"Being Alive" is a song from the musical Company, which has music and lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim. The song is performed at the end of the second act by Robert, a 35-year-old unmarried man who is the main character in the story. In the song, Robert shares that he understands being alone is not as good as it seems. He expresses his desire to take a risk, feel fear, and face the possibility of heartbreak, no matter what happens when someone chooses to love and be loved.
Context
The song "Being Alive" is located at the end of the musical's second act. It shows the main character's worries as he approaches his 35th birthday. Before singing the song, Robert thinks about the relationships of five married couples—Susan and Peter, Sarah and Harry, Amy and Paul, Jenny and David, Joanne and Larry—as well as three friends who are not married: April, Kathy, and Marta. Each of these relationships has challenges, but Robert decides that it is better to be with someone than to stay alone.
Background
The song "Being Alive" was created after three other songs were tried as the closing number. The first attempt was "Multitudes of Amys," but the writer, George Furth, moved the scene where the song was to be sung—Robert proposing to Amy—to Act One. This made the song unsuitable, so it was replaced. The second attempt was "Marry Me A Little," which Stephen Sondheim later said he realized would not fit the character. He finished it only because a friend loved it. The third attempt was "Happily Ever After," which was performed in the Boston tryout before being removed because it was considered too sad for a closing number. Sondheim then wrote "Being Alive" as the fourth and final attempt, aiming to express similar ideas as "Happily Ever After" but with more hope.
Sondheim was hesitant to write a closing song with a positive tone. He wanted to mix feelings of doubt and hope. In his 2009 memoir Finishing the Hat, he worried that a song that was clearly optimistic would feel "unearned and pandering" and would be boring because it would only say one thing: that marriage is wonderful. His concerns were solved when Michael Bennett suggested using a technique from the song "Side by Side by Side," where voices from Robert's friends were mixed together. This idea helped Sondheim create a song that moved from complaining to praying, leading to the creation of "Being Alive."
Performances
The song "Being Alive" was first recorded by Dean Jones, who played the role of Robert on Broadway in 1970. After Dean Jones played the role for a brief time, his replacement, Larry Kert, also recorded the song. This recording was later added as a bonus track on new versions of the original cast album.
The song was performed by Alex (Judd Hirsch) on the American TV show Taxi during the 1980 episode "Alex Jumps Out of a Plane."
The song has become popular in different places besides the musical. Even though it was written for a man, many women have performed it, including Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Barbra Streisand, Dusty Springfield, Margaret Whiting, Lea Salonga, Ute Lemper, and Lauren Samuels, among others.
Raul Esparza was nominated for the 2007 Tony Awards for his role in Company and performed the song during the awards show. In the fourth season of the TV series Glee, the character Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) performed the song in the episode "Swan Song" as part of his audition for the fictional school NYADA. Neil Patrick Harris also performed the song as Bobby in the 2011 revival of Company.
The American composer Gabriel Kahane wrote the piano scherzo "Being Alive" for the 2015 album Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano.
In the British soap opera EastEnders, the song was played during the wedding of Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) and Mick Carter (Danny Dyer) on New Year's Day 2016. It was performed by West End actor Alice Fearn. The song also appears on her album Where I've Been… Where I'm Going.
In the 2019 film Marriage Story, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, the lead character Charlie Barber (played by Adam Driver) performs much of the song in a New York piano bar.
The 2023 season finale of 9-1-1: Lone Star included Tommy singing the song at the wedding of TK and Carlos.