Singing]
08:58 Company is a funny show, poking and prodding at marriage,
09:01 dating and divorce with a keen and sometimes jaundiced eye.
09:04 But for a show that makes fun of all this with such gusto,
09:07 it sure ends on a devastatingly honest note.
09:10 [Singing]
09:24 Bobby, the main character of the musical and the only one of his close friends
09:28 who's single, sings Being Alive at the show's finale.
09:31 The lyrics are heartbreaking, filled with longing at the idea of having someone
09:35 who knows you too well and holds you too close.
09:38 It takes a strong singer to convey such yearning.
09:41 [Singing]
09:56 Number 3. The Impossible Dream, Man of La Mancha.
09:59 [Singing]
10:11 Don Quixote is a comical figure in our culture,
10:13 a silly man with delusions of grandeur about being a knight.
10:16 But in the musical spawned by his story, Man of La Mancha,
10:20 he sings an inspiring song filled with earnest hope.
10:22 [Singing]
10:34 The Impossible Dream works perfectly for a character like Don Quixote.
10:38 It's silly in a way, much like he is,
10:40 filled with a starry-eyed optimism the world doesn't always match.
10:44 But in a lot of ways, you can't help but admire Don Quixote's commitment to his dream,
10:48 no matter how impossible it may be.
10:51 [Singing]
10:59 Number 2. The Music of the Night, The Phantom of the Opera.
11:03 [Singing]
11:15 Andrew Lloyd Webber has written a lot of ballads over the years,
11:19 but even with all that output,
11:20 our favorite has to be The Music of the Night from The Phantom of the Opera.
11:24 In the show, the song is used by the Phantom to lure the object of his affections to his lair.
11:29 [Singing]
11:42 But in real life, the first version of the song was reportedly written
11:46 for Webber's then-wife, Sarah Brightman.
11:48 The romantic quality carries over into the song in the show,
11:51 no matter how creepy the Phantom's intentions might be.
11:54 It's a testament to the beauty of the song
11:56 that you don't really think about the bad that's going on at all.
12:00 You're lulled into its trance.
12:02 [Singing]
12:20 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
12:24 Wait for it, Hamilton.
12:25 We don't want to wait to hear this one.
12:27 [Singing]
12:38 One song, glory.
12:39 Rent.
12:40 A rock and roll ballad for the ages.
12:42 [Singing]
12:55 What Would I Do, falsettos.
12:57 What would we do if this song didn't exist?
12:59 [Singing]
13:15 Run Away With Me, the unauthorized autobiography of Samantha Brown.
13:19 A gorgeous plea for romance.
13:21 [Singing]
13:29 Anthem, chess.
13:31 Josh Groban gives us goosebumps with this one.
13:33 [Singing]
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14:02 Number 1.
14:03 Finishing The Hat, Sunday in the Park with George.
14:05 [Singing]
14:19 Sunday in the Park with George might be one of our favorite Stephen Sondheim musicals
14:23 of all time,
14:24 and so much of that has to do with the show's stunning score.
14:27 [Singing]
14:40 Sunday is filled with some of Sondheim's best work,
14:43 including Finishing The Hat.
14:44 The song is sung by the main character, the artist,
14:47 and explores the tension in his life between work and love.
14:50 [Singing]
14:57 It's a perfect fit for artists to sing, really,
15:00 as that conflict might be present in their real lives as well.
15:03 There have been so many lovely performances of this song,
15:06 but no one will ever get us in the feels quite like
15:08 Mandy Patinkin did with his original work.
15:10 [Singing]
15:20 "Well, there never was a hat!"
15:21 If we missed any of your favorite ballads for male voices,
15:30 let us know in the comments below.
15:32 [Singing]
15:46 Do you agree with our picks?
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15:55 [Music]