Send In The Clowns Barbra Streisand

Send In The Clowns Album: The Broadway Album (1985)
by Barbra Streisand

"Send In the Clowns" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act Two, in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Among other things, she looks back on an affair years earlier with the lawyer Fredrik, who was deeply in love with her, but whose marriage proposals she had rejected. Meeting him after so long, she realizes she is in love with him and finally ready to marry him, but now it is he who rejects her: He is in an unconsummated marriage with a much younger woman. Desirée proposes marriage to rescue him from this situation, but he declines, citing his dedication to his bride. Reacting to his rejection, Desirée sings this song. The song is later reprised as a coda after Fredrik's young wife runs away with his son, and Fredrik is finally free to accept Desirée's offer.

Sondheim wrote the song specifically for Glynis Johns, who originated the role of Desirée on Broadway. The song is structured with four verses and a bridge, and uses a complex compound meter. It became Sondheim's most popular song after Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1973 and Judy Collins' version charted in 1975 and 1977. Subsequently, numerous other artists recorded the song, and it has become a standard.

In 1985, Sondheim added a verse for Barbra Streisand to use on The Broadway Album and subsequent concert performances. Her version reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart in 1986.

Streisand started her career on Broadway, and so considered this album in sense returning to her roots, after two decades of recording popular music of the day. Streisand's record label, Columbia Records, objected to the planned content as it was not pop songs, but Streisand had signed a contract at the beginning of her career which gave her full creative control in exchange for lower earnings; at this point she stressed that, due to the contract, she had "the right to sing what I want to sing".

She considers the tracks music she has great respect for, deeming it some of the best music and lyrics ever written. The lead single, "Putting It Together" from Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, was rewritten to be about the dichotomy between art and commerce in the music industry. Streisand hired her previous The Way We Were director Sydney Pollack, as well as David Geffen, head of Geffen Records to play the parts of the antagonistic studio heads. Streisand wanted to record the entire piece live to capture the atmosphere of Broadway shows. Many of the musicians also played in Funny Girl 22 years earlier, and a month of rehearsals with Stephen Sondheim was undertaken before recording.

The album's cover art was shot by photographer Richard Corman at the Plymouth Theatre in New York City in the summer of 1985. In addition to the photos used, showing Streisand sitting in a chair on the stage surrounded by sheet music, Corman shot additional portraits of her sitting in the seats.