roger waters - ca ira (there is hope) - libretto

Roger Waters - ÇA IRA (THERE IS HOPE)

All lyrics by Roger Waters from the original Libretto by Etienne &

Nadine Roda-Gil.

[1] THE GATHERING STORM

(instrumental)

[2] OVERTURE

(instrumental)

ACT ONE

Scene 1

"A Garden in Vienna, 1765"

[3] RINGMASTER

Within our humble sawdust ring

The players are arraigned

The powerful and puny

The saintly and deranged

The Honest Bird, a future queen

All innocent and green

Sparring all the livelong day

Make ready for our play

So gentles all, who will hold sway

To a garden in Vienna, let us make our way...

[4] MARIE THERESE

Madame Antoine, Madame Antoine

It's getting dark outside

It's time to come in

MADAME ANTOINE

Oh Mother!

MARIE THERESE

Madame Antoine, it's time to come in

MADAME ANTOINE

Yes, yes mother, I'm coming

One day...

One day I'll be queen

Live on peaches and cream

Wear satin and lace

And laugh in the faces

Of the teachers and priests

And the boys will all fawn

Fawn before me like beasts

MARIE THERESE


HONEST BIRD

Little princess, so sure you are right

But your endless day is their endless night

You can preen in the limelight

In your diamonds in pearls

But the children go hungry

In that other world

MARIE THERESE


MADAME ANTOINE

Little sparrow fly back to wherever you're from

You could never imagine the plane I live on

The intricate steps of the tumblers and clowns

Are above and beyond you cock robin

So just you pipe down

Scene 2

"Kings, Sticks and Birds"

[5] RINGMASTER

Ladies and Gentlemen

Imagine a bird on song in a tree

An ordinary bird like you or like me

Imagine some ruffian happening by

And beating him within an inch of his life

CHORUS

Ahh!

RINGMASTER

Then a priest from some denomination

Witnessing this abomination

Blesses not the bird but the beast

The Unknown Soldier appears on the field

And takes the bird's feathers to put on his shield

Then a powerful judge from the high court

Decrees that the birds really ought

Not be allowed to sing in the trees

But then one day

Some of the priests and soldiers and judges

Putting aside some old worn grudges

Changes their minds and the birds sang again

It was the Revolution

The Revolution is a story of birds

Of sticks and stones and bushes and bones

RINGMASTER & CHORUS

A story of now, a story of then

A story of woman, a story of men

RINGMASTER

A story of everything to come

Of everything under the sun

[6] MARIE MARIANNE

Honest bird, simple bird

Just longing to be spreading the word

Feeling the rain, feeling the sun

But your time has not come

Your song is not heard

Honest bird

MALE CHORUS

Singing is forbidden in the fig tree

Singing is forbidden in the olive tree

Singing is forbidden in the pear tree

No singing in the olive or the fig or the pear tree

MALE CHORUS & CHILDREN

No more singing in the fig tree

No more singing in the pear tree

Someone’s hanging in the olive

There's someone hanging in the olive tree

Singing in the fig tree, that's forbidden

Singing in the pear tee, that’s forbidden

Singing in the olive, that's forbidden

Someone's hanging in the olive tree

Someone's hanging in the olive tree

MARIE MARIANNE

You come to earth, you have no choice

Could be a seamstress or serving girl

Or butcher's boy

Could be a dead beat

Or one of the elite

Maybe the bird ill find his voice

And make a choice

From all the wheat and all the chaff

It's the knowledge that you glean

Makes you what you'll be

And the knowledge that you lack

A rod for your own back

Leaves you in purgatory

Honest bird, simple bird

[7] Make your choice, find your voice

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST

Make your choice, find your voice

CHORUS

I want to be King, Queen, Courtesan, Dauphin

I want to be Cardinal, Capitaine, King of Kings

I want to be God

SOLO BOY

I want to be the King

SOLO GIRL

I want to be the Queen

SOLO GIRL

I want to be the Courtesan

SOLO BOY

I want to be the Dauphin

SOLO BOY

I want to be the Cardinal

SOLO BOY

I want to be the Capitaine

CHORUS

I want to be the King of Kings

I want to be God

SOLO BOY

I am a great big pig

SOLO BOY

I am the King of France

SOLO BOY

His wife likes to dance

SOLO BOY

I am the Church of Rome

I stand behind the throne

SOLO BOY

I am the public purse; they think I'm bottomless

SOLO BOY

I am the public accounts; I admit I'm a bit of a mess

solo girl

I am the American war and they say I'm rather greedy

SOLO GIRL

I am the national debt; I’m big but needy

SOLO BOY

I am a noble

SOLO BOY

I am the clergy

SOLO BOY

I am the ordinary man

SOLO GIRL

I am hungry

SOLO GIRL

I am starving!

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

The cake needs re-carving!

TROUBLEMAKER

I'm a ravening wolf

MALE CHORUS

I'm a, I'm a, I'm a ravening wolf

FEMALE CHORUS

I'm a, I'm a, I'm a heart of thorns

MALE CHORUS

It's the end of the shield of divine law

TROUBLEMAKER

I'm the oak tree

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

I am the oak tree and I am the columbine

I am the pig searching for truffles

CHORUS

And I am the peacock whose feathers are ruffled

[8] TROUBLEMAKER

Let us break all the shields

And soil the ermine

Take the oak and the olive tree

Make their philosophy our own

The pigs eat the acorns

The rich eat the pork

The poor eat the olives and spit out the stones


We only ask a little tax from the nobility

The spat out stone will grow in time into an olive tree

We will smoke our pork over a fire of basilic

TROUBLEMAKER

And we will plant the laurel tree


To make

TROUBLEMAKER

To make


A wreath

TROUBLEMAKER

A wreath

A wreath to crown the République


We will smoke our pork upon the pyre of privilege

The flames of castles burning will dance from ridge to ridge

We'll break all the shields

Spit out all the stones

Make the oak and the olive trees' philosophy our own

The pigs eat the acorns

The rich eat the pork

The poor eat the olives and spit out the stones

CHORUS

We will smoke the pork on a fire of basilic

We will plant the laurel tree to make our laurel wreaths

To crown, to crown, to crown the République!

Scene 3

"The Grievances of the People"

[9] RINGMASTER

The sparrow, bedraggled, looks up through the rain

And dreams of a little more grain

The peacock, plump in his place in the sun

Ignores the sound of the distant guns

Their thunder falls upon deaf ears

The peacock never sniffs the air

He fails to see that a starvation diet brings

The scent of riot on the breeze

The King; The State; La France

Each of the above must with regret cut off all payment

The cupboard is bare

The State of France lies in disrepair


The Bishops hide the grain; to the attics it's sent

If everyone is hungry, tell me, who can be content?

SOLO BOY

Altogether now!

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

We hand out pamphlets, we join a club

We shout out slogans that we make up

We thumb our noses, at those above

We hand out pamphlets, we join a club

TROUBLEMAKER

We join a club, a safety net

But it's more like a gin trap that's been carefully set


We write what we can on the cow's flayed hide

Our grievances are noted and then brushed to one side

But the pain we feel keeps us alive

TROUBLEMAKER

Bushes and bones and sticks and stones

CHORUS

Now, then, women and men


In Manosque the bishops get what they deserve

Stoned to death and we retrieve the grain from their reserves

FEMALE CHORUS

We plunder all the bakeries

CHORUS

Searching for our courage in...

MALE CHORUS




RINGMASTER & MARIE MARIANNE

...this folly

Scene 4

"France in Disarray"

[10] RINGMASTER

The winger of eight-eight and nine

Was aching cold, it chilled the very soul

They came from the country in twos and threes

A trickle, a river, a torrent, a sea,

Driven by hunger, driven by pain

SERGEANT

Company...Halt!...

RINGMASTER

A hundred thousand reached the barricade

SERGEANT

Present... Fire!...

RINGMASTER

Three hundred dead, shot down like rats

Three hundred lives, snuffed out like that

Have a care if you treat your people like vermin

You could end up with bloodstained ermine

But soft

As ever in the ebb and flow

Sweet reason, deft and incorrupt

Adoring of the human kind illuminates man's plight

Should be embrace

The brute and base

Tilt blindly at the carousel

Or note, at least, the other voice

And entertain the choice

Between the darkness and the light?

