The lyric style is the concert performance, and this style emphasizes the sweetness of the melody and the poetry of the lyrics. Most performances are in concert, so they emphasize the beauty of the melody and lyrics. Sondheim teaches both dramatic and lyric performers several important elements for an accurate rendition: Sondheim apologizes for flaws in his composition. For example, in the line, "Well, maybe next year," the melodic emphasis is on the word year but the dramatic emphasis must be on the word next: Another example arises from Sondheim's roots as a speaker of American rather than British English: The line "Don't you love farce?" features two juxtaposed labiodental fricative sounds (the former [v] voiced, the latter [f] devoiced). 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?", misinterpreting the lyric or at the least perceiving an unintended double entendre. Sondheim agrees that "[i]t's an awkward moment in the lyric, but that v and that f should be separated." In the line of the fourth verse, "I thought that you'd want what I want. Sorry, my dear," the performer must communicate the connection between the "want" and the "sorry". Similarly, Sondheim insists that performers separately enunciate the adjacent t'''s in the line, "There ought to be clowns." Popular success The musical and the song debuted on Broadway in 1973. The song became popular with theater audiences, but had not become a pop hit. Sondheim explained how the song became a hit: Frank Sinatra recorded "Send in the Clowns" in 1973 for his album Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back, which attained gold status. Gordon Jenkins arranged the song. It was also released as a single. In later versions, he sang it with minimal accompaniment. Sinatra's version plays in the end credits of Todd Phillips' 2019 film Joker. Two years later Judy Collins recorded "Send in the Clowns" for her album Judith. The song was released as a single, which soon became a major pop hit. It remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks in 1975, reaching Number 36. The single again reached the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977, where it remained for 16 weeks and reached Number 19. At the Grammy Awards of 1976, the Collins performance of the song was named Song of the Year. After Sinatra and