Theatre
By Numbers
Rent By Numbers: Every song in the stage musical
Here’s your breakdown of every song on the Rent soundtrack
Rent is the definition of a genre-breaking show, one that changed American musical theatre forever when it debuted on Broadway in 1996. Jonathon Larsen’s story of a group of struggling artists and bohemians living in New York during the AIDS crisis was revolutionary in its time, but its plea for humanity, empathy and love in the face of corruption is just as relevant as ever. It’s a big soundtrack to get to grips with – luckily, we’re in hand to break down every number in the show before you take your seat in the Tom Stoppard Theatre. Here’s what you need to know about every song in Rent.
Act One
Tune Up #1
Voice Mail #1
Tune Up #2
Rent
You Okay Honey?
Tune Up #3
One Song Glory
Light My Candle
Voice Mail #2
Today 4 U
You’ll See
Tango: Maureen
Life Support
Out Tonight
Another Day
Will I?
On The Street
Santa Fe
I’ll Cover You
We’re Okay
Christmas Bells
Over The Moon
La Vie Boheme
I Should Tell You
La Vie Boheme B
‘Tune Up #1’
The show opens with roommates Mark and Roger following their artistic pursuits on Christmas Eve. Mark is a filmmaker, creatively blocked and deciding to shoot something without a script, and Roger is a musician, working on ‘one great song’. The phone rings, interrupting them.
‘Voice Mail #1’
This acapella melody is sung by Mark’s mum into his answering machine, calling to say hello ahead of Christmas Day and offering her condolences – Mark has just broken up with his girlfriend, Maureen, who has come out as gay and left him for a woman called Joanne.
‘Tune Up #2’
Mark and Roger get back to work, but the phone rings again. This time it’s their friend Collins, intending to come over for a ‘wild night’, but he’s mugged on his way. Their former friend and now-landlord Benny wants their rent and threatens to evict them, shutting down their power.
‘Rent’
Mark and Roger were promised by Benny that rent wouldn’t be a problem and now feel betrayed. The show’s first big number sees them lament their daily financial stresses and their struggle to stay warm in the winter, as they wonder how to pay last year’s rent.
Meanwhile, Joanne calls Maureen to reassure her ahead of that evening’s show. Maureen, panicked that her equipment isn’t working, calls Mark for help, despite Joanne’s misgivings. Benny complains to his wife that Mark and Roger just won’t see things his way. It’s an age of disconnection, but ironically, that’s the thing that unites all these characters.
Key lyric: “How can you connect in an age/Where strangers, landlords, lovers/Your own blood cells betray?”
‘You Okay Honey?’
Drag queen Angel meets Collins after his mugging and helps him back on his feet. As they begin to flirt, they establish that they both are already HIV-positive.
Key lyric: [ANGEL] “Yes, this body provides a comfortable home/For the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”/[COLLINS] “As does mine”/[ANGEL] “Well, we’ll get along fine”
‘Tune Up #3’
Mark leaves to go to Maureen’s show, but Roger stays home. Mark tells the audience that Roger contracted HIV from his girlfriend, who killed herself after confessing her diagnosis, and that Roger has been depressed ever since.
‘One Song Glory’
Alone in the apartment, Roger tries desperately to write his one great song. He feels he’s wasted too much of his life and wishes to be remembered for one great composition before he goes.
Key lyric: “Find the one song before the virus takes hold/Glory, like a sunset/One song to redeem this empty life”
‘Light My Candle’
Their neighbour, Mimi, turns up at the apartment, asking for a light for her candle. She reminds Roger of his dead girlfriend, and as she flirts with him, he’s tentative to flirt back. He learns that she’s a drug addict and an exotic dancer, and tries to offer her some life advice, but Mimi isn’t having it.
Key lyric: “It’s nothing, they turned off my heat/And I’m just a little weak on my feet/Would you light my candle?”
‘Voice Mail #2’
In another acapella interlude, Joanne receives a voicemail from her parents, who are wealthy high achievers – and don’t seem to approve of Maureen.
‘Today 4 U’
Mark returns and Collins also finally makes it to the apartment, introducing his friends to Angel. Angel tells the men that she made a lot of money that day by killing a wealthy couple’s dog after playing loudly for an hour, at the request of an annoyed neighbour. Angel’s philosophy is to show kindness to all strangers, summed up in her catchphrase, which repeats over a club beat.
Key lyric: “Today for you, tomorrow for me”
‘You’ll See’
Benny is annoyed with Maureen, who is protesting his plan to evict homeless people from a lot that he wants to develop. Mark laments how Benny has changed. Benny tells Mark and Roger that if they convince Maureen not to protest, they won’t have to pay him any rent. Despite their desperate situation, Mark and Roger reject his offer.