[11] MARIE MARIANNE

To laugh is to know how to live

To see is to know everything

To read is to hold the key that you need

The key you need to set you free

RINGMASTER

All the world can see that in this great library

There's a good medicine against tyranny

And the movement of the heavens

Though it may last forever

sees no right, no wrong, no weak, no strong

And the star you see in the sky and the moon and the sun

Shine on prince and pauper alike and favour no one

SOLO GIRL & CHILDREN'S CHORUS

The politics of the Rights of Man

Is the sharing of apples with an even hand

TO plant a tree were birds my sit

But who in France will nurture it

[12] REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST

Slaves, Landlords, Bigots at your door

Aristocrats, Democrats, survivors of the North American war

Some with heart, some without hate

Some with faith in the human race

And so the loan sharks

Selling dreams in honeyed tones like skylarks

And rats who speak like cats of sacred rights

The sacred rights of the family

MARIE MARIANNE

And al those brave souls both brave enough and crazy enough

To spill their blood for truth alone

That one or two ideas survive, always survive

Writ in blood on paving stones

RINGMASTER

Writ in blood

MARIE MARIANNE

On paving stones

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

And the noble class who rule

Having been to all the best schools

Have thought it through and are good enough

To explain what is best for us

It came to them in a dream

In a blinding flash of light

Equality, fraternity and not just in the afterlife

And they promise us reading

And they promise us reading

CHILDREN'S CHORUS & FEMALE CHORUS

If we kneel before the King

If we kneel before the King

SOLO CHILD

So this is the State of France

RINGMASTER, REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & MARIE MARIANNE

And on the street corners

The broadsheets all carry the usual story

A people dying to believe in some benign authority

To lead them down a road that’s paved with glory

To lead them down a road that’s paved with glory

Scene 5

"The Fall of the Bastille"

[13] RINGMASTER

Birds flock, when winter settles in

The Harlequin with dunce's cap and silver horn

All mournful, mocking eye and painted tear,

Has seen it all before

The sparrows hurl in the face of glazed imperium,

Then stunned, affronted, fall

Then, picking up perch braggart on the wire and

Launch towards the south, towards the land of fire

[14] REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST

To freeze in the dead of night

To burn in divine law

Deep in the crucible brine

The sorrow and the rage entwine

And coil and climb towards the light

The quill is poised above the page

Words like falling rain slake the thirst and dowse the flames

Cooling in the crucible and idea forms

A nugget of belief in the hearts of the poor

That maybe in the dawn's new light

They have a right to the law

[15] RINGMASTER

So to the streets in the pouring rain

The dispossessed and the drunk and the lame

Gathered in bands and took the law into their own hands

Like the daring young man on the flying trapeze

Like birds flying into a storm

They took the great leap

And launched themselves into the void

CHORUS

We broke into the arsenal, Les Invalides

Found cannonball and powder, everything we need

We marched on the Bastille

The home of tyranny

Killed the jailer

And set two madmen free

RINGMASTER

When you have an army of your own

You get to choose

Who will live

Who will die

Who will win

Who will lose

TROUBLEMAKER

A piece of prison stone

Is all I have to call my own

Insight to see the other side

Strength and weakness, love and pride

Is all I have to leave my child

If my child survives

He'll judge men by their deeds and not their smiles

He'll keep his taste of good red wine

His pride, his friends, his lust for life

These are the things that will avail him

If my child survives...

Curtain

ACT TWO

Scene 1

"Dances and Marches"

[16] RINGMASTER

Versailles the leaves fall

It's that time of the year

Her Majesty is bored with all

This endless calling for reform

But the sound of young men marching

Is like music to her ear

The sound of young men marching

Is like music to her ear

But she dreams of young men dancing

QUEEN

Dancing, dancing...

RINGMASTER

And the dream of young men dancing

Hangs like birdsong in the air

[17] Now Hear Ye!

