"A Sleepin' Bee": Song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"A Sleepin' Bee"

"A Sleepin' Bee" was introduced in the Harold Arlen / Truman Capote musical House of Flowers by Diahann Carroll (playing Ottilie, alias Violet) making her Broadway debut.

House of Flowers, the musical, is based on Capote's story of the same title which was a success for the young author having won an O'Henry award for it in 1950. The story had its origins in Capote's travels to Haiti and his visits to the bordellos of its capital Port-au-Prince. Somewhat later he turned it into a play and sent it to the producer Arnold Saint Subber (later known only as Saint Subber). Even though Saint Subber had been charmed by "House of flowers" and had long been interested in Capote's writing, the play remained unproduced. Eventually, in 1953, the producer got the idea of making what had been intended as a straight drama into a musical and sent an early draft to Harold Arlen for his consideration.

As Arlen biographer Edward Jablonski tells it, Capote's response to Saint Subber upon hearing he had sent the play to Arlen was, "Who is Harold Arlen?" But it only took a moment for Saint Subber to mention enough Arlen titles (e.g. "Stormy Weather," "Blues in the Night," "Over the Rainbow") to convince Capote that his play should become a musical and Harold Arlen should write the music.

Arlen, however, was familiar with Capote's name as well as his work and initially felt, although he admired Capote, he was not the one to write the music for House of Flowers. Only after he reread the play several times was he drawn more and more into the Haitian ambience and folk culture until he couldn't resist giving it a try.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the collaboration between the members of this rather odd couple (mischievous, imp like writer and blues oriented composer) was the fact that for the first few months they remained thousands of miles apart. Arlen was living in California, Capote in Rome. The novitiate lyricist would mail a line here and there to Arlen who would respond by sending him "homemade phonograph records" on which Arlen could be heard playing passages that might fit this or that line, or even with Arlen singing and playing words and music together. Arlen would also include on the recording new ideas for Capote to consider. Arlen's source for the melody was an unused song he had written earlier for a film. The lyric he sings to Capote on the recording on which he introduces himself to Capote, he calls "a dummy lyric" (one that is supposed to be a stand-in for the final version) turns out to be very close to what is used in the final version of the song. Arlen Sings to Capote;

When a bee lies sleepin' In the palm of your hand, And true love comes a-creepin' And your heart understand . . . . (Jablonski, p. 246, paperback edition)

Speaking on the recording Arlen says to the writer, "Introducing little ol' me, Harold" and goes on to explain that he feels what he has sung would be good for the scene with Ottilie and the Houngan (witch doctor). He continues, "I am sure the tune has enough quality and captures the mood" and will "set quite a charming key for Miss Ottilie." Both before and after these recordings would travel across the ocean, the two would talk on the phone to work out details.

We had never met, I knew very little about him. It was quite odd listening to this disembodied voice and trying to derive from it some notion of what sort of man he might be, my collaborator.

Capote concludes it was oblivious to him that Arlen was "a gentle man . . . capable of immense intensity; and, had I not known differently, I would have thought he was a Negro" (Jablonski, p. 246).

The finished product of the collaboration that included music by Arlen and words mainly by Capote but with contributions from Arlen had a Philadelphia tryout before the show opened on Broadway on December 30, 1954, at the Alvin Theatre. It played for 165 performances. Directed by Peter Brook in his first try at a musical, the cast included Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll, Juanita Hall, Ray Walston, and Geoffrey Holder. The reviews were not the best but the score has been praised for among other qualities "its mix of blues and calypso."

"A Sleepin' Bee" is performed on stage by the character Ottilie (aka Violet), a young and very innocent "fleur" in the House of Flowers (a bordello) who sacrifices any advancement as a prostitute by saving herself for her true love, Royal. The song's theme derives from an island folk legend that says a girl who holds a bee in her hand while it is sleeping will find her true love if the bee does not waken and sting her. When Diahann Carroll as Ottilie sings "A Sleepin Bee" on stage, she is accompanied by three other young 'fleurs' who also work in the house. Pearl Bailey stars as Madame of one of several competing bordellos.

Audio recording (over slide show) of dialog and the song "A Sleepin' Bee" as performed by Diahann Carroll (as Violet/Ottilie) and cast in the original 1954 Broadway production of House of Flowers ( credit )

David Jenness and Don Velsey find "two exquisite ballads" in House of Flowers, a show they see as containing "any number of songs that rank at the very top of his [Arlen's] lifetime output." The first of the ballads is "I Never Has Seen Snow," which they call a "long song . . . [that] presses up against the boundaries of classic American pop, and can be considered a sort of aria." The other, "A Sleepin' Bee," they call "one of the greatest ballads" of the second half of the twentieth century. They claim that at first "A Sleepin' Bee" sounds more like Richard Rodgers than Arlen but quickly becomes unmistakably Arlen with musical elements "out of the jazz string-bass tradition." They conclude their comments writing "this ABAB song has an extraordinary glowing quality achieved by the most minimal means. . . ." (Jenness and Velsey, pp. 68-70).

Audra McDonald sings "I Never Has Seen Snow" from House of Flowers. McDonald recorded the song on her 2000 album How Glory Goes. Listen to the album's track for "A Sleepin' Bee" in the Record/Video Cabinet at right.

• Diahann Carroll introduced by Tom Bosley: Dougster2810
• Diahann Carroll in House of Flowers: varadero1839;
• Audra McDonald ("I Never Has Seen Snow"): AudraMcDonaldFan
• Janet Planet: JanetPlanetSings

Notes

• Other songs written for House of Flowers currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook : none.
• For a complete listing of songs used in this show movie, see IBDB song list .
• Edward Jablonski Harold Arlen: Rhythm, Rainbows, and Blues , Boston: Northeaster UP, 1996 (paper bound ed. 1998 shown).
• "Who Is Harold Arlen?"
• Capote recalled for the writer and American Songbook guru William K. Zinsser:
• Thomas Hischak The American Musical Theater Song Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press, Westport CT , 1995 (Foreword by Gerald Bordman)
• David Jenness and Don Velsey Classic American Popular Song: The Second Half-Century, 1950-2000 New York: Routledge, 2006
• Lyrics for " A Sleepin' Bee" are currently unavailable.

Cite this page: "A Sleepin' Bee": Song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/s/sleepin_bee_p.html