John Kander

“EBB: As I recall, “Cell Block Tango” was a very difficult number to write. It’s not so much a song as a musical scene for six women, and each has to tell her personal story in the course of a musical refrain that keeps repeating. It was difficult because each of the stories had to be entertaining and also meaningful. Each one had to be of a length that didn’t go on too long and run the risk of being boring. We kept rewriting and rewriting those stories that the women told to go with the refrain— He had it coming
He had it coming
He only had himself to blame.
If you’d have been there
If you’d have seen it
I betcha would have done the same! KANDER: When Gwen was sick during Chicago, Liza took over for eight weeks and she came close to making the show a hit. EBB: She did all of Gwen’s blocking. KANDER: She learned that show in a week. EBB: I guess I should confess this. I had been with Liza in California, and when we were on our way back to New York on the plane, when I knew Liza was going to do Chicago, I was egging her on to get little things back into the show that I lost during my collaboration with Fosse. I desperately wanted “My Own Best Friend” to be a song just for Roxie. That was the way it was originally supposed to be done. But Bobby took that song and added Chita as Velma. He had them at the edge of the stage, obviously mocking the high-end cabaret singers with their phony Oh-look-at-me attitude. He hated songs like— KANDER: “I Did It My Way.” EBB: And “I Gotta Be Me.” He hated them.”
― John Kander, Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz