Try to Remember

“Try to Remember” is a song about nostalgia  from the musical comedy The Fantasticks. It is the first song performed in the show, encouraging the audience to imagine what the sparse set suggests. Its lyrics, written by Tom Jones, famously rhyme “remember” with “September”, “so tender”, “ember”, and “December”, and repeat the sequence -llow throughout the song: verse 1 contains “mellow”, “yellow”, and “callow fellow”; verse 2 contains “willow”, “pillow”, “billow”; verse 3 contains “follow”, “hollow”, “mellow”; and all verses end with “follow”. They also feature an interpolated rhyme in “wept” and “kept”, and alliterative lines “when grass was green and grain was yellow” and “without a hurt the heart is hollow”. Harvey Schmidt composed the music. The Fantasticks is playing at Virginia Samford Theater now starting and directed by Carl Dean.  Carl was a Parable Player for several of the production.  Try to Remember” was originally sung by Jerry Orbach in the Original Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks.  The Brothers 4 made it famous in the 1960s.