What’re the odds that two separate musicals last season would have songs titled “Something from Nothing” and “Something Out of Nothing?”

AND, both tracks are about how the artifice of theatrical showmanship can be utilized to make a living in the American experiment.

In Dead Outlaw, “Something from Nothing” describes how (callous?) capitalists — [Max Bialystock voice]: “Is there any other kind?” — exploit a carcass for their own financial gain, making something (an illusion, money) from treating his body, and his former life, as mere nothings. And you know a song’s sentiments are central to a show when its lyrics explicitly mention the musical’s title.  

In The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse, “Something Out of Nothing” refers to the phenomenon of celebrities who become famous off the meaningless, substance-free emptiness of their internal lives, defined by nothing more than this thirst for attention.

And is it worth considering the differences between Dead Outlaw going with “from” and The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse opting for “out of?” Of course, always, and forever. 

And both musicals can be seen as “somethings” born from / out of the respective “nothings” of their subjects.

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Dead Outlaw ends with a recorded outro!