Her Majesty invites the regiments

To a Grand Ball

Versailles in October

The Queen is having a fling

She invites all the regiments

Loyal to the King

Wining and dining and making eyes at them all

Smiling in the limelight

The Queen is having a ball

OFFICER

The Queen is smiling

The Queen is laughing

She makes eyes at one and all

CHORUS

She’s having a ball

[18] RINGMASTER

Flushed with wine Marie Antoinette

Casts down her red, white and blue rosette

An impetuous and dangerous vignette

OFFICER

And then with her harming little shoe

She grinds the precious symbol underfoot

what a lark, what a hoot

The regiments all follow suit

The regiments

CHORUS

The regiments

OFFICER

The regiments

CHORUS

The regiments

OFFICER & CHORUS

The regiments all follow suit


Red, white and blue and they all follow suit

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

Red, white and blue and they all follow suit


In Paris there is nothing to eat

CHORUS

Not a crust, not a crumb

Not a grain of wheat


They think that starving may weaken the man in the street

CHORUS

Not a chance, they're used to the heat


In Versailles they drink wine and dine on freshly baked bread

CHORUS

The peacock sprawls upon his bed


We choke on the bones of swallowed pride instead

CHORUS

Soon they'll see what a feast they've made


A bitter feast

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHORUS

For the Parisians

CHORUS

...for the Parisians

RINGMASTER

These hags, these shrews, these courtesans

These animals we call women

Have marched hear through the pouring rain

TO bring the baker home again

CHORUS

Louis protests; he cries

KING

Veto, veto! I'll give you all bread if you just let me go!

RINGMASTER

These fishwives with their babies, these animals called ladies

Will carry back home to Paris

The King, The Queen, and The Dauphin


Versailles has loomed to the regiments' final bow

CHORUS

Versailles bloomed


All fawning before

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHILDREN'S CHORUS

The Austrian cow!

CHORUS

Fawning on bended knee


The party's over


Take down the marquee

CHORUS

Hang up your dancing shoes in the hanging tree


We'll take the baker back to Paris


Back to Paris

TROUBLEMAKER & MALE CHORUS

He'll make bread for the prince we decree

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, CHILDREN'S CHORUS, & FEMALE

CHORUS

The shrews, the hags and the courtesans


The animals we call women

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, CHILDREN'S CHORUS, & FEMALE

CHORUS

Will take back the King to Paris


The crowd now seven thousand strong


Bore the royal coach along


With trophies raised on pikes above


The guardsman’s heads they had cut off

TROUBLEMAKER

Adieu Versailles

MALE CHORUS

It rains, it pours, the crowd roars


Bonjour Paris

CHORUS

Adieu Versailles

COMPANY

Bonjour Paris, adieu Versailles

Scene 2

"The Letter"

[19] RINGMASTER

Imprisoned in the Tuilaries

The King makes locks

To the sound of the ticking clocks

And the rain falling on his window pane

Makes him think of his cousin Bourbon

Safe in his castle in Spain

[20] KING

My Dear Cousin Bourbon of Spain

This letter I entrust to a courier faithful and sure

Is to calm your fears and tell you cousin dear

My heart is pure

This red cap I wear,

These lies they've made me swear

Are repugnant to my soul

My very bones cry out in pain

Cousin Bourbon of Spain

You know my feelings well

You've heard what I've had to say

But now all my beliefs

Have been snatched by these thieves

And cruelly torn away

But none of the scum who run through the streets

Taking law from a bottle of wine

Could presume to assume the fealty due

To me or to you from your subjects or Mine

My dear cousin Bourbon n of Spain

Let's make a pact, let's campaign

Let us whip back to their kennels again

These dogs who speak of virtue

Help me, cousin

Help me cousin Bourbon of Spain

[21] RINGMASTER

The ship of state is all at sea

The King is confused

'Tis hard enough to place one foot before the last

To tread a path preordained by a law divine

But to pad all aimless on a shifting sea

Each man an island free to choose his fate

God's death; what dizzy, giddy, fall from grace...

Commerce, that barometer of faith

Tolls warning of the coming storm

No coffee in the marketplace

No peace on earth for rich or poor

Scene 3

"Silver, Sugar and Indigo"

[22] TROUBLEMAKER

How can you sleep?

How can you think?

How can you live with no coffee to drink?

You'd better pray you don't have a sweet tooth

The price of sugar is through the roof

Robespierre, Brissot and Concordant all agree

We must set the blackbird free

But sugar and silver and indigo

Make even the wisest man "idiot!"

[23] REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

To the Windward Isles

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE & CHORUS

It comes today

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

The wind of change blows this way


Blows this way

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

In Sante Domingo and elsewhere

To slaves of sugar and despair


Silver, sugar, indigo










REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

Bring freedom to the


Colonies

Act on principle

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

Equality, fraternity and


Liberty

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

Are


Not just words after all

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

But


Sugar is sweet

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

And


Coffee is strong

Hope goes down with the sun

REVOLUTIONARY SLAVE

And


The sun goes down behind

CONDORCET & MARIE MARIANNE

Mountains of silver

Valleys of sugar

And shiploads of indigo




MARIE MARIANNE

So come ye ships

Across the sea

Let's case into the deep

This shame and misery

In Paris they condemn our rage

Condorcet stands his ground and says:

CONDORCET

My friends if we believe in freedom

Then we must unlock this cage

COMPANY

Vive Condorcet, hear him scold them,

The frigid reactionary old men

Good God above it's over

Enough is enough

Enough, enough, enough

To the Windward Isles

Revolution has arrived

They will only free us when

They need us to fight for them

CONDORCET & MARIE MARIANNE

Cast into the deep sea

This shame and this misery

Silver, sugar and indigo


CHORUS


COMPANY

"Idiot!"

