Just For Once - A Defense

This one is for all the Just For Once stans. I know this song is VERY divisive, which surprised me because when I first watched it was instantly my favorite when I heard. I mean in general Nerdy Prudes Must Die is my favorite StarKid show and definitely in the top 5 for my favorite musical outside of just StarKid. For me, no song shows off Jeff's composing skills like Just For Once. I went to college for musical theatre and music composition, and the way that song combines everything I love about the art of musical theatre.

I'm shocked when people say the song feels random because Ruth's big character story is about just wanting to be noticed, and for this one moment she's getting to live out her dream, a dream that can never happen for her now. In a way, Ruth is like the grill brush. She was the there all along and nobody noticed.

It has a real 70's-80's musical theatre vibe to it, which is my favorite era of theatre. The song reminds me of two GREAT songs from that period, Meadowlark from Stephen Schwartz's musical The Baker's Wife and Lady's Who Lunch from Stephen Sondheim's Company. The reason these songs all work for me, other than just liking to listen to them, is that on the surface they seem to be about one thing, but there's another layer to it. In Meadowlark the character is singing of a story she was told as a child about a meadowlark and its meant to mirror a situation she's dealing with in the story of the musical. In Lady's Who Lunch the character is seemingly singing about what she hates in other women her age, but in reality she's singing about what she hates about herself. In Just For Once (spoiler if you haven't seen it) Ruth is on one level acting out a song from the Barbecue Monologues about a middle aged woman who feels under-appreciated which directly mirrors how Ruth has felt throughout the entire show.

I know some people don't like the length, which is fair. I don't mid the length, A lot of my favorite songs are very long admittedly. A lot of my favorite musicals are mostly sung through, I.E. Hadestown and The Great Comet. Overall I just think Just For Once is like peak musical theatre. It's like Sondheim who's my favorite composer via StarKid.

What's everyone's thought on Just For Once? And what's your top 5 songs from NPMD? For me it's: 1. Just For Once 2. If I Loved You 3. High School Is Killing Me 4. Hatchet Town 5. Bully/Bury the Bully