"I Know Things Now" is the 8th song of act number of Into The Woods. It is the 5th song in the Original Broadway Cast Recording.
The Wolf, having eaten Little Red Riding Hood's Grandmother, waits in her bed until Little Red Riding Hood enters, and then eats her, but they are rescued from his stomach by the Baker, who kills him. Little Red pauses to assess the situation. [1]
"Early on in the game, James proposed that each of the familiar folktale figures (Little Red, Jack and Cinderella) should have a musical soliloquy directed to the audience about their adventures in Act One, setting up a climactic soliloquy of the same sort for our newly invented character, the Baker's Wife, after her adventure with the Prince in Act Two. For some rea-son, defying my Germanic instinct for writing in chronological order, I tackled Jack's song first, probably because his adventure lent itself to incident and images most fertilely. It didn't turn out well. It was neat, descriptive and somehow unnecessary: Why tell the audience a story they already know unless you dramatize it? More-over, we never showed Jack (or the others) in the course of their adventures: Jack in the Giant's kingdom, Little Red inside the Wolf's stomach, Cinderella at the ball. James's wite, Sarah, suggested that these songs would be more interesting if they dealt with what the adventures meant to the adventurers, rather than simply being narrative descriptions. Not only was she right, her suggestion gave me a thematic idea which tied all four lyrics together, baldly stated in the title of Little Red's song: the experience of learning. Aren't such songs dangerous in a farce, you may not be asking yourself (but you should)? If even fragments like "I Guess This Is Goodbye" are potential speed bumps when a farce is just beginning to bubble, aren't these internal monologues showstoppers in the worst sense? The difference, a subtle but defining one when it comes to the pace of unfolding a plot, is the difference between songs that slow down the action merely to savor the moment and songs that stop it completely, that serve as punctuations. The first have to be brief, but the second can take their time and hold their own. "I Know Things Now" is a case in point. It is a signpost on the road of the story. The words of the title recur and resonate in each of the other soliloquies about experience, culminating, in Act Two, in the self-assessment of the Baker's Wife, who, contrary to the others, decides that she likes life as it is-an ironic decision in view of what happens to her immediately afterward." [2]
Lyrics[]
[LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD]
Mother said
"Straight ahead"
Not to delay
Or be misled
I should have heeded
Her advice...
But he seemed so nice
And he showed me things
Many beautiful things
That I hadn't thought to explore
They were off my path
So I never had dared
I had been so careful
I never had cared
And he made me feel excited—
Well, excited and scared
When he said, "Come in!"
With that sickening grin
How could I know what was in store?
Once his teeth were bared
Though, I really got scared—
Well, excited and scared
But he drew me close
And he swallowed me down
Down a dark, slimy path
Where lie secrets that I never want to know
And when everything familiar
Seemed to disappear forever
At the end of the path
Was Granny once again
So we wait in the dark
Until someone sets us free
And we're brought into the light
And we're back at the start
And I know things now
Many valuable things
That I hadn't known before:
Do not put your faith
In a cape and a hood
They will not protect you
The way that they should
And take extra care with strangers—
Even flowers have their dangers
And though scary is exciting
Nice is different than good
Now I know
Don't be scared
Granny is right
Just be prepared
Isn't it nice to know a lot?
And a little bit not...
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ "Look I made a hat: collected lyrics (1981 - 2011) with attendant comments, amplifications, dogmas, harangues, digressions, anecdotes and miscellany" by Stephen Sondheim, book published 2011
- ↑ "Look I made a hat: collected lyrics (1981 - 2011) with attendant comments, amplifications, dogmas, harangues, digressions, anecdotes and miscellany" by Stephen Sondheim, book published 2011
https://genius.com/Danielle-ferland-i-know-things-now-lyrics