I've been Meadowlarking on YouTube and it is outrageously shocking how many people use my arrangement of the song. No one had EVER done it like we did it - it was my idea and Todd Ellison and I worked it out. Up until our recording the entire song had been done at one quick tempo - in the show and every singer. Period. I'd already recorded it that way, as written, with Liz Callaway so I wanted to do something completely different that would make it stand out. At that point, Judy Kuhn was going to sing it. The idea was to start it slow and go into tempo at the end of the second verse. It was unique and it worked great. Judy dropped out for uninteresting reasons and Susan Egan came in and did it. The opening vamp leading us into the song was MINE. And I remember our darling Jose trying to tell me that's the way it was in the show. Well, no, it wasn't. He sent me the pages of the score and there it was, just as I'd arranged it, sans the opening vamp. But that was NOT the original score, it was some revival done AFTER our album. Obviously, Stephen Schwartz liked it enough to use it for whatever production that was and I guess that's now the way it's done in the show. Would you not think perhaps a little credit should be given? Once? Acknowledgement? Once? And 90% of the versions that are sung on YouTube use our entire arrangement including the opening vamp, which means that someone did a takedown or got hold of our chart. I find it flattering and infuriating at the same time. Nothing to be done about it, but boy is it wrong for someone to just use someone else's arrangement and not give credit. The album credits on The Stephen Schwartz Album are not hard to read.
