All the songs in 'The Last Five Years' on Broadway
Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren lead the first Broadway production of Jason Robert Brown's romantic drama musical about a failed long-term relationship.
We haven’t just been waiting for the last five years, but for the last 24, for Jason Robert Brown’s fan-favorite musical to finally make its Broadway debut. The Last Five Years premiered in Chicago in 2001 and off Broadway the next year, but it’s only gotten a handful of major productions since. But in spring 2025, Grammy Award nominee Nick Jonas and Tony winner Adrienne Warren lead the first Broadway production under the direction of Whitney White.
The show depicts the five-year relationship between author Jamie Wellerstein and actress Cathy Hiatt. It follows them from first date to divorce, charting the highs, lows, successes, and faults (on both sides) that ultimately ended their romance. Don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler — we’re told how this story ends from the very first song.
Those songs jump around in time, telling Cathy and Jamie’s story chronologically and in reverse, both at the same time. To make sense of their relationship and the show’s unique structure, read our guide to the songs in The Last Five Years below. We've also included some clips from various performances so you can get a sneak peek of the music.
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"Still Hurting"
Cathy’s side of the story goes in reverse, so the show opens with this song in which she grieves the end of her marriage to Jamie.
Though he still has a successful writing career to satisfy him, Cathy is still a struggling actress, so she feels abandoned and unmoored. “Jamie has new dreams he's building upon, and I'm still hurting,” she sings.
The characters of Jamie and Cathy are inspired by Brown himself, a composer instead of a novelist, and his ex-wife, actress Theresa O’Neill.
"Shiksa Goddess"
Jamie’s side of the story unfolds in normal chronological order, beginning with this song. He is a Jewish man who has only dated Jewish women, so when he meets the “shiksa” (non-Jewish) Cathy, she feels new and exciting.
"Shiksa Goddess" is comical: “If you had a tattoo, that wouldn't matter,” Jamie sings. “If you had a shaved head, that would be cool. If you came from Spain or Japan or the back of a van, just as long as you're not from Hebrew school.” But he gets earnest during the bridge, sweetly naming Cathy his muse: “You are the story I should write.”
It’s a very meta lyric: Brown did write O’Neill’s story, of course, in The Last Five Years, but it’s the story of how their love ended.
"See I'm Smiling"
Jamie goes to visit Cathy in Ohio, where she is performing for a summer. What begins as a semi-sweet love song quickly sours when Jamie tells her he’s leaving early for a reception in honor of his novel.
“You do not have to go to another party with the same 20 jerks you already know,” she angrily sings. “You can stay with your wife on her fucking birthday, and you could, god forbid, even see my show.”
At the start of “See I'm Smiling,” Cathy thinks she and Jamie can finally overcome their troubles with a little effort. But by the time the song finishes with Cathy in tears, it’s clear that it’s the beginning of the end.
"Moving Too Fast"
Earlier in the relationship, Jamie’s life is turning upside down — and quickly. His novel is being published, he’s moving in with Cathy, and it’s all giving him “a singular sensation things are moving too fast.”
“I’ve got a woman I love, and I’ve got an agent who loves me,” he sings, simultaneously thrilled and overwhelmed. “And I think, ‘Well, well, what else is in store?’ Got all this and more before 24!”
"A Part of That"
Cathy is conflicted: When Jamie’s engrossed in his writing, he practically ignores her, but when he does show his love, it’s like everything else melts away. She doesn’t know how to feel amid the new normal of Jamie having a major writing career.
“He's off on a trip to Jamie-land [...] and then he smiles, his eyes light up, and how can I complain?” she sings. “Yes, he's insane, but look what he can do, and I'm a part of that.” By the end of the song, though, that statement becomes more of a question.
"The Schmuel Song"
As the couple celebrates Christmas, Jamie tells Cathy a story he wrote. It follows Schmuel, a tailor who gets a chance to stop time and create his passion project: a replica of a dress owned by a woman he once loved.
At the end of the story, Jamie reveals Schmuel represents Cathy. He encourages her to keep pursuing her passion for acting, reminding her it’s never too late to achieve her dreams.
"A Summer in Ohio"
Cathy is miserable doing summer stock theatre in middle-of-nowhere Ohio. Her castmates are unusual, the shows are bad (it’s heavily implied), and she can’t get Vietnamese food anywhere, she tells Jamie on the phone.
Summer stock theatres put on numerous productions during the season, often reusing the same “stock” of set pieces and costumes (hence the name). Though some high-profile summer stock theatres bring in celebrity talent, they’re more often launch points for early-career and lesser-known actors.
In Brown’s original version of the song, Cathy spots Jamie’s novel “at a Borders in Kentucky.” For the 2014 movie adaptation starring Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick, “Borders” was changed to “Target” since the bookstore chain shuttered in 2011.
"The Next Ten Minutes"
As Jamie’s story moves forward and Cathy’s moves backward, this midpoint song is where the timelines intersect, and Jamie and Cathy sing directly to each other for the only time in the show. Fittingly, it’s their marriage song, starting at the couple’s engagement in Central Park and ending at their wedding.
