Turn It Off

There is something almost unbearably cheerful about the way this number begins, the barbershop-quartet gleam of it, the tap shoes and the synchronized smiles, the production values of an Eisenhower-era variety show applied to the process of emotional suppression. The Elders bounce and twirl through a kind of therapeutic choreography, each one briefly confessing something they cannot process before snapping back into the company line: turn it off, like a light switch. The harmonies are pristine and the vocal blend deliberate — no rough edges, everything smoothed, which is musically the entire metaphor. Rory O'Malley's performance as Elder McKinley is the emotional center, and there is a specific sadness underneath his showmanship that the number eventually makes explicit in a moment that lands harder for how long it was delayed. The song belongs to a tradition of musical theater numbers that use the form itself as dramatic irony — the production values enacting the repression they describe. It is about the specific American Mormon experience but speaks to anyone who has been handed a performance of wellness as a substitute for actual care. You listen to this when you want something that makes you feel the weight of what cheerfulness can cost.