"So Long, Farewell" is a song from

Rodgers and Hammerstein Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popular ...

’s 1959 musical, ''

The Sound of Music ''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. S ...

''. It was included in the original Broadway run and was first performed by the Von Trapp children, played by Kathy Dunn, David Gress, Evanna Lien, Mary Susan Locke, Lauri Peters, Marilyn Rogers, Joseph Stewart, and Frances Underhill. "So Long, Farewell" and "Do-Re-Mi" are the only songs which predominantly feature the Von Trapp children. They first perform the song on their own late in the first act for their parents' party guests; when it is reprised near the end of the second act they are joined by Maria (Mary Martin) and The Captain (Theodore Bikel).

Description

"So Long, Farewell" is a simple composition that effectively exploits the children's higher voices and innocent charm. There is one main chorus, repeated several times throughout the song, which is entirely in a major key. It is designed to be a children's song.

Legacy

"So Long, Farewell" was featured in the 1965 film and spoofed in an episode of '' Family Guy'' as well a

Kia Kia Corporation, commonly known as Kia (, ; formerly known as Kyungsung Precision Industry and Kia Motors Corporation), is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea's second lar ...

commercial in 2006. It is one of the last songs written by Oscar Hammerstein II, who died nine months after the play opened. The band

Laibach Laibach () is a Slovenian avant-garde music group associated with the industrial, martial, and neo-classical genres. Formed in the mining town of Trbovlje (at the time in Yugoslavia) in 1980, Laibach represents the musical wing of the Neue ...

released a video for "So Long, Farewell" on March 14, 2019. It depicts a Goebbels type family eating dinner in a bunker next to the Swastika Christmas tree from

John Heartfield John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld; 19 June 1891 – 26 April 1968) was a 20th century German visual artist who pioneered the use of art as a political weapon. Some of his most famous photomontages were anti-Nazi and anti-fascist statements. ...

's ''O Tannenbaum im deutschen Raum, wie krumm sind deine äste!''. The father (played by Ivan Novak) finishes eating and then leads them one by one through the basement door. According to Laibach the symbolism of this video is that the Von Trapp family never left Nazi controlled Austria but simply went "underground" much like how North Koreans are trapped in their totalitarian country. In their own words, the ''Sound of Music'' ends in "captivity and death." This music video also includes a reference to

Josef Fritzl The Fritzl case emerged in 2008, when a woman named Elisabeth Fritzl (born 6 April 1966) told police in the town of Amstetten, Lower Austria, Austria, that she had been held captive for 24 years by her father, Josef Fritzl (born 9 April 1935). J. ...

with the father leading his children to the basement. Milan Fras makes a physical appearance at the end of the video as a nun.

References

{{Rodgers and Hammerstein 1959 songs Songs from The Sound of Music Songs with music by Richard Rodgers Songs with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II