Key lyric: “Just stop the protest/And you’ll have it made/You’ll see”
‘Tango: Maureen’
Mark and Joanne try to get Maureen’s equipment working for her protest. There’s some initial awkwardness, but the two slowly start to bond over Maureen’s poor behaviour. Joanne initially protests that Maureen is different with her, but it turns out that Maureen hasn’t changed all that much. She’s already cheated on Joanne – and Joanne is still completely smitten. Mark can relate, but he’s suddenly glad to be on the other side of things.
Key lyric: “You pretend to believe her/’Cause in the end you can’t leave her”
‘Life Support’
Mark joins Angel and Collins at a HIV support group meeting, recording the proceedings on his camera. The group talk about how, when life is short, it’s important not to linger on the bad and to instead embrace the good in each day – a message central to the rest of the show.
Key lyric: “No day but today”
‘Out Tonight’
Mimi sings about her urge to go out and have a big, wild night, ending the song at Roger’s door, before she tries to seduce him.
Key lyric: “Wanna wail at the moon like a cat in heat?/Just take me out tonight”
‘Another Day’
Roger doesn’t respond well to Mimi’s advances, despite his evident attraction to her. She tries to convince him to live by her philosophy and take each day as it comes, but he counters that if her way of life is so effective, why does she need to turn to drugs? He convinces her to leave him alone.
Key lyric: “Looking for romance, come back another day”
‘Will I?’
In different parts of the city, Roger and the support group wonder what it will be like to die from AIDS, reflecting on the possibility of an undignified death and the prospect of social isolation.
Key lyric: “Will I lose my dignity/Will someone care?”
‘On The Street’
The group protect a homeless woman from police harassment, but when Mark tries to film her he gets an earful, despite Angel’s attempts to intervene.
Key lyric: “It’s not that kind of movie, honey”
‘Santa Fe’
On the way to the protest, the group reflects on the struggle of living in New York, Collins confesses his dream of opening a restaurant in Santa Fe. He’s tired of teaching and disillusioned with the city.
Key lyric: “We’ll open up a restaurant in Santa Fe/And save from devastation our brains”
‘I’ll Cover You’
When Mark leaves, Angel and Collins confess their feelings for each other, and despite not having much to offer each other, they promise to be everything the other needs.
Key lyric: “I think they meant it/When they said you can’t buy love/Now I know you can rent it”
‘We’re Okay’
Joanne tries to juggle her law career with preparing for Maureen’s show, fielding multiple calls. She calls her father and tells him that Maureen will be coming to her mother’s hearing, but when she speaks to Maureen, there’s tension – she wants to know exactly how many times she cheated on Mark, and when she hears that Maureen is with a model, her cool starts to crumble.
Key lyric: “We’re okay!”
‘Christmas Bells’
Police, homeless people and street vendors prepare for Maureen’s protest and anticipate a not particularly merry Christmas. Angel buys Collins a new coat, since his old one was stolen.
Roger tells Mark what happened with Mimi, confessing that he regrets the interaction. Out in the street he spots Mimi looking to score, and he pursues her, inviting her to a dinner party. The dealer is mad that Roger is stealing his client, but Roger points out to him the multiple other willing clients crowded around. As the chaos on the street escalates, Maureen finally arrives to begin the show.
Key lyric: “And it’s beginning to snow”
‘Over The Moon’
Maureen performs her strange, avante-garde, slightly nonsensical show, in which he gathers a collection of pop culture references and over-the-top, anti-capitalism statements. She riffs on the nursery rhyme ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ and presents a depressing world in which the only thing to do is take a leap of faith.
Key lyric: “Only thing to do is jump over the moon”
‘La Vie Boheme’
At the post show party, Benny criticises the protest, and reveals that the dog Angel killed belonged to his wife. He tells the group that bohemia is dead – in response, they riff on this idea, leading into a huge musical number that celebrates their frustrated artistic efforts and the joy that can still to be found in living on the breadline.
Key lyric: “We raise our glass, you bet your ass, to/La vie bohème”
‘I Should Tell You’
Having just realised that they’re both HIV positive, Mimi and Roger begin to really open up to each other, confessing how much they like each other and deciding to embark on a real relationship in whatever time they have left.
Key lyric: “Trusting desire, starting to learn/Walking through fire without a burn”
‘La Vie Boheme B’
Joanne tells Maureen that Roger and Mark’s building has been padlocked by Benny, and that a protest has broken out on the street inspired by Maureen’s performance. The celebration of ‘la vie boheme’ continues, closing out Act One on a triumphant note.
Key lyric: “Anyone out of the mainstream/Is anyone in the mainstream?”
‘Seasons Of Love’
Act Two opens with possibly the show’s most famous song, reminding the audience to measure life in love, rather than in any other arbitrary way. A life isn’t defined by the time a person spends on Earth, but by what they do with that time.
