The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Foreign Policy

I think it's cool that any problem in a movie can be solved with a musical number (if it is a musical). Two people can be in great tension and unwilling to compromise or give in before the song starts but by the end of the song, the two parties are in agreement and one of them has been convinced that the other is right. That song could be the difference between falling in love and suffering yet another romantic strike out.

You can convince anyone of anything with the right song. If members of congress really wanted to get their legislation passed, they would hire composers to collaborate with their speech writers to convince the skeptics of their view on health care, gay rights, and global warming. Musical numbers could also be used as a very effective foreign policy tool. Stephen Sondheim may be too complicated for the United Nations General Assembly to sight read, but Rogers and Hammerstein's compositions are easy enough to follow but profound enough to inspire that it just might work. They were the masters. They really had the ability to combine excellent melodies with good lyrics and story lines that, if they were still alive they would be the perfect people to orchestrate the steps necessary for the world to live in "harmony".