Ya Got Trouble

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"Ya Got Trouble"
Song
from the album The Music Man
Released1957 (1957)
Genre Musical theatre
Songwriter Meredith Willson

"Ya Got Trouble" is a patter song by Meredith Willson from the 1957 Broadway musical The Music Man , and its 1962 filmed version. It is one of the most popular and recognizable songs in the musical. Willson considered eliminating a long piece of dialogue from his draft of The Music Man about the serious trouble facing River City parents. However, he realized it sounded like a lyric and transformed it into "Ya Got Trouble". [1]

Contents

Content

A smooth-talking, yet corrupt, traveling salesman takes up the occupation of a musical-instrument dealer and tries to convince the citizens of River City, Iowa, to fund his idea for a boys' marching band by playing on their fears of youth corruption, represented by a new pocket pool table in the local billiard hall. The song is his slippery slope argument of what could happen should the citizens fail to recognize the danger and not follow his suggestion for a more wholesome activity.

Title variations

The song is sometimes listed as "(Ya Got) Trouble". [2] The original Broadway cast album lists the song title as "Trouble", both on the record jacket and label. "You Got Trouble" is a common misspelling of the song title.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bloom, Ken and Vlastnik, Frank. Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Shows of all Time, pp. 215-16. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, New York, 2004. ISBN   1-57912-390-2
  2. ↑ Hischak, T.S. (2008). The Oxford Companion to the American Musical: Theatre, Film, and Television. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 515. ISBN   9780195335330 . Retrieved 2015-06-19.

Bibliography


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