#42 Original Soundtrack- The Sound of Music

Why the hills are still alive, 60 years on…

(RCA Victor)

Released: 2^nd March 1965

Producer: Neely Plumb

Topped the chart:

30^rd May 1965 (for 10 weeks)

10^th October 1965 (for 10 weeks)

13^th February 1966 (for 10 weeks)

19^th June 1966 (for 7 weeks)

25^th September 1966 (for 18 weeks)

19^th March 1967 (for 7 weeks)

14^th May 1967 (for 1 week)

28^th May 1967 (for 1 week)

12^th November 1967 (for 1 week)

26^th November 1967 (for 1 week)

21^st January 1968 (for 1 week)

17^th November 1968 (for 1 week)

68 weeks total

Best selling album of 1965

Best selling album of 1966

Best selling album of 1968

On the album charts, there’s no doubt that when a musical hits, it really hits. The Sound of Music is the latest in our occasional series of film spectacular soundtracks that go on to dominate sales for years at a time. Classic albums by the likes of The Who, The Kinks and The Rolling Stones were all denied the top spot thanks to Julie Andrews and the scores of children in her care. Even bloody Pet Sounds couldn’t dislodge it from the top of the pops.

Even when compared to other Rogers and Hammerstein film hits like South Pacific, Oklahoma and The King and I, The Sound of Music stands alone. None of those other shows have prompted decades of fans heading to screenings dressed as nuns like Rocky Horror as religious pilgrimage. It’s back end culturally has certainly been helped by the film remaining a bank holiday staple in the UK, but even with that in front this is a soundtrack with a vast footprint.

What is often forgotten beneath its campy reputation and old-school approach to the musical is just how dark this is. Nazism, grief and collusion are all thematically relevant, crossing over with the considerably more nihilistic Cabaret. But where that show is down n dirty n depraved, The Sound of Music remains epic, bright and hopeful- a family-friendly classic (albeit one that ends, famously, with them going THE WRONG WAY over the mountains and into the German Fuhrer-land  instead of Swiss neutrality—one hopes that this was a mistake and not designed to give the ending a bleak edge…)

Shorn of context, the soundtrack is a different beast. It would be very easy to look on the likes of My Favourite Things and So Long, Farewell as flimsy and lightweight—and it’s safe to say that, on its own, The Lonely Goatherd is just plain silly. And yet, despite the music being a little fusty even for 1965, these songs have endured with good reason. This represents songwriters Rogers and Hammerstein at the peak of their powers in terms of hum-ability. And when the songs do add a little spice to character or plot, they really pack a punch: Climb Ev’ry Mountain urges its characters to take a stand against fascism, Edelweiss reveals the pain below the surface of the surly Captain von Trapp, while Maria explores youthful rebellion. Well, as rebellious as you can get when you’re played by Julie Andrews, anyway…

The point is, on the best songs here the emotion worms its way through whether you know how it fits into the story or not. So while you might go and see it in fancy dress as a mountain and belt out about the hills being alive, it’s the heft and depth that keeps people coming back over and over.

Now, I hope I didn’t leave my guitar at the top of that mountain…

Score: 8/10

Tracklisting:

SIDE A

1.      Prelude/The Sound of Music

2.      Overture and Praeludium

3.      Morning Hymn and Alleluia

4.      Maria

5.      I Have Confidence

6.      Sixteen Going on Seventeen

7.      My Favorite Things

8.      Climb Ev'ry Mountain

SIDE B

9.      The Lonely Goatherd

10.  The Sound of Music (Reprise)

11.  Do-Re-Mi

12.  Something Good

13.  Processional and Maria (Reprise)

14.  Edelweiss

15.  So Long, Farewell

16.  Climb Ev'ry Mountain (Reprise)