I've Got the Tune is an American radio opera with words and music by Marc Blitzstein. Dedicated to Orson Welles, it was commissioned by CBS Radio for its experimental series, the Columbia Workshop. Its first performance was broadcast October 24, 1937, with a cast that included the composer, Shirley Booth, Lotte Lenya and Norman Lloyd. The performance was conducted by Bernard Herrmann.
Background
Irving Reis had worked with Marc Blitzstein on the 1937 film The Spanish Earth. As Reis was the founder of the Columbia Workshop, it is probably through their collaborative work on the film that they became acquainted with one another, and how the CBS commission came about. A contract was drawn up, dated August 12, 1937, requesting a "musical dramatic work … suitable for radio broadcasting" and specifying limits on the number of performers. Blitzstein wrote for seven principal players and an orchestra of twenty-four.
The work was dedicated to Orson Welles, who was to have played the role of the composer, Mr. Musiker, in the CBS Radio premiere. Blitzstein took over the part himself when Welles was consumed with rehearsals for the Mercury Theatre's debut stage production, Caesar.
Along with The Cradle Will Rock and his subsequent work, No For an Answer, I've Got the Tune represents a kind of lyric theatre that grew out of European and American traditions of the 1920s and came into its own by the mid-1930s. The resulting works were "unique amalgams of [Blitzstein's] own twentieth-century idiom with the adopted techniques clearly within the strict proletarian precepts he had formulated under the guidance of social concepts taught and practiced by Hanns Eisler, along with Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill."
Synopsis
Scene 1
Walking up Broadway. Mr. Musiker introduces himself as a composer with a tune lacking a text. He is in search of a secretary to help find a text. He interviews Beetzie, a stenographer, while they both walk up Broadway ("Beetzie is my name"). Musiker explains his task of trying to find the right words to fit the tune, singing it to Beetzie ("Every measure note for note"). Although Beetzie finds Musiker's tune "screwy" she takes the job.
Scene 2
Madame Arbutus's apartment. Musiker and Beetzie visit Madame Arbutus from Stuttgart, a "priestess of the new music, the new poetry, the new art." She describes her creative process ("On scotch and art"). Musiker tries to play his melody for he but she interrupts, extemporizing her version of the tune ("The moon is a happy cheese tonight"). Upon exclaiming ""Ah! it is so grand to be so bored! You can afford the kind of music you cannot stand," Beetzie says to Musiker "Let's get out of here!"
Scene 3
A scene in a wood. Beetzie and Musiker hide behind a bush as they watch Captain Bristlepunkt and his followers, the Purple Shirties, induct Private Aloysius Schnook as a new recruit. The Purple Shirties sing their version of Musiker's tune ("How peaceful is our captain!"). The induction ceremony begins as Schnook reveals he joined only to retain his business clients. Captain Bristlepunkt urges Schnook to vow death to the mongrels who "run the stores and banks in ev’ry town", whips Schnook, and then has Schnook whip himself. Horrified by the scene, Beetzie and Musiker run away.
Scene 4
An apartment building. While relaxing on a building's roof, Musiker prevents a Suicide from killing herself ("And so, the last thing too"). She sings her own version of Musiker's tune ("There is a girl I know") before fleeing Musiker's grasp as she leaps off the roof.
Scene 5
Beetzie and Musiker recount the transformations of the tune indicative of the places they have been around the world: A Chinese lullaby, an Italian organ-grinder waltz, a Tin Pan Alley song ("The Hangover Blues"), and an African war dance. They then encounter a group of high school students celebrating Field Day, singing leftist songs such as "Pie in the Sky," "Hold the Fort" and "Solidarity Forever." The children immediately adapt Musiker's tune ("Because this is our day"). Excited, Musiker proclaims "Here's where my tune belongs!" He offers to give it to the group, but a high schooler responds "Mister, you can't—it's ours already." The group then sings the tune complete with the words "Because this is our day! We’re singing songs of May! That’s why we sing today! Because we’ll rule tomorrow, we can sing today!"