L I N D A E D E R - I T ' S N O S E C R E T AN YMOR E
L I N D A E D E R LEON BLOCK
Piano/Vocal arrangements by John Nicholas ISBN 9781603789172
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Table of Contents
It’s No Secret Anymore You Never Remind Me Romancin’ The Blues Havana Why Do People Fall In Love? I Guess I Love You This Time Around Looks Like You Started Something Little Things Even Now Never Dance Vienna Anything Can Happen One For My Baby
The Players LINDA EDER Recording a new CD is one of life’s greatest pleasures. To be able to spend weeks straight shutting out the realities of the world, locking yourself up in a room with your best and most artistic friends, eating the best and worst junk food, watching ideas turn into incredible music … it’s wonderful! It’s also a lot of work, so attempting it while I was seven months pregnant with my first child was a bit frightening. Pregnancy made me feel vulnerable. That’s why I feel even more grateful for the incredibly talented people who contributed to make this CD what it is. To Jack Murphy, a man who climbs the highest mountains, yet his humility never lets him enjoy the view for very long. I think you need to sit down on this mountain for a while, and take a long look at the lovely view you have created. As always it is the greatest pleasure to sing the honest, intelligent beauty of your lyrics. Don’t ever change because whatever you are—it works! A million thank yous and the hope of a million mountains to come. And to my husband, Frank Wildhorn. I don’t know anyone in the world even remotely like you, and I can’t tell you in words how proud I am to be your wife. But the professional singer in me, who has sung hundreds of songs in the last twenty years, can state undeniably that you are a modern-day Mozart. Your joy in living flows into your music in ways that make it impossible not to hear. I thank the heavens we found each other, and I thank the music for making it happen.
COMPOSER FRANK WILDHORN Our fourth songbook celebrating the songs sung by Linda on her new Atlantic Recording It’s No Secret Anymore! This songbook is really a celebration of all the work that has gone into It’s No Secret Anymore! It wasn’t long ago when Linda herself created a great opportunity for Jack and me as songwriters when she decided on the kind of musical and lyrical vocabularies she wanted to use. In her own generous spirit, she gently pushed and prodded Jack and me into writing the style of song that we have come to love more than anything else; in fact, that style fills the scores of our next theatrical projects, Havana and Scott & Zelda. Under Linda’s auspices, we tried to create the kinds of songs that might have been written in the ’30s and ’40s, but that would also have a timeless quality about them. Their appearance in this songbook—besides being an honor—is vital to their lives, as we feel these songs are meant to be played and sung. In these pages, the songs will take on their own “lives,” and we only hope for the musicians and singers who “discover” them that they bring as much joy as they have for Jack and me while we were writing them. So thank you, Cherry Lane, for giving them this chance, and thank you to Jake’s mom for giving them the best birth any song could hope for.
LYRICIST JACK MURPHY The first time I heard Linda sing I couldn’t believe my ears. By then I had been in and around the music business for over twenty years and had become routinely underwhelmed by talents touted as the next big thing. So when Frank Wildhorn said, “You gotta hear Linda, she’s amazing,” I filed the comment in my mental filing cabinet under “H” for hype. Then Peter Primont, the CEO of my publishing company, Cherry Lane Music, said, “You gotta hear Linda, she’s amazing.” A pattern was emerging. Still, being the congenital cynic that I am, I filed this comment under “M” for more hype. After several more such remarks from disparate sources, I went to hear her—if for no other reason than to debunk the myth myself. Backed by a small combo, she was performing in the little downstairs club of a restaurant called the West Bank Café on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Her voice was electrifying. I remember thinking to myself this was the only time I’ll get to hear this woman sing in this intimate setting—soon she’ll be playing big venues where they sell you T-shirts and Linda Eder glow-in-the-dark bracelets on your way out of Section D, Gate 45. Linda’s style is classic, harkening back to an era when the music scene was populated by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland, singing songs by Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, the brothers Gershwin and Harold Arlen—in radio terms, the Jurassic Period—and no, I am in no way comparing Frank’s and my work to these benchmarks of songwriting. We’re still learning. But that’s the kind of music she likes and does best. A few years ago I was asked to write something for one of Linda’s songbooks that my publisher released. I’ve just re-read it and think it’s an apt way to close these notes: In a perfect world, a lyricist hears his or her lyrics sung by a perfect singer—one who not only hits the notes but reads the lyric with a subtlety and nuance the lyricist could only imagine. In a perfect world, the lyricist can devote his or her energies to writing the lyric, secure in the knowledge that the singer will give depth to the words that can’t possibly exist on the printed page. In a perfect world, the lyricist hears his or her words sung by a perfect singer, who always makes him sound smarter and better than he really is. For this lyricist, Linda Eder has created the perfect world.
It’s No Secret Anymore Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
You Never Remind Me Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
Romancin’ the Blues Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
Havana Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
Why Do People Fall in Love? Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
I Guess I Love You Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
This Time Around Words and Music by Frank Wildhorn
Looks Like You Started Something Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
Little Things Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
Even Now Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
Never Dance Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
Vienna Words and Music by Gary Benson and Frank Wildhorn
Anything Can Happen Words by Jack Murphy Music by Frank Wildhorn
One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) from the Motion Picture THE SKY’S THE LIMIT
Lyric by Johnny Mercer Music by Harold Arlen
