"Second Hand White Baby Grand" is an original song introduced in the twelfth episode of the first season of the musical TV series Smash, entitled "Publicity".
[1] Still, within the show's universe, it is written by songwriting team Julia Houston (Debra Messing) and Tom Levitt (Christian Borle) for their Marilyn Monroe musical Bombshell.
The song, with Megan Hilty's vocals, was initially released as a single from iTunes and Amazon.com's MP3 store and is on the cast album Bombshell.
[2] BroadwayWorld comments, "The tune is a tribute to Marilyn Monroe's most prized possession, her family's white baby grand piano that was auctioned off after her mother was committed to a psych ward.
Her sentimental attachment to this instrument is documented in the 1974 book, published posthumously, 'My Story' by Marilyn Monroe, in Chapter One entitled 'How I Rescued A White Piano.
It draws comparisons with other "ambitious" songs such as "Back to Before" from Ragtime, "Kiss of the Spider Woman" from the musical of the same name, "I Know Where I've Been" from Hairspray and "So Anyway" from Next to Normal.