Song Name:
​Origin of Love

Sources, Links, and Media: 

Media
Sheet Music

Source: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Author and Composer: Book by John Cameron Mitchell, Music/Lyrics by Stephen Trask

Time Period​: Pre-Contemporary

Genre: Rock, 1970s Sound

Song Tempo: Ballad

Popularity:
​5 - Well Known 

Special Talent: -

Character: Hedwig

Gender: Male, Ambiguous/Unspecified

Age of Role: 25-30s

Vocal Type: Baritone or Tenor

Character Type: Leading Man/Lady, Rebel, Tragic Hero/Heroine, Song and Dance

Role Size: LEad

Dance: Moderate, Heavy

Played By: John Cameron Mitchell, Michael Cerveris, Neil Patrick Harris, Darren Criss, Andrew Rannels

Song Description and Context: Hedwig tells her life story, which began when she was Hansel Schmidt, a "slip of a girlyboy" growing up in East Berlin. Raised by an emotionally distant single mother after his father, an American soldier, abandoned the family, Hansel takes solace in his love of western rock music. He becomes fascinated with a story called "The Origin of Love," based on Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium. It explains that three sexes of human beings once existed: "children of the sun" (man and man attached), "children of the earth" (woman and woman attached), and "children of the moon" (man and woman attached). Each were once round, two-headed, four-armed, and four-legged beings. Angry gods split these early humans in two, leaving the separated people with a lifelong yearning for their other half. Hansel is determined to search for his other half, but is convinced he will have to travel to the West to do so.
-Wikipedia