Among other things, she looks back on an affair years earlier with the lawyer Fredrik, who was deeply in love with her, but whose marriage proposals she had rejected.
Meeting him after so long, she realizes she is in love with him and finally ready to marry him, but now it is he who rejects her: He is in an unconsummated marriage with a much younger woman.
I wanted to use theatrical imagery in the song, because she's an actress, but it's not supposed to be a circus [...] [I]t's a theater reference meaning "if the show isn't going well, let's send in the clowns"; in other words, "let's do the jokes."
[3]Judi Dench, who performed the role of Desirée in London, commented on the context of the song during an interview with Alan Titchmarsh.
In Act One, Fredrik meets Desirée again, and is introduced to her daughter, a precocious adolescent suggestively named Fredrika.
Fredrik explains to Desirée that he is now married to a young woman he loves very much, but that she is still a virgin, continuing to refuse to have sex with him.
Fredrik explains to Desirée that he has been swept off the ground and is "in the air" in love with his beautiful, young wife, and apologizes for having misled her.
Midway through the second Act she has deviated from her usual script by suggesting to Fredrik the possibility of being together seriously and permanently, and, having been rejected, she falters as a show-person, finds herself bereft of the capacity to improvise and wittily cover.
If Desirée could perform at this moment – revert to the innuendos, one-liners and blithe self-referential humour that constitutes her normal character – all would be well.
That is, what needs to be covered over (by the clowns sung about in the song) is the very intensity, ragged emotion and utter vulnerability that comes forward through the music and singing itself, a display protracted to six minutes, wrought with exposed silences, a shocked Fredrik sitting so uncomfortably before Desirée while something much too real emerges in a realm where he – and his audience – felt assured of performance.
"[5] Not long thereafter, Fredrik's young wife runs away with his son, so he is free to accept Desirée's proposal, and the song is reprised as a coda.
Sondheim wrote the lyrics and music over a two-day period during rehearsals for the play's Broadway debut,[6] specifically for the actress Glynis Johns, who created the role of Desirée.
She is furious, but she doesn't want to make a scene in front of Fredrik because she recognizes that his obsession with his 18 year-old wife is unbreakable.
[9]Another example arises from Sondheim's roots as a speaker of American rather than British English: The line "Don't you love farce?"
American concert and stage performers will often fail to "breathe" and/or "voice" between the two fricatives, leading audiences familiar with British slang to hear "Don't you love arse?
I mean, the first person to sing it was Bobby Short, who happened to see the show in Boston, and it was exactly his kind of song: He's a cabaret entertainer.
[6]Frank Sinatra recorded "Send in the Clowns" in 1973 for his album Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back, which attained gold status.
[17] The song has become a jazz standard, with performances by Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, the Stan Kenton Orchestra and many others.
[18] American ambient duo Stars of the Lid for their 2007 album And Their Refinement of the Decline use the melody of "Send In the Clowns" on the track "Don't Bother They're Here", the title itself referencing a line from the song.