Key lyric: “How do you measure a year in the life?/How about love?”
‘Happy New Year’
Mimi, Roger, Mark, Maureen, Joanne, Collins and Angel gather to break back into Mark and Roger’s apartment. Maureen has been broken up with and is begging Joanne to take her back – when Joanne turns up to offer legal aid, she responds warmly. Mimi has been inspired by her relationship with Roger and has decided to go back to school, and Roger has a newly optimistic outlook.
Key lyric: “Last week I wanted just to disappear/My life was dust/But now it just may be a happy new year”
‘Voice Mail #3’
After breaking in, Mark learns from his machine that his parents watched his footage of the riot on the news, and also that a tabloid called Buzzline has made him a job offer.
‘Happy New Year B’
As they all celebrate, Benny arrives to call a truce, telling him that his ex-girlfriend Mimi convinced him to make amends. Roger is upset that Mimi didn’t tell him this. Angel manages to restore good feeling in the group, but Mimi still leaves upset and goes straight to her dealer.
Key lyric: “Friendship is thicker than blood”
‘Take Me Or Leave Me’
Maureen and Joanne argue, with Maureen frustrated that Joanne wants her to change herself, and Joanne unwilling to compromise on her principles or be labelled as controlling. After this powerful duet, the two decide to break up for good.
Key lyric: “Take me for what I am/Who I was meant to be”
‘Seasons Of Love B’
A short reprise of Act Two’s opening shows time progressing to spring.
Key lyric: “How do you figure our last year on earth?”
‘Without You’
In the time that’s passed, Mimi and Roger’s relationship has grown more strained due to Roger’s ongoing suspicion of Benny and Mimi’s drug use. Each confesses their feelings in private, finding it difficult to communicate. Onstage, they watch Angel’s health deteriorate, with Collins nursing her through her illness.
Key lyric: “But I die/Without you”
‘Voice Mail #4’
Mark continues to receive calls from Buzzline, urging him to ‘sell his soul’.
‘Contact’
More dance than song, ‘Contact’ is representative of the couple’s sex lives, contrasting their physical relationships to each other with what Angel and Collins are living through.
‘I’ll Cover You (Reprise)’
At Angel’s funeral, Collins sings this reprise of their love song, joined by the rest of the company.
Key lyric: “When you’re worn out and you’re tired/When your heart has expired/Oh, lover, I’ll cover you”
‘Halloween’
Afraid of the loneliness when all his friends pass from AIDS, Mark accepts the job at Buzzline. He sings this melancholy solo about watching life pass by from behind the lens.
Key lyric: “Why am I the witness/And when I capture it on film/Will it mean that it’s the end and I’m alone?”
‘Goodbye Love’
Since Mimi is now with Benny, Roger decides to leave for Santa Fe. The two argue about commitment, which kicks off a similar argument between Maureen and Joanne. Collins is angry at them for fighting at Angel’s funeral. Maureen and Joanne reconcile, and Mark tries to convince Roger to stay, but he refuses, unable to stand to watch Mimi’s health declining. The two fight, with Roger calling Mark a hypocrite, as he believes that Mark isolates himself.
When Mimi returns to say goodbye, she overhears Roger’s fears. Scared, she decides to take Benny up on his offer to pay for rehab.
Key lyric: “Goodbye love, came to say goodbye love”
‘What You Own’
Roger and Mark both finally find the artistic inspiration they have been waiting for: Mimi becomes the focus of Roger’s song, whilst Mark is inspired by Angel’s death. Mark quits his job to focus on his film, and Roger decides to return to New York for Christmas. Both express that all that you really have in modern-day America is yourself.
Key lyric: “And when you’re living in America/At the end of the millenium/You’re what you own”
‘Voice Mail #5’
The final voice mail interlude sees the parents of various characters call to express their worry and confusion at the scattered communications they get from their children.
‘Finale’
Exactly a year since the story began, Mark prepares to screen his film. Roger has written his song, but Mimi is missing and no one can find her. Benny’s wife, having discovered his affair with Mimi, has kicked him out. Collins enters, revealing that he programmed an ATM to give cash to anyone who enters the code ANGEL. Mauren and Joanne turn up with Mimi, who they found living rough in a park. She appears to be dying. Roger holds her close.
Key lyric: “I can’t believe a year went by so fast”
‘Your Eyes’
Holding Mimi’s hand, Roger plays her the song that she inspired him to write, before she slips away.
Key lyric: “You were the song all along”
‘Finale B’
Mimi appears to die but revives, claiming that she had a vision of Angel telling her to go back to Roger and listen to his song. As they celebrate having Mimi with them at least for another moment, the cast reaffirm that today is all they have, and they have to make the most of it.
Key lyric: “No day but today”
RENT is currently booking at the Tom Stoppard Theatre until 29 May 2027 – find tickets here
