Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Someday My Prince Will Come

One of those chance snatches of conversation that sticks with you - I remember someone saying, on the set of a film in which I had a minor part, that when middle class people grow up they listen to classical music, and when working class people grow up, they listen to the music of their childhood.

I suppose that makes me more working class than middle class. I do listen to some classical music, though. And I don't always listen to the music of my childhood. However, I think it is generally the music of my childhood that moves me most deeply.

The first film I ever saw at the cinema was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I must have been very young indeed. I don't think I really understood the concept of cinema at the time. I thought we were going to see Snow White and her seven giraffes. I imagined it would be a small zoo enclosure, or maybe a bit like a circus, with a beautiful young lady showing us all her giraffes.

I don't remember actually sitting in the cinema and watching the film. What I do remember is that we had a soundtrack of the film on record in our house (presumably after we saw the film), and this would be played fairly often. Even though children do not have much experience of life, songs tend to move them deeply, as if they understand exactly what it is like to love and lose someone and so on. At least, that's how I remember it. I found the record utterly transporting, and Snow White's contralto voice was unearthly.



I have been trying to find clips of the songs from the film on YouTube, but for some reason, it seems impossible to find the English versions of the clips. Is this because of Anglo-Saxon uptightness over copyright, I wonder?

Anyway, I have found a number of versions of the songs. Someday My Prince Will Come and I'm Wishing are the two I remember best. Even in a foreign language, hearing Snow White's voice echo her antiphonally in the wishing well makes me weep. I'm not joking. I find it indescribably goosebumpily beautiful. I don't really care if it's all a lie. It has the same kind of beauty, for instance, as Oscar Wilde's 'The Happy Prince', which I cannot read without tears pouring down my face.

I remember reading somewhere the opinion that fairy tales are basically pornography for children. When we grow up 'fairy tale' is also a synonym for falsehood. These, however, are some pretty enduring, compelling and powerful falsehoods. I suppose I respect that. More than anything else, I want life to be like that. Except that I'm not so keen on Prince Charming. It's pretty obvious she got the wrong man there. She should have stuck with Dopey.