'Hello to you out there in Normal Land,' the lyrics to Spasticus Autisticus went, 'you may not comprehend my tale or understand.' Normal Land watched on.
In the misanthropy of my actual student days, I had never been interested enough to find out who the song was by, let alone paid attention to what would have been, under normal circumstances, risibly cliched lyrics.
Regardless of the original LP's side splits as "In The Beginning" and "Afterwards" (probably the result of vinyl's timing issues), it otherwise ignored symmetry and any intentional travel from points "a" to "z" as its musical journeys and stream of consciousness lyrics rejected normal structure.
Written by Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), "Next to Normal" has the shape (and many of the details) of a disease-of-the-week television movie.
It is full of snapshots of the singer, and the images are covered with handwritten notes about the music, some dreamy ("Scare myself"), some practical ("Needs to be bloody well in tune!"), many excruciatingly self-conscious ("Too normal? Too P J H?"). One scrap reprints lyrics from the album's final song, "The Darker Days of Me and Him": "No neurosis/No psychosis/No psychoanalysis/No sadness".
While many characters are kinky, as are some of the song lyrics, this is portrayed as completely normal, simply part of the normal human condition.
FREAKY FRIDAY, with music by Tom Kitt and lyrics by Brian Yorkey ("Next to Normal").
BLOOMFIELD Robert Van Fossan Theater, Westminster Arts Center "Next to Normal," music by Tom Kitt, and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey.
NEXT TO NORMAL This musical, with a book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt ("High Fidelity"), has taken an unusual path to Broadway.
I respected Next To Normal by Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), but I didn't love it like others.
