One of life's strange twists is that there is more to it than we will ever know. More to see. More to explore. More to love. More than we can do in one lifetime. Try as we might, we cannot do all there is to do. We can try. And we should do as much as we can accomplish.
Recently a friend, as we all do, encountered a rough patch. About that same time I heard this song being sung on the radio, and there being more to life than I can do, missed the chance to see it sung live. I regretted this, but hearing it again, and thinking of my friend, it made me revisit this song and the context in which it was sung in the show, "Into the Woods."
The first thing that struck me about this performance, the thing that really floored me, was the voice control required to sing it. It's really quite amazing—more so, because it appears so effortless.
After I listened to Bernadette Peter's take on this classic, I spoke with someone who had performed the play to remind myself of the context of the song. Musicals exist for the book; the music is what drives them, the action proceeds only to get us to the next song. But what seems to separate the very good musical from the great ones are the songs, and the connecting action between the two. In the case of this song, a number of classic fairytale characters have been wandering around trying to find their way in the world. Sad for them, times have been tough. Love ones has left them. Life has been filled with despair. And it is here, lost in the woods, that they stumble upon this key moment.