# Help Me Interpret "Send In The Clowns" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 2, 2001, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900 "2001-10-02T03:42:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/1 "2001-10-02T03:42:58Z")
I frequently hear this song on one of Mrs. Rastahomie’s Barbara Streisand :rolleyes: CD’s, but I’ve never seen the show. From the lyrics, I gather that the singer is dying, and she thinks that her death should have been more… dramatic. She thinks that there should be clowns, for some reason. Then, toward the end, she starts hallucinating that there actually _are_ clowns (“Don’t bother; they’re already here.”), remiscent of the scene in _Les Miz_ where Fantine hallucinates that she’s seeing Cosette at the end of _Come to Me_. I plead ignorance in this matter. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/2 "2001-10-02T03:53:58Z")
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The song by Stephen Sondheim, from _A Little Night Music_, is sung by an aging actress who has had many lovers throughout her career. She finally concludes that she really loves an old friend and former lover who has recently reentered her life; she’s ready to commit to him, but, in a twist of bad timing, he is recently married to a young, dim-witted virginal girl. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/3 "2001-10-02T03:58:28Z")
Oh incidentally, IIRC, SS reworked the song specifically for the Babs recording. So you may not be hearing the lyrics in the exact form they appear in the show. Get an original cast recording and you’ll hear the lovely Glinnis Johns sing it. He wrote it specifically for her interpretation of the character. ---
**Author:** ![screech-owl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@screech-owl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/screech-owl)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/4 "2001-10-02T04:09:38Z")
And meanwhile the actress is currently the paramour to a married Army Captain whose long-suffering wife - such a [twisted plot](http://www.sondheim.com/shows/alnm.html) {[further explained](http://www.nodanw.com/shows_l/little_night_music.htm)} and such [wonderful lyrics](http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Stage/1076/littlenightmusic_lyrics.htm). The images in the [Broadway cast recording](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000DHSO.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) are rather clever, don’t you think? One of my favorite shows. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/5 "2001-10-02T04:12:26Z")
As for the choice of the title, “send in the clowns” is an old theatrical phrase. Clowns were a surefire way to cheer up a sad act/scene. The use of a theater phrase by a fading actress – as a rueful commentary on her own predicament, of course – is an example of why SS is the best in the biz. And it’s spelled “Glynis,” of course. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/6 "2001-10-02T04:38:00Z")
Clowns were also used in circuses after something horrible happened (when a death defying stunt didn’t do as good a job at defying death as was planned) they were to distract the audience and get them to pay attention to the silliness while everyone else was attending to the injury. The song makes sense in the play. Out of context, it’s beautiful, but odd. I don’t quite see how it gained widespread popularity. (Going to see it next week, somehow, even if I have to bend time and space to do so.) ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Fool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Green\_Fool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Fool)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/7 "2001-10-02T05:36:08Z")
my sister has a music box that features a dancing jolly clown frolicking to the song. Sondheim is horribly over-rated. He wrote 10 songs back in 1956 and just reworks them and reworks them and reworks them. That or he just REALLY loves a certian few limited musical phrases and chooses to put them in nearly everything that he writes. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/8 "2001-10-02T05:43:46Z")
If you like Tom Robbins the main character in Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates’ theme song is Send In The Clowns. Might give you some interpretation help. ---
**Author:** ![dlb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@dlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dlb)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/9 "2001-10-02T13:34:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Green Fool \* > Sondheim is horribly over-rated. > > He wrote 10 songs back in 1956 and just reworks them and reworks them and reworks them. That or he just REALLY loves a certian few limited musical phrases and chooses to put them in nearly everything that he writes. This about the man who did both “Sweeny Todd” and “A Little Night Music”? “Green Fool” is right. \ ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/10 "2001-10-02T14:05:20Z")
I’m reminded of the “Newhart” episode where the yuppie guy decides to become a lounge singer. He’s singing “Send in the Clowns” and George and Bob are in the audience. George: I’ve always wondered what this song is about, but never knew. It’s about…clowns, isn’t it? Bob: An…and sending them in. ---
**Author:** ![caircair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/91b2a8/32.png) [@caircair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caircair)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/11 "2001-10-02T15:54:51Z")
Oddly enough, this is one of the very few Sondheim songs that ever made it out of context. Most Sondheim shows are so finely crafted that taking a song out of the show ruins the song and its meaning. Example: I LOVE “I Read” from PASSION, but if you tried to sing it as a solo without the exposition, it would make little or no sense at all. Sondheim is a master – he writes not only the words and music, but also the “book” more times than not. How many composers/lyricists can you say that of? I envy you, Amarinth. I wish I could go! ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Alex\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_B)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2001, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-interpret-send-in-the-clowns/84900/12 "2001-10-02T18:51:59Z")
_Admires his Sondheim signed photograph_ Anyone here seen The Frogs? I can’t imagine many have - it’s only been done a few times as it has to be performed in a swimming pool, but it came to Brentford (near me in London) a few years ago. Sweeney Todd is quite possibly the best musical ever written (despite the dodgy cockney accents Americans invariably attempt). Alex B