"All About Midnight" by Norman Dolph/Lesley Gore
http://youtu.be/csgwGR9tvGg
Norman Dolph posted this song he wrote with Lesley on You Tube (Feb. 26, 2015). I contacted Norman and asked him if he would share the story behind the song. He graciously replied with his "story:"
"Let's see what I can reconstruct about the song and working with Lesley... It would have been from the early 80's, because she had written "Out Here On My Own" (1980), and I had written lyrics for Jane Olivor's "Stay the Night" (1978). We had never met. Neither of us had written for the theater, and independently, we had each applied to the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop in New York- Lesley as a composer, I as a lyric writer. The director of the program thought we had possibilities as a collaboration and put us in touch. So we got together. The Workshop required you to develop a "book" and 3 or 4 songs to be presented in a showcase to a panel of Broadway heavyweights who would critique the work- (and "critique" is the operative word here)! I forget the actual story line, but it was a comedy set in the future. Some of the characters were "human," others robots. I remember writing with Lesley at her apartment which was not far from mine in Manhattan. She had a piano with a way oversized music rack - big enough to hold an orchestral score stretched out across its width. It was a serious "composer's piano." She was "all business" when it came to writing. My recollection is that she kept notes in a bound volume, not loose sheets of paper. And her very first gesture on a blank page was to note the date in the upper corner, and underline it. Then that page began the scratchpad for the day's activity. During the few months we worked together, the thing I will always recall is how "together" she was. She was focused, not frivolous, tidy, clearly conscious of being the custodian of her own legacy and the navigator of her own future. She was fastidious and seemed to waste nothing- especially time. This song, "All About Midnight" was "Tune First." She made a cassette of the melody singing "la la la" and I wrote the words. Looking back on it now, I see there is sort of parallel between this and the situation in "Stay The Night"- it's an interior monologue in the head of a woman who is by herself, late at night. We presented the song at the Workshop and got a strong reception from the audience and the critics. But we had done it in a hurry for the Workshop and neither of us thought the song was really "finished." It needed a release part and maybe a third verse. (Our other offering that night, a comedic patter song, was...uh...well...Let's say the reception was "tepid.") So ultimately, the project as a project was deemed to be not worth salvage. We did plan to revisit the song as a stand-alone effort...But we were both busy with other things at the time, and this revisiting never came about... I came across the cassette of "All About Midnight" on February 16th....A few hours later I was browsing my email and up pops a HuffPost News of Lesley's passing. I thought that this is more than a coincidence. So, I decided to put it up on You Tube as a little memorial... She really could write...and sing!... No words needed to describe that talent.... So, that's the story!
"Let's see what I can reconstruct about the song and working with Lesley... It would have been from the early 80's, because she had written "Out Here On My Own" (1980), and I had written lyrics for Jane Olivor's "Stay the Night" (1978). We had never met. Neither of us had written for the theater, and independently, we had each applied to the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop in New York- Lesley as a composer, I as a lyric writer. The director of the program thought we had possibilities as a collaboration and put us in touch. So we got together. The Workshop required you to develop a "book" and 3 or 4 songs to be presented in a showcase to a panel of Broadway heavyweights who would critique the work- (and "critique" is the operative word here)! I forget the actual story line, but it was a comedy set in the future. Some of the characters were "human," others robots. I remember writing with Lesley at her apartment which was not far from mine in Manhattan. She had a piano with a way oversized music rack - big enough to hold an orchestral score stretched out across its width. It was a serious "composer's piano." She was "all business" when it came to writing. My recollection is that she kept notes in a bound volume, not loose sheets of paper. And her very first gesture on a blank page was to note the date in the upper corner, and underline it. Then that page began the scratchpad for the day's activity. During the few months we worked together, the thing I will always recall is how "together" she was. She was focused, not frivolous, tidy, clearly conscious of being the custodian of her own legacy and the navigator of her own future. She was fastidious and seemed to waste nothing- especially time. This song, "All About Midnight" was "Tune First." She made a cassette of the melody singing "la la la" and I wrote the words. Looking back on it now, I see there is sort of parallel between this and the situation in "Stay The Night"- it's an interior monologue in the head of a woman who is by herself, late at night. We presented the song at the Workshop and got a strong reception from the audience and the critics. But we had done it in a hurry for the Workshop and neither of us thought the song was really "finished." It needed a release part and maybe a third verse. (Our other offering that night, a comedic patter song, was...uh...well...Let's say the reception was "tepid.") So ultimately, the project as a project was deemed to be not worth salvage. We did plan to revisit the song as a stand-alone effort...But we were both busy with other things at the time, and this revisiting never came about... I came across the cassette of "All About Midnight" on February 16th....A few hours later I was browsing my email and up pops a HuffPost News of Lesley's passing. I thought that this is more than a coincidence. So, I decided to put it up on You Tube as a little memorial... She really could write...and sing!... No words needed to describe that talent.... So, that's the story!