Over the past 50 years, the utopian hope of West Side Story’s “Somewhere” evolved from its Broadway-Hollywood romantic origins to the political (Diana Ross & The Supremes) to the analytical (Pet Shop Boys).
The Supremes.
As the musical’s star-crossed lovers—white ethnic Tony and Puerto Rican Maria—recognize the racial tensions and urban gang violence keeping them apart, Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) answer this realization with the dream of “Somewhere.” The back-and-forth of a duet (“We’ll find a new way of living/ We’ll find a new way of forgiving”) expresses the formation of an ideal. Then, the two-part harmony makes that ideal tantalizingly, tragically felt: “Hold my hand and we’re halfway there.”
Motown and The Supremes’ variations on “Somewhere” changed its context from story to history (the Civil Rights Movement).
Prior to Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, Ross performed “Somewhere” with The Supremes at her side. Their harmonies stand in for the support of the beloved community. Ross’ vocalizations on the word “somewhere” expand the abstract into an appeal for achieving the actual. Motown realized the song’s activist potential. The spoken interlude, unique to Motown’s rendition, communicates King’s dream and ideology of non-violent protest in poetic terms: “Let our efforts be as determined as that of a little stream/ That saunters down the hillside/ Seeking its level/ Only to become/ A huge river/ Destined to the sea/ Yes…”
After King’s death, The Supremes performed “Somewhere” on Motown’s 1968 TCB (Taking Care of Business) network television special with an updated interlude: “Let our efforts be as determined as that of Dr. Martin Luther King…” This replaced the metaphoric with the overtly (righteously) political acknowledgement of racism. The program features Ross spotlighted alone in the dark. Her dress shimmers as she stands atop a stage raised like a starburst. The staging conveys a desire for transcendence.
In 1997, the Pet Shop Boys’ “Somewhere” took audiences behind the scenes to the ideological context of pop and theatricality.
“It tends to smell, because of the homeless.” This is how a stage manager describes a backstage doorway to the famed Savoy Theatre (home of Gilbert and Sullivan) in the music video for the Pet Shop Boys cover of “Somewhere.” In the video, directed by Annie Griffin as a backstage documentary of the PSB Savoy Somewhere concert residency, this line acts as a vocal cue marking the PSB switch-up from the song’s Broadway-style orchestral intro to their own disco update. Through this shift—and through Neil Tennant’s iconic vocal signification of gay experience—PSB transformed the song into an anti-homophobia anthem.
However, the video provides another level of cultural critique. PSB’s humane irony recognizes the musical theater, pop concerts and dance clubs as safe havens—the mythic “somewhere”—for fellow brothers in the struggle (the video highlights black male dancers in the rehearsals). The homeless man outside the door evokes the casualties of the fantasy industry. PSB’s variations on “Somewhere” (in song, video and on stage) exposed the racial, sexual and class politics resident in the commerce of art and entertainment.
The Supremes’ expression of faith and the Pet Shop Boys’ sub-cult ingenuity testify to the struggles that haunt our leisure and challenge the comfortable classes with utopian imagination.
John Demetry tracks pop’s evolution in the years following 9/11 in his book The Community of Desire: Selected Critical Writings (2001–2007) available at
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For videos, please go to:
TCB (1968) – “Somewhere,” Diana Ross & The Supremes
