"Back to Before" - Christiane Noll

Christiane Noll is considered one of the most versatile Broadway singers out there. I was sitting at home Christmas break debating making the trip down to NYC to see Ragtime. I saw one clip of her "Back to Before" and had my ticket bought before she finished.

I'd heard this song done by several different people. What I like about Christiane's interpretation is you see the character Mother reflecting on her safe past that was only less than a year ago - where she was no more than a doting wife with no worries in the world and comparing it to where she now stood. She was a woman whose husband went traveling for a year and in that time she had to run the family business, make decisions about the house, had to choose between sending a negro woman who was in trouble away or standing at her side. It was 1906 in lofty New Rochelle, NY and she took the woman and baby in and welcomed the man who was courting her to the door every Sunday. Christiane shows you the weight of the decisions and the change within Mother...how she literally cannot go back to being an ignorant woman of the times.