Scene 4

"The Papal Edict"

[24] RINGMASTER

Trade wings, buffeting the sweet molasses

Smoke of burning cane

Push, swelling East the spreading ripples of unrest,

Back to Europe and the rain

The Holy See safe on Tiber's shore

Surveys the flotsam on the tide

Ignores the cries of drowning men and

Passes on the other side

[25] TROUBLEMAKER

In Paris there's a rumble under the ground

It's the sound of the printing press

And like a volcano when it blows

It spews out ideas like confetti, like snow

BOY

Read all about it!

Hold the front page!

The street's a theatre

Each café...

CHORUS & CHILDREN

A stage!

RINGMASTER

But under every café awning

There appears this papal warning

TROUBLEMAKER

His Holiness the Pope, I fear

Believes the Rights of Man to be a bad idea


The pope does not want the rights of Man

COMPANY

The pope does not want the rights of Man


He finds them too profane

COMPANY

He finds them too profane


When a man bites the apple

COMPANY

When a man bites the apple


He gets a taste for liberty

COMPANY

He gets a taste for liberty


He gets... a taste of liberty

MALE CHORUS

He gets... a taste of liberty

ALTAR BOY

The Pope declares that it's a sin

MALE CHORUS

The pope declares that it's a sin

TROUBLEMAKER

So let us raid the apple tree

Although the Pope does not agree

He blesses us with sleight of hand

He doesn’t want the Rights of Man

ALTAR BOY


MALE CHORUS



The Pope declares that it's... a sin

People are sharing the apples

The Pope says Bless You but it's still a sin

COMPANY

The Pope says Bless You but it's still a sin


The Pope gives his blessing with sleight of hand

COMPANY

The Pope gives his blessing with sleight of hand


He doesn't want the

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & MALE CHORUS

Rights... of Man

ALTAR BOY


MALE CHORUS


TROUBLEMAKER

But the Pop can change his mind like that

Like trying on a different hat

Turning on the stars above and politics and God and love

Turning like an apple that shrivels on the sand

And when the core is rotten

No one tastes the Rights of Man


You never taste the Rights of Man...

CHORUS

He does not want the Rights of Man

The Pope does not want the Rights of Man

He's made his stand

He washes his hands

The Pope does not... want the Rights of Man


Nothing but a prayer to hope for

Nothing but a little wine to dream

Nothing for this hunger but a handful of grain

The horizon always the same

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & TROUBLEMAKER

Rooted in this earth

Like our parents dead and gone

Like the trees which are our emblem

The horizon just goes on and on

We'll change it with a forest

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, TROUBLEMAKER & CHORUS

The olive and the oak tree

Will be our flags

Curtain

[Disk 2]

ACT THREE

Scene 1

"The Fugitive King"

