What do you do when you’ve reached your lowest moment? It’s a topic that’s been broached in every story since the end of time, but in none more poignantly than musical theatre, which is able to combine harrowing visuals with chilling music.
Sometimes there’s an answer; sometimes there’s not. Whether it leads to redemption or nothingness, here are some of the best musical theatre songs centred around forgiveness.
Those You’ve Known – Spring Awakening
“Those you’ve pained may carry that still with them,
All the same, they whisper ‘All forgiven’”
The fourteen-year old Melchior finds himself in one of the worst positions conceivable – his best friend dead by suicide, and the girl he slept with dead through his own, indirect, fault. At his wit’s end, he tries to take his life, but the spirits of his friends return to offer him salvation.
Guilt is a theme handled expertly by the show, from the act two opening of The Guilty Ones to the final, harrowing, ending. And yet ultimately the performance finds a note of hope to end upon, and it’s this which is carried forward into the future: Melchior resolves to live, carrying the memories of his friends into he future along with the lessons they’ve learned. It’s a beautiful song of forgiveness – of someone reaching their lowest point and managing to find their way out again.
It’s Quiet Uptown – Hamilton
“Forgiveness, can you imagine?”
Alexander Hamilton finds himself in an unimaginable situation – a son dead, a wife scorned, and the responsibility firmly resting with himself. This is at once both a song of mourning, of guilt, and of forgiveness – a character arc in and of itself. Eliza doesn’t have to forgive Hamilton’s behaviour – but she does. It’s a show of strength and of reconciliation, with a chorus which almost acts as a sigh of relief.
It’s a rare song which allows mourning and forgiveness to exist so intimately together. Away from the dramatics and intrigue of ‘Non-Stop’ and ‘The Reynolds Pamphlet’ this is the true turning-point of the play – the Hamilton we knew, at once brash and unapologetic, never really regains the same spirit he had before. And of course, this is an important development for the show’s dramatic climax – a role-reversal between the show’s two protagonists, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
Absolution/No Words – Bare: A Pop Opera
“We’ll always ask ourselves if there was something more that could have been done.”
“Do you ask yourself that, Father?”
It’s near-impossible to pick a song about forgiveness from a show set entirely in a Catholic high school. A song titled ‘Confession’ may have been the more obvious choice, but this duo songs form a poignant conclusion to a show basically marinating in guilt. After the death of their classmate, a group of high-school students – and their priest – attempt to come to terms with the loss, each detailing the things they would have said.
As the priest and Peter, the classmate’s boyfriend, meet in a confession box – and as the priest attempts to explain away his role in the death – Peter is left in that most unusual of situations: deciding whether he wishes to accept forgiveness. With everyone seemingly without words in the final lines, the musical ends on a note of open address without much hope of answer.
For Good – Wicked
“I guess we know that there’s blame to share,
And none of it seems to matter anymore”
Wicked focuses so strongly on the dichotomy of good and evil that it’s sometimes hard to look past it to the friendship beneath it all. ‘For Good’ comes the closest to achieving that – a stripped-back, bare account of a (to say the least) tumultuous friendship. Complements are exchanged, faults are owned up to. A request for forgiveness is immediately granted. It all feels so perfect and fairy-tale like that it’s almost possible to forget one of them’s due to melt into a puddle of water.
However, the underlying inevitability of the ending is what makes this song what it is: occurring towards the show’s finale, this is the last time the two meet one another – hence why it’s so poignant that it’s an ending on good terms. It almost matches ‘Defying Gravity’ in terms of the sheer satisfaction of it all: we know how the story ends, and at this point the protagonists do, too, so ‘For Good’ provides that much-needed moment of catharsis.
From Now On – The Greatest Showman
“From now on, these eyes will not be blinded by the lights”
Family-friendly though it may seem, The Greatest Showman comes close to ending in a very different place than advertised. ‘From Now On’ offers an uplifting and much-needed catharsis to a plot which has, by this point, taken some increasingly dark turns. With an almost resurrection-like quality (Jackman perhaps channelling a certain Jean Valjean) and compelled by the assistance of his employee-friends, Barnum pulls himself out of the depths of alcohol-induced despair and, with a fairy-tale-like magic, convinces his wife to forgive him for losing the house. (It’s an easy job, in the end – she only cares that he didn’t tell her.)
It’s a song not only of forgiveness, but, perhaps more importantly, redemption – and also a testament to the power of support, thanks to the beautiful, gospel-like ensemble. The real-life Barnum may not have been on as friendly terms with his employees as we would have hoped, but this song leaves us believing in what could have been.
