As I write this, I am attending a talk by Sid Meier, the creator of the game “Civilization”, who is discussing his creative process. He keeps going back to the phrase “find the fun”, as a guiding principle.
I find myself thinking about Robert Sherman, who co-wrote many of the greatest Disney songs with his brother Richard, including the songs in “Mary Poppins”. In particular, I’m thinking of the opening lyrics to “A Spoonful of Sugar”:
In every job that must be done
There is an element of fun.
You find the fun and Snap!
The job’s a game.
Sadly, Robert Sherman passed away earlier this week. Ever since I was a child, his song lyrics have had a special place in my heart. There is a bright cheerfulness to the songs of the Sherman brothers, and yet there is also often a deep undercurrent of sadness running just below their surface, almost a feeling of dancing on the abyss. For example, “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, with its minor key and surprisingly mysterious lyrics:
Winds from the east
Mist coming in
Like something was brewing, about to begin
Can’t put me finger on what lies in store
But I feel what’s to happen, all happened before
seems to suggest an old dark magic just out of frame. And the haunting “Feed the Birds” makes me feel like crying every time I hear it.
In a way Robert Sherman’s work is like that of J.D. Salinger. It’s all bright shiny surfaces and cleverness, yet with a terrible sadness lying just beneath our view, such as the inner struggle of the soldier in Salinger’s story “For Esme, with Love and Squalor”, and the haunting tragedy of Seymour Glass.
As it happens, these two well known wordsmiths, painters of dazzling verbal pictures, had something very specific in common. They were both among the very first Allied soldiers to enter the Dachau concentration camp at the end of World War II, suddenly confronted by a nightmare for which they were completely unprepared.
We cannot know in full measure the demons that must have haunted Salinger or Sherman in the wake of such an experience. But it’s not surprising that an individual with the soul of a poet, when faced such devastating horror, will do everything he can to beat back the darkness, devoting his talent to trying, heroically, to find the fun.