Extraordinary Day

A lot happens between our last song, Something's Gonna Change, and today's song Extraordinary Day.

After Messy and Nappy meet, they have their first date at the roller derby rink, where Messy is pitted against Nappy's older sister Salad Fork, who also happens to be the reigning roller derby champion. When the gangs hear Nappy cheering Messy on and realise they are together, a rumble ensues, resulting in the accidental death of Papa Chocolate - apparently at Nappy's hands. Upset, Messy quits her gang; Nappy's gang kick him out for being disloyal.

Later, a mournful Messy is kneeling by Papa Chocolate's grave. The clip starts as Nappy arrives.

Now that you're all caught up, time to listen to Extraordinary Day.

The scene

I love this scene, and the way the dynamic between the characters changes. You'll forgive me for including such a long bit of non-music before the song; I think the journey the characters take, from cold anger through forgiveness to hope and optimism, is wonderful. The song seems to naturally cap off that transition; they couldn't get any more hopeful and optimistic using spoken words alone, but a song bursts through to a whole new level.

There's a mark of a successful poignant scene in here. There are moments where the 80-strong audience is deathly silent, and nothing is rushing to fill the awkward gaps in the dialogue or relieve that tension. Sometimes a quiet audience is a disengaged audience, but not this time - the audience is genuinely happy when Messy decides to trust Nappy, and they go absolutely crazy when she kisses him. If you recall back to the opening song, the audience was anything but warm at the start of the show, so to get them this warm is a great hint that the actors were nailing it.

The song

The song took me by surprise a little bit; in contrast with the very obvious signs in the earlier song, this one just sort of started. You can hear me fumble around a little bit as I figure out where I want to go. Eventually I remember that first-inversion structure from the old song - along with Kiesten and Luke's clever reuse of those 'Something's Gonna Change' and 'Extraordinary Day' phrases, we're reprising both lyrical and musical elements.

One of my favourite bits is the running joke about Nappy wanting a big family; his lyric in the song to keep the joke running was just excellent.

I really liked how Kiesten and Luke traded lines as the song progressed; Kiesten would set up a rhyme, and Luke would finish it (much like he did in Best Friend/First Mate).

I specifically recall as the song went on that I kept misjudging the end. There were a few times when I set up chord progressions that would naturally lead in to an ending, but as the next line developed it obviously wasn't going to be the end after all. After a few of those, Kiesten gave a very definite wrap-up signal with her "Because today" line, which then gave me permission to go to town and set up a nice musical ending.