[1] RINGMASTER

And high above,

Homing in the restless sky,

Rooks, melancholy, proclaim a schism between

God, sacred, and the Crown, profane

Between the heavens and the King

The dark horizon cracks a crooked grin,

Admitting one small grain of change

Then two, then four, then bit by bit,

Then tock by tick

All the old presumptions hove in rings

KING

The King is afraid that his kingdom is slipping away

QUEEN

The Queen pines for the good times at Versailles

KING

He works on his locks to the sound of the ticking of clocks

QUEEN

The children play in a garden that's ringed with steel

KING

They wanted to visit St. Cloud to be able to

KING & QUEEN

Breathe in the air

OFFICER

The National Guard forbad them to leave

[2] KING & QUEEN

But the Marquis of Boulli had a trump card up his sleeve

RINGMASTER

The Marquis of Boulli a good General

And fiercely loyal to the crown

With his army in the East

Hatched a plan to see the King released

QUEEN

The Queen assuming the title Baroness Korrf

Her papers signed by the King of course

Set forth before the break of day

To join up with Boulli in Alsace Lorraine

OFFICER

From the shadows King Louis disguised as a humble valet

Sneaks out to make his getaway

With a small entourage of course

OFFICER & CHORUS

Just a few hundred light horse

TROUBLEMAKER

Well let him go, let him run, with his Austrian whore


Let him go to Prussia

OFFICER & MALE CHORUS

Let him go to Austria

Let him go and die there


Let him go


Let him go

TROUBLEMAKER, OFFICER & MALE CHORUS

Let him rot wit his Austrian Queen

CHORUS

That the Republic at last can come into being

But wait, fate would intervene

OFFICER

A keen-eyed postmaster by chance

OFFICER & CHORUS

Recognized the King and Queen and

CHORUS

Rode ahead to raise the alarm

RINGMASTER

In Parliament the moderates have their say

CONDORCET

The King has not fled

He was kidnapped instead

And spirited away

OFFICER

To suggest that the King would run is a damnable lie

CONDORCET

It sticks in our throats and conflicts with our national pride

OFFICER

But the Austrian court

And Brunswick of course

Say they'll declare war

If the King's not restored

TROUBLEMAKER (mimicking Brunswick)

You must leave the King alone

Or all of Paris will be torn down

Down to the very last stone

TROUBLEMAKER & OFFICER

Paris will be pulverized

Down to the very last bone

QUEEN

When the carriage returned

The acrid smoke of bridges burned

Hung heavy like a stifled sigh

And they say the Queen had a tear in here eye

OFFICER

When through the carriage window

Louis turned to face his peers

A loyal friend, the Comte de Dampierre

Doffed his cap with elegance

In deference to the King

A brave and foolish thing to do

In light o f the prevailing mood

CHORUS

A few drops in her eye

A nice touch, a good try

Too little, too late

For a last roll of the die

RINGMASTER & CHORUS

The crowd in a gesture less than elegant

Brutally remove his head

RINGMASTER


CHORUS


[3] CHILDREN'S CHORUS

To take your hat off

Is the gesture of a toff

But even his lordship needs a head

To take his hat off of

So Dampierre lost his life

By being somewhat too polite

In face of all the pain and fear that festered

For more than a thousand years

SERGEANT (off stage)

By the left, Quick March!

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

Dampierre has lost his head

The King has lost his grown

The carriage rolls through the streets

The crowd jeers, the wheels squeak

Hey, hey, what goes around

Always comes around

MALE CHORUS

IN Germany and England

They celebrate our liberty

Over there by and by

They'll have their 14th of July

In Germany and England they fete our

MALE CHORUS & CHILDREN

Liberty

OFFICER

The National Assembly try to whitewash the King

MALE CHORUS

His brothers in law

Are camped on every border

They fear to depose him

Would men war

MARIE MARIANNE, RINGMASTER, OFFICER & CHORUS

But feelings run deep

And the man in the street

Hungry, weak but unbowed

Scents the taste so sweet of peacock meat

As it wafts over the crowd

So they march to the Camps du Mars

To demand Republic now

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

Republic here, now, today

The National Assembly

Has got it wrong

SERGEANT

Present...

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

We sing in the Camps du Mars

SERGEANT

Take Aim...

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

We sing of what we want

SERGEANT

FIRE!

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

Repub--

[4] RINGMASTER

The echoes never fade from the fusillade

Lafayette fired upon

An unarmed crowd, six thousand strong

The fragile ship of State

Sinks beneath the waves

The crashing sea of blood

Drowns out the sound of the parade

The tidied up the Camps du Mars

They piled up the dead

The dead whose only crime had been

To dream of freedom

The dead who'd never get to see

The King would be restored instead

Scene 2

"The Commune De Paris"

[5] RINGMASTER

The Monarchy restored

The crown sits tilted and uneasy now

The Girondins, one eye cocked nervous in the East,

Are loath to bring it down

TROUBLEMAKER

But at the gates

Beyond the palsied grip of limp and timid politics

The Marseillais are girded for the fray

With pike and pick and bloodied stick

They'll plant the laurel tree

And their song will be a fanfare for the Commune de Paris...

