NPR's legendary host Scott Simon is well-versed in the art of connection. With over 35 years of experience as the voice of Weekend Edition Saturday, the Peabody Award winner manages to bring humor and whimsy to whatever is on that day’s program. It’s a real showcase for his deep understanding of human connection and storytelling. However, his expertise extends beyond radio. Scott is also the author of the bestseller Unforgettable: A Son, A Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime and My Cubs: A Love Story. Simon’s newest project is the audiobook Swingtime for Hitler, which came out last year.
More: NPR’s Scott Simon on new audiobook Swingtime for Hitler (The Treatment, 2023)
For his Treat, Simon shares the song in Stephen Sondheim's 1970 musical Company that most impacted him. “Another Hundred People”, sung by the character Marta, is about trying to find connection in a big city. Simon underscores how the song embodies the dynamic and transient nature of relationships in a bustling city like New York. It touches on themes of loneliness, fleeting connections, and the difficulty of commitment… all while celebrating the vibrancy and possibility that cities offer.
This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I want to talk about the Stephen Sondheim song, “Another Hundred People”. It's from his musical Company that came out in 1970. It tells the story of people in New York running into each other and brushing up against each other and being lonely and coming together and then coming apart. And his song is sung by a young woman named Marta. And she describes the enormous show that a great city can be.
The lyrics say that ‘they meet at parties, [through] the friends of friends who they never know. Would you pick me up, or do I meet you there? Shall we let it go?’ The way people can walk in and out of each other's lives, and leave a memory, and leave an impression, and leave a stirring in each other's lives, and go on with their own? This seems to me to be a great celebration.
Company - Original Broadway Cast: Another Hundred People
Anika Noni Rose performs "Another Hundred People" for a 2011 production of “Company” filmed live at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center.
It talks about loneliness, it talks about the way[s] in which we can feel distant and it can talk about the ways in which we sometimes feel it's difficult to make a commitment. But at the same time, it's a song about the great show that big cities can be and the kind of platform and stage it provides for us to be able to find ourselves in our own lives.
It's just a wonderful statement about how we can seek out big cities, to put music into our lives, to maybe turn our lives around, to give us something new to connect with. And it may not be forever, but it's for a time in our lives when we feel that we want that.
Company - Original Broadway Cast: Barcelona
I was asked to interview [Sondheim] onstage and I dragged our daughters out there, and of course Caroline. And Caroline and I [used to sing to each other another song from Company, “Barcelona”] except it would be: 'Where you going? To Whole Foods. Do you have to? I would like to get some orange juice.' … So we were put in separate cars coming from the airport to the hotel because as the producer booking it had said, 'Look, he's a man of a certain age, he doesn't do children'. So we get to the hotel lobby, but of course we arrive at more or less the same time. I bring the family over to meet him and almost as if on cue, Elise, now our 20-year-old, begins to sing 'Where you going? Barcelona. Do I have to?' And this man who [supposedly] had no feeling leaned down and said, 'I have never heard it sung so beautifully before'. When the producer called after to find out how it went, he said absolutely nothing about me, but said ‘his kids are great’.