“Will you share your life with me for the next ten minutes?” Jamie asks as he proposes. Then, in his vows: “Will you share your life with me for the next ten lifetimes?”
"A Miracle Would Happen/When You Come Home to Me"
Jamie sings about his struggle to stay faithful to Cathy, particularly at events for his book, where he is the center of attention — and affection. Cathy always joins his conversations with other women just as he’s about to flirt with them: “She knows; they always know,” he laments.
Meanwhile, Cathy practices her audition song, “When You Come Home to Me.” It happens to capture the loneliness and discouragement she feels: “When you come home to me, I’ll wear a sweeter smile and hope that for a while, you’ll stay.”
"Climbing Uphill"
Cathy expresses her frustration at the exhausting and often demoralizing audition process while trying out for an unspecified role. The lyrics jump back and forth between things she’s saying aloud in the audition room and her own inner thoughts.
“Why did I pick these shoes? Why did I pick this song? Why did I pick this career? Why does this pianist hate me?” she thinks while performing. (In the movie, Brown cameos as the struggling pianist — a cheeky nod to the fact that his music is notoriously difficult to play.)
One lyric from this song frequently gets changed. In Brown’s original score, Cathy sings, “Why am I working so hard? These are the people who cast Linda Blair in a musical,” referencing the actress who briefly played Rizzo in Grease on Broadway.
The 2014 movie replaced Blair with Russell Crowe (whose singing in the 2012 Les Misérables film adaptation received criticism), and a Jonathan Bailey and Samantha Barks-led London production from 2016 used David Hasselhoff, who has appeared in multiple stage musicals.
"If I Didn't Believe in You"
When Cathy refuses to attend a party celebrating Jamie’s book, Jamie accuses Cathy of being unsupportive and resentful of his success because she hasn’t achieved her own.
“I will not fail so you can be comfortable, Cathy,” Jamie sings. He reminds her he’s always supported her career and still does: “If I hadn’t believed in you, I wouldn’t have loved you at all.”
"I Can Do Better Than That"
Cathy sings this song just before taking Jamie to meet her parents. On the way, she tells him about her past relationships and that of her hometown best friend. Wanting a life beyond that small town, she asks Jamie to move in with her in New York.
In Brown’s original version of the song, Cathy describes a past boyfriend as “a guy in a class I was taking who you might say looked like Tom Cruise.” In the 2014 film, he’s a guy “with some very well-placed tattoos” instead of a celebrity lookalike.
"Nobody Needs to Know"
Jamie’s efforts to stay faithful have failed, as he sings this song after spending a night with another woman while Cathy is in Ohio. He laments having to travel there and see her, saying Cathy makes him feel suffocated: “All that I ask for is one little corner — one private room at the back of my heart. Tell her I found one, she sends out battalions to claim it and blow it apart.”
At the end of the song, he tells his new lover “I could be in love with someone like you,” the same thing he told Cathy in “Shiksa Goddess.”
"Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You"
The final song in the show leaves us at both the beginning and the end of the relationship. Cathy, having begun at the end, now sings “Goodbye Until Tomorrow” right after their first date, feeling totally lovestruck: “Goodbye 'til I recall how to breathe; and I have been waiting, I have been waiting for you.”
Meanwhile, Jamie sings “I Could Never Rescue You” as he writes about their breakup, which he initiated. He sings about the distress he felt in the relationship — “you never saw how far the crack had opened; you never knew I had run out of rope” — but also acknowledges, “I'm not the only one who's hurting here” (something Cathy does not do in “Still Hurting”).
In a melancholy parallel, Cathy tells Jamie “goodbye until tomorrow,” while he tells her “goodbye.”
“I Could Be in Love With Someone Like You”
This song, in which Jamie starts falling hard and fast for Cathy, was in an early draft of The Last Five Years. It was ultimately cut because the lyrics heavily focus on Cathy’s Irish Catholicism, a trait shared by Brown’s ex-wife.
The clear resemblance to O’Neill violated the terms of her and Brown’s divorce, so Brown replaced the song with “Shiksa Goddess.” That track ends with the lyric “I think that I could be in love with someone like you" as a nod to the original.
Brown and other Broadway stars have still performed “I Could Be in Love With Someone Like You” at various concerts.
The Last Five Years songs in chronological order
The Last Five Years follows two different timelines at once. If the musical were written in standard chronological order, the songs would loosely follow this sequence, from the couple’s first date to their breakup.
- "Goodbye Until Tomorrow”
- "Shiksa Goddess"
- "I Can Do Better Than That"
- "Moving Too Fast"
- "When You Come Home to Me"
- "Climbing Uphill"
- "The Schmuel Song"
- "The Next Ten Minutes"
- "A Summer in Ohio"
- “A Miracle Would Happen”
- "A Part of That"
- "If I Didn't Believe in You"
- "Nobody Needs to Know"
- "See I'm Smiling"
- “I Could Never Rescue You"
- "Still Hurting"
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