[6] MALE CHORUS

Vive la Commune De Paris

For the love of God

IN the name of freedom

For the crippled and the poor

RINGMASTER

The bells ring out the tambourine beats

The rise and fall of voices

The sound of marching feet

Signals the demise of the Capet dynasty

TROUBLEMAKER

It's not whether now but when

The King and Queen have only men

From Switzerland to defend the Tuileries

Remorseless as a rising tide

The san culottes prepare to die

Vive la Commune de Paris

CHORUS











Vive la Commune de Paris in God's name

CHORUS

In God's name



For the


Halt and the maimed


Who have no Pope and no hope of paradise

CHORUS

No hope of paradise


And nothing to lose but their miserable earthly lives...

CHORUS

Nothing to lose but their lives


Everyone under the sun has the power

To change the way the world is arranged

MALE CHORUS

If you don't use it

The powers that be will abuse it

Give up but half of our power

And you'll get shafted

CHORUS

Vi......ve la Commune de Paris


Vive la, vive la, viva la Commune

Vive la, vive la, viva la Commune de Paris

[7] RINGMASTER

The National Assembly is confused

The Girondins blow back and forth

Like flags and ashes scattered by the truth

BOY

Oi, Mister... What is a Girondid?

RINGMASTER

A Girondin is careful of the company he keeps

He looks to find a sign before he leaps

TROUBLEMAKER

Like ranks of Marseillaise, six hundred deep

Arraigned before the Tuileries

CHORUS

It's the end of monarchy

Vive la Commune de Paris!

RINGMASTER

The presence of the Prussians on the border

IS a worrisome thing

The Brunswick manifesto

Serves only to stiffen the sinews

And weaken the King

To depose him now

Fills the Girondid hearts with fear

But the Prussians cross the border

And the order of the day becomes clear


The monarchy is over

No more days in clover

CHORUS

The monarchy, c'est fini


Brunswick is a liar; just listen to our cannon fire


The National Assembly comes in line

With the half and the maimed

And the dead and the dying

The monarchy, c'est fini

Scene 3

"The Execution of Louis Capet"

[8] RINGMASTER

In the spring of ninety-two

The Austrians and the Prussians too

Crossed the line

The war had come

The people went to see the King

Reluctantly he let them in

RINGMASTER & CHORUS

And over tea they said that

He must choose one hat

RINGMASTER

A crown in Koblenz with his friends

Or if he chose to make amends

He might adopt

CHORUS

He might adopt

RINGMASTER & CHORUS

Their scarlet bonnet

RINGMASTER

Surprise, surprise, when left to choose

Too late he chose "The Bonnet Rouge"

[9] MARIE MARIANNE

Adieu Louis for you it's over

Too many carpenters and bookkeepers and gardeners

Gave their ordinary lives to be free

On the battlefields of the Tuileries


To be King is a sacred trust

But you betrayed us

Poor King Louis

We must take your life

Clean the slate, start anew

Poor Louis, it's over for you

TROUBLEMAKER

The time for grief is not yet here

It’s to build a world without tears

That we toll the funeral bell

And shed our precious blood

Poor Louis and your precious blood as well

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

Poor King Louis, you'll soon be dead

Poor King Louis, far from your bed

TROUBLEMAKER

Far from your bed

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

Life must always end to start anew


Poor King Louis

It's over for you!

QUEEN

It's always the terror you can rely on

To eat its way into your heart

Like rust and there to spy on

The blood, the blade, the speeches made

That mingle in your very entrails

Scene 4

"Marie Antoinette - The Last Night on Earth"

[10] RINGMASTER

The widow now bereft, abhorred

Counts numbered fays the summer long

In Temple Prison with her spawn

On pretext of 'unnatural acts'

With jests and jibes and guile and facts

The 'sans culottes' prune the tree

Now a sister to the dispossessed

The halt, like maimed and all the rest

Like a leaf on a pitiless sea

Shorn of family and rank

Humbled in the dank air

She mingles with the dancers macabre

And the ghostly dancers twirl

In that dread minuet

And beggar the illusions of that little Austrian Girl

[11] QUEEN

Adieu my good and tender sister

I am condemned to die

My only regret is to abandon my children

My children, my God, how it tears me to leave them

My love for them was always first and last

My God, I miss my children so


Madame Antoine, if we could only turn back the clock

TO that garden in Vienna

MARIE THERESE & FEMALE CHORUS

Madame Antoine, Madame Antoine,

Mother is calling, darkness is falling

QUEEN

Monsieur, I know thee not


The oak tree without and the peach tree within

Your mother was calling

The darkness was falling

QUEEN

MY little cock robin pray kneel here beside me

The dance is about to begin


Courage Madame, in this great rebirth

Like wind-fallen fruit we return to the earth

QUEEN

I saw but a priest


I am but a man

Madame, please take my hand

QUEEN

Monsieur, please take my hand

Scene 5

"Liberty"

[12] TROUBLEMAKER

We want to get rid of the Guillotine

And abolish pain somehow

But to make a world free of tears

We build these scaffolds now

OFFICER

Come dry your tears and pray explain

How can we abolish pain?

