"Do-Re-Mi" is a show tune from the 1959Rodgers and HammersteinmusicalThe Sound of Music. Within the story, it is used by Maria to teach the solfège of the major musical scale to the Von Trapp children who learn to sing for the first time, even though their father disallowed frivolity after their mother's death. Each syllable of the musical solfège system appears in the song's lyrics, sung on the pitch it names. Rodgers was helped in its creation by long-time arranger Trude Rittmann who devised the extended vocal sequence in the song. According to assistant conductor Peter Howard, the heart of the number - in which Maria assigns a musical tone to each child, like so many Swiss bell ringers - was devised in rehearsal by Rittmann and choreographer Joe Layton. The fourteen note and tune lyric - 'when you know the notes to sing...' - were provided by Rodgers and Hammerstein; the rest, apparently, came from Rittmann. Howard: 'Rodgers allowed her to do whatever she liked. When we started doing the staging of it, Joe took over. He asked Trude for certain parts to be repeated, certain embellishments.' In the stage version, Maria sings this song in the living room of Captain von Trapp's house, shortly after she introduces herself to the children. However, when Ernest Lehman adapted the stage script into a screenplay for the 1965 film adaptation, he moved the song to later on in the story. In the film, Maria and the children sing this song over a montage as they wander and frolic over Salzburg. Later on, in both the film and stage versions, a more intricate reprise of the song is sung in the style of a Bach cantata, showing the audience how versatile they were at multi-part choral singing. The tune finished at #88 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of the top tunes in American cinema in 2004.
Word meanings
' The lyrics teach the solfège syllables by linking them with English homophones :
Doe
: a deer, a female deer, alludes to the first solfège syllable, do.
Ray: a drop of golden sun
, alludes to the second solfège syllable, re.
Me
: a name I call myself , alludes to the third solfège syllable, mi.
Far:
a long long way to run, alludes to the fourth solfège syllable, fa.
Sew:
a needle pulling thread, alludes to the fifth solfège syllable, sol.
La:
a note to follow so and represents the sixth solfège syllable, la.Tea: a drink with jam and bread , alludes to the seventh solfège syllable, ti'''.As the song concludes, "When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything." Author Douglas Adams noted in his article "Unfinished Business of the Century" that, while each line of the lyric takes the name of a note from the solfège scale, and gives its meaning, "La, a note to follow So..." does not fit that pattern and should be considered a placeholder. Adams humorously imagined that Oscar Hammerstein just wrote "a note to follow So" and thought he would have another look at it later, but could not come up with anything better.
released a version as a single in 1959 which reached #94 on the Billboard Hot 100. Backing orchestrations were done by Monty Kelly, and Bryant was accompanied by a children's chorus. Her version also appeared on her eponymous debut album, which features covers of songs taken from Broadway shows. The religious suicide cultHeaven's Gate rewrote the lyrics to the song to describe their beliefs and would regularly perform this.
