Show tune
A song written for or popularized by a stage musical, typically serving its story, characters, or dramatic mood.
Musical theatre: A form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance to tell a story. Show tunes are the songs through which musical theatre often develops its stories.
Song form: The structural organization of a song into sections such as verses, choruses, and bridges. Show tunes use song structures to shape dramatic progression and musical payoff.
Operetta: A light form of opera combining spoken dialogue with songs and orchestral music. Operetta helped shape the stage-song traditions from which musical theatre developed.
Broadway theatre: The professional theatre industry associated with productions in New York City’s Broadway district. Broadway has been a major source of show tunes in American popular culture.
Book musical: A musical whose songs and dances are integrated into a connected dramatic plot. Its songs are designed to emerge from and advance the story.
Verse–chorus form: A song structure alternating changing verses with a recurring chorus. A recurring chorus can make a show tune’s central idea easy to remember.
Tin Pan Alley: A New York City music-publishing district associated with the commercial songwriting industry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its publishers circulated songs that often crossed between Broadway stages and popular entertainment.
Oklahoma!: A 1943 musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II set in Oklahoma Territory. Its songs, including “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” exemplify musical numbers integrated with a story.
Character song: A song built around a character’s personality, perspective, or emotional state. Many show tunes make a character’s inner life audible.
Leitmotif: A recurring musical idea associated with a character, place, object, or concept. Recurring musical themes can connect individual tunes across a show.