If we don't build these scaffolds now

These instruments of injustice

These tools of execution


We've given to the Guillotine

More blood than you have ever seen

What end could justify these means?

OFFICER

We've given more of our blood

MALE CHORUS

We've given



MALE CHORUS

We've given

OFFICER


MALE CHORUS

More of our blood

CHORUS

We've given, we've given

More blood than we could turn to love

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & OFFICER

Than we could ever hope to turn to


Love


More blood, than we could

Ever hope could turn to love

CHORUS

We've given, we've given

More blood, than we could turn to love


Come angles of mercy

Come doves of peace

Shine a light on all these warring clubs and cliques

OFFICER

The jackal and hyena who prowl these city streets

Would turn in their own mother for a little extra meat


From the piles of dead the Republic comes to life

Her mutilated body reeling like a drunken fishwife

Gives birth to the future

OFFICER

Gives birth on the street

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, OFFICER & CHORUS

Impure and exultant she gives birth to the dream


When the dream


When the dream


Is understood


Is understood

RINGMASTER, REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & MARIE MARIANNE

That no man should live in chains

That the great and the small are equal after all

[13] RINGMASTER

And in the bushes where they survive

The winder hail and the slaughter

The birds were attacked by the dogs and the rats

Hiding round every corner


When you're a rat caught in a trap with not even cheese you get mean

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

But we are not rats

OFFICER

When you're a rabid dog you need to spread your disease

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

But we are not dogs


When you're a man and they say you should be an angel

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

We're not even human


When you're less than nothing


Less than nothing

REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, OFFICER & CHILDREN'S CHORUS

Less than nothing as sure as the sparrows sing

MARIE MARIANNE

If wishes give us power to make it all come right

If we could walk through mirrors

IF we could touch the light

We'd shrug off our illusions and what was left would be

Te strength and bravery

To feel what we feel

And be what we'd be...


Of all the woman none can hold a light to liberty


With wings to fly and eyes to see

TROUBLEMAKER & CHORUS

She's the one who loves us

The one that we adore

When you're laughing with the sun out

Or lying wounded in a dug out


With wings to fly and eyes to see

Freedom is her name

OFFICER

She makes a fearsome ally

If you stand up with no shame


But liberty is nothing if you love her on your knees


And liberty can't hear you when you're hanging from an olive tree!

RINGMASTER

If we don't founder in pursuit luxury

In forgetfulness of others needs

And in the depths of our own believes

MARIE MARIANNE

If we don't hide in that solitary dream

Safe in our shells

In respect for the powers that be

And in fear of our selves

CHILDREN'S CHORUS

If wishes could come true

If mirrors could be seen through

No more mystery

Only the strength and bravery

To help one another

To see what its like to be...

Happy!

No bird needs to be afraid

To leave his nest and to parade

Up and down the boulevard all day,

All day, all day!

No bird must be greedy

And eat up all the seed

'Til every bird has had enough,

Every bird

Be he rich or be he poor

Be he great or be he small

Every bird, every bird, every bird, every bird

Will go to the ball

RINGMASTER

If this life's a journey we take


If the secret the sharing cake

MARIE MARIANNE

Holds the key, holds the key to joy

RINGMASTER

And unlocks these doors inside


Where Republic must surely hide

MARIE MARIANNE

If wishes really could come true

RINGMASTER

If we see through the illusions


And abide by the constitution

MARIE MARIANNE

There'll be human rights for everyone

CHORUS

Unique and universal

COMPANY

For everyone

Under the sun!

RINGMASTER, REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, MARIE MARIANNE,

TROUBLEMAKER & OFFICER

If we are not lost in these towers of ivory

In respect for the strong

And in fear of our need to belong

The promise of Republic lies within

Ça Ira

COMPANY

Ça Ira!

Curtain

roger waters - ca ira (there is hope) - libretto

Documents

olive tree singing

fig tree singing

olive tree someones

olive tree marie marianne

pear tree someones

story of birds

marie marianne honest

madame antoine little