Rewrite by Sondheim

It’s rare when Broadway composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim changes a lyric after the song is published. But he agreed to rewrite some words to “I’m Still Here “--originally sung by Yvonne DeCarlo in his 1971 musical “Follies”--for Shirley MacLaine to sing in Columbia Pictures’ “Postcards From the Edge,” which opens Wednesday.

The movie, based on the roman a clef by Carrie Fisher, casts Meryl Streep as the daughter of a veteran movie star of the ‘50s and ‘60s, played by MacLaine.

Sondheim wrote the new lyrics, he tells us, at the request of his “good friend,” director Mike Nichols, “to fit the character of Doris Mann (MacLaine) and her life history, as opposed to the original, which was written about a movie star of a previous generation.”

Originally, the song in question had such curious references as getting the “heebie-jeebies for Beebe’s bathysphere,” or “I’ve been through Gandhi, Windsor and Wallie’s affair, Amos ‘n’ Andy, mah-jongg and platinum hair.” Now, it has references to MacLaine’s life:

Ten years of braces, voice and tap , / Touring in places off the map , / Getting auditions on Zanuck’s lap . / Never fear: / My mother drew up the contracts, / So I’m here.

And:

First you’re another true-blue tramp. / Then someone’s mother, then you’re camp. / Then you career from career to career