World Cup of Sondheim: The Story So Far

A statistical analysis | Plus, more from our conversation with James Dybas, a Jonathan Tunick crossword, and more

Yes, it is ludicrous. Let us begin there.

It is ludicrous to rank songs. It is ludicrous to pit “Losing My Mind” and “On the Steps of the Palace” against one another. It is ludicrous to ask whether “Sunday” has defeated “God, That’s Good!” as though the two songs have met on a pitch somewhere, boots studded and knees muddied. Art does not become greater by defeating rivals, by surviving a poll.

And yet. And yet…

Few things are more enjoyable than to take something obviously silly very seriously. That, really, is the spirit behind the World Cup of Sondheim we are currently running over on Instagram. The tournament is taking place there for two reasons: 1) it’s extremely easy to run large polls there, complete with live, trackable data; 2) it’s our largest single-platform voter base. 64 Sondheim numbers are “competing” in 16 groups of four. In each group, the two numbers receiving the most votes qualify for the knockout rounds. After that, the tournament becomes head-to-head: song against song, survivor against survivor, until a single champion emerges.

---

If you’re currently a free subscriber, consider upgrading to a premium subscription for full access to The Sondheim Hub: an exclusive essay, extended interview, crossword & more each week — plus, our complete, paywall-free library of 250+ essays, features & interviews.

---

This is not, needless to say, a scientific survey (though our sample size is large). It is not a definitive ranking. It is not an attempt to settle, once and for all, the matter of Sondheim’s “best” song, as if such a thing could be settled by percentage points.

But it is something. It is a way of listening in public. A way of seeing which songs our readers carry closest to them. A way of putting the famous beside the less famous, the canonical beside the comparatively niche. And if, along the way, this tournament prompts even a handful of people to listen to some of these songs for the 1st or 101st time, then the entire enterprise will have been worth it.

The first half of the group stage is now complete. Eight groups have voted. Thousands of votes have been cast in each group. Some favorites have cruised through; some heavy hitters have struggled. Some results have felt inevitable; others have been unexpectedly close, unexpectedly revealing.

So, now that our World Cup of Sondheim is underway, let’s break down the data so far. Here is what the first stage of the tournament seems to be telling us: