“Ring of Keys” is the Fun Home song where Small Alison sees a butch delivery woman in a diner and, for the first time, recognizes someone like herself. Written by Jeanine Tesori (music) and Lisa Kron (lyrics), it captures a child’s awe before she has the words for what she’s feeling.
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The first time we heard “Ring of Keys”, we were in awe: a song in which a kid discovers that it’s okay to be different. This updated guide explains what the Ring of Keys lyrics are about, who sings it, where it falls in the show and where to hear it legally. Rather than reprinting the lyrics, we paraphrase them and quote only a few words.
What are the Ring of Keys lyrics about?
Small Alison is out with her father, Bruce, when a delivery woman walks in. She has short hair, work clothes and boots, and a big ring of keys hanging from her belt loop. Alison has never seen a woman like her. The song is Alison trying to describe her, starting and stopping, losing her train of thought, circling back. That stammering is the point: she’s feeling something she has no language for yet.
The lyric moves through a few clear stages:
- Noticing. Alison catalogs the woman’s look piece by piece, the haircut, the “dungarees”, the boots and the keys, as if she’s memorizing her.
- Admiration. She is struck by the woman’s confidence and strength. Alison seems surprised that she admires something she thought she was supposed to find wrong.
- Recognition. The emotional peak comes when Alison starts to call the woman beautiful, then corrects herself to “handsome”. That one word swap shows a child realizing that the usual vocabulary doesn’t fit what she sees, or what she is.
The woman never notices her. Nothing happens in the scene except an inner earthquake, which is why the song works so well on stage. Our first Fun Home post, Fun Home: the musical ode to family, gives more background on the show.
Who sings Ring of Keys in Fun Home?
“Ring of Keys” is sung by Small Alison, the youngest of the three Alisons in the show. Adult Alison, the cartoonist narrating her own memories, is on stage too and is credited alongside her on the cast recording. In the original Off-Broadway and Broadway productions, Small Alison was played by Sydney Lucas, who received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 2015.
Fun Home has music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, based on Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir. It opened on Broadway at Circle in the Square on April 19, 2015 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Tesori and Kron were the first all-female writing team to win the Tony for Best Original Score (IBDB).
Where does Ring of Keys come in the show?
Fun Home is performed without an intermission, so there’s no Act One or Act Two. “Ring of Keys” comes late in the show. On the Broadway cast recording it is track 18 of 27, after Medium Alison’s college songs such as “Changing My Major” and before the final stretch about Bruce. The show moves back and forth in time, so a childhood memory can arrive right after a college scene. Adult Alison often interjects between scenes, reminding us that these are the images she later drew in her memoir. Compare “Changing My Major” with “Ring of Keys” and you can see how the three phases of her life are set side by side.
Why is Ring of Keys so important to Fun Home?
Fun Home is about Alison coming to understand herself and her father, Bruce, a closeted gay man. “Ring of Keys” is the moment the story’s two halves meet. It’s Alison’s earliest sense of her identity as a butch lesbian, and it happens with Bruce sitting right there, the same father who elsewhere in the show pushes her to look like a “proper” girl. Kron’s lyric captures the joy of seeing yourself reflected for the first time, while the scene around it hints at the pressure Bruce puts on her, and on himself.
For many audience members, especially LGBTQ+ viewers, the song became an anthem about representation: how much it matters for a child to see, even once, a grown-up who looks like the person they might become. For another heartbreaking song about family from the show, read our Days and Days lyrics post.
Who performed Ring of Keys at the Tony Awards?
Sydney Lucas performed “Ring of Keys” on the 69th Tony Awards broadcast on June 7, 2015. NPR’s headline said the 11-year-old “destroys” at the Tonys (NPR). She had already sung it at the 2014 Drama Desk Awards, after the Off-Broadway run at The Public Theater. That’s the performance in the video below. Note that this clip is the Drama Desk performance, not the Tonys.
Lucas was one of four Fun Home women nominated for Tonys that year, along with Beth Malone, Judy Kuhn and Emily Skeggs.
Where can I hear Ring of Keys legally?
- The cast recordings. Fun Home’s cast albums, released by PS Classics, are available on the major streaming services, and “Ring of Keys” is sung by Sydney Lucas.
- Official performance videos. The 2014 Drama Desk clip above, and NPR’s coverage of the 2015 Tonys performance.
- Official lyrics. The cast album booklet and the licensed lyrics shown inside streaming apps are the legitimate sources. We don’t reproduce the full lyrics here.
Fun Home closed on Broadway in 2016 and has since been staged on tour, in London at the Young Vic in 2018, and by regional theatres. If you like story-driven song guides, try our Rent songs explained next.
Want to play these songs yourself? “Ring of Keys” is built on a gentle, rolling piano accompaniment that’s very satisfying to learn. Pianoforall teaches chord-based piano so you can accompany ballads like this from a chord chart. Try Pianoforall.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Ring of Keys about?
It’s about Small Alison seeing a butch delivery woman for the first time and recognizing something of herself in her. The song captures her awe and confusion as she tries, and fails, to put the feeling into words.
How old is Alison when she sings Ring of Keys?
The show doesn’t give an exact age. Small Alison is a young child, and the role is played by child actors. Sydney Lucas was 11 when she performed it at the 2015 Tony Awards.
Who wrote Ring of Keys?
Jeanine Tesori wrote the music and Lisa Kron wrote the lyrics. The song is based on a moment in Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home.
Was Ring of Keys performed at the Tonys?
Yes. Sydney Lucas sang it on the 2015 Tony Awards broadcast, the year Fun Home won Best Musical. She had also performed it at the 2014 Drama Desk Awards.
Where can I find the official Ring of Keys lyrics?
Check the Fun Home cast album booklet or the licensed lyrics displayed in streaming apps. We paraphrase the song here rather than reproducing it.
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