World Cup of Sondheim: The Knockout Stage Begins

Plus, a games and sports-themed Sondheim crossword, and more...

The group stage is over. The votes have been counted. The casualties have been mourned. The knockout rounds have begun. After thousands of Instagram votes across eight days of group-stage action, 32 competitors will now go head to head.

As I wrote last week, the whole enterprise is ludicrous. Of course it is. There is no sensible world in which “The Miller’s Son” and “Finishing the Hat” should be forced into direct comparison — even if, after that hat is finished, you pin it “on a nice piece of property.” But the ludicrousness remains part of the pleasure. And now that the group stage is complete, a few more patterns are emerging…

Last week, after the first half of the groups had been decided, the clearest lesson seemed to be this: emotional directness was doing very well. “Sunday” took 68% of its group. “Giants in the Sky” also took 68%. “Move On” took 59%. “No One Is Alone” took 52%. “Losing My Mind” took 49%.

The second half of the group stage has largely confirmed that pattern — but also complicated it.

“Pretty Women” took 64%. “Another Hundred People” took 62%. “The Miller’s Son” took 60%. “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” took 57%. In groups of four competitors, these are not narrow victories. Each of these songs seemed to become, very quickly, the obvious center of its group.

With 62% of the vote, “Another Hundred People” dominated a group that also included “Another National Anthem,” “Bobby and Jackie and Jack,” and “So Many People,” which received just 8%.

Group I results

I say “just” 8% not because the result is wrong — again, this is Instagram polling, not divine judgment — but because “So Many People” is one of those songs whose modesty may make it vulnerable in this format. It does not seize the room. It glows more so than it announces. And glowing, in a World Cup, is not always enough.

But, now that the group stage is complete, the most revealing question is not which songs topped which groups. It is what kind of map the qualifiers create, and what that tells us about our collective preferences.

And the map is striking: