69 love songs a musical review in two acts

INTERMISSION

[Lovers exit. Lights up there is silence for a few minutes as audience is encouraged by MC to have a drink at the stage bar. VIDEO plays of an ocean scene of crashing waves. MC is serving drinks in bunny suit, band members get drinks and return playing music low.]

It makes you blind, it does you in

It makes you think you're pretty tough

It makes you prone to crime and sin

It makes you say thing off the cuff

It's very small and made of glass

and grossly over-advertised

It turns a genius into an ass

and makes a fool think he is wise

It could make you regret your birth

or turn cartwheels in your best suit

It costs a lot more than it's worth

and yet there is no substitute

They keep it on a higher shelf

the older and more pure it grows

It has no color in itself

but it can make you see rainbows

You can find it at the Bowery

or you can find it at Elaine's

It makes your words more flowery

It makes the sun shine, makes it rain

You just get what they put in

and they never put in enough

Love is like a bottle of gin

but a bottle of gin is not like love
[QUEEN OF THE SAVAGES played by the band]
VIVA [sings QUEEN OF THE SAVAGES]

My girl is the queen of the savages

She don't know this modern world

and its ravages

Instead of money she's

got yams and cabbages

She lives in a dome

I don't care if I never get home

My girl is the queen of the jungle folk

You should see the things

we see when we smoke

We think all of life is a funny joke

She's sharp as a tack

I don't care if I never get back

My girl is the queen of ten villages

We live on the fruits

of her pillages

She eats other queens,

she's very religious

She doesn't use a fork

I don't think I'll go back to New York
[Band plays a choice of songs possibly The sun goes down and the world goes dancing, Epitaph for my Heart, Kiss me like you mean it, It’s a Crime.

After a good 15 minute intermission MC (or special guest performer every night from local music scene) jumps on the bar, hops on the couch, swings on a rope, hugs two friend. THE NIGHT YOU CAN’T REMEMBER an Irish bar song]

Before you left your garrison

you'd had a drink, maybe two

You don't remember Paris, hon

but it remembers you

It's true, we flew to Paris, dear

aboard an Army jet

the night you can't remember

the night I can't forget

You said I was terrific, it

meant zilch to you, ah, but I

have our marriage certificate

'n I'll keep it till I die

You were an Army officer

and I just a Rockette

the night you can't remember

the night I can't forget

No rose conveyed your sentiments

not even a petunia

but you've got vague presentiments

and I've got little Junior

You said, Nobody loves me

and I said, wanna bet?

the night you can't remember

the night I can't forget
[Everyone in the cast & hopefully audience sings along as the song finishes. Lights signify Act II is going to begin.]

ACT II

Buy more stock in roses

Millionaires will always woo

Don't be shocked if

roses

make a millionaire of you

So.

All this.

It will pass over.
We have forgotten, that's all.

We have lost perspective.

We think

if only we will argue and argue and argue

someone will win

and then everything will be good.

But, obviously, this is absurd.

As my mother used to say,

I am sure your mother used to say,

honey will draw more flies than sugar.

Because a person likes to be desired and flattered

and wooed

to feel your desire for her

or him.

Why

Because they think the other person doesn't love them

or doesn't love them enough

or doesn't love them any more

or loves someone else.

Does a person want to yell and yell

and break up with their love?

No, of course not.

They want you to say: I love you

I love you

I have always loved you

and I always will

I love you with my whole heart

come to me

come to me

I love you.

you want to get their attention

so you seduce them a little bit

with a look

a manner

this sort of thing

and then it melts their heart

and so you are back together again.

A single rose in your garden dwells

Like any rose it's not itself

It is my love in your garden grows

but let's pretend it's just a rose

Well I'm sorry that I love you

It's a phase that I'm going through

There is nothing that I can do

and I'm sorry that I love you
BILLIE[in between chorus & next verse BILLIE swings out and asks audience]

Okay.

and you see a cute guy walking a dog.

Do you

pet the dog and smile at the dog

touch the guy on the arm and wink at the dog?

Do not listen to my song

Don't remember it, don't sing along

Let's pretned it's a work of art

Let's pretend it's not my heart...

(C)
MC[in between chorus & next verse]

The key is their favorite color

A guy who likes grey

is going to be your indecisive kind of guy.

Yellow, he's kind of passive,

maybe gay, you know,

I'm not saying necessarily,

just could be.

Your pink man is a philanderer

and a flirt.

But red:

he likes sex every way you can imagine

he's going to be a tiger in the sack.
KERI[sings]

The rose will fade when summer's gone

The song will fade and I'll be gone

because my heart is dying too

and it's all the same to you
[Song ends in a big hoe down blast off hoop-n-holler.

BILLIE & MIKE swing off together. JEAN & KERI remain.]

Sometimes people don’t want to fall in love.

Because when you love someone

it’s too late to set conditions.

You can’t say

I’ll love you if you do this

or I’ll love you if you change that

because you can’t help yourself

and then you have to live

with whoever it is you fall in love with

however they are

and just put up with the difficulties you’ve made for yourself

because true love has no conditions.

That’s why it’s so awful to fall in love.

KERI and JEAN dance--a long, long, sweet dance.

Autumn leaves begin to fall gently from the sky.]
BILLIE [sings ACCOUSTIC GUITAR]

Acoustic guitar, I'm gonna make you a star

Get your picture all over the world

Acoustic guitar, you can have your own car

Just bring me back my girl

She always loved the sound of your strum

You made her think maybe I wasn't so dumb

She tends to faint at the sound of a drum cause she's folk

so play and maybe she'll come

Acoustic guitar, how lovely you are

with your inlays of mother of pearl

Be a good guitar and you can go far

Just bring me back my girl

She always said that you were the one

who could make her move

her cute little bum

You understand where she's coming from

which I obviously don't

or she wouldn't be gone

Acoustic guitar, if you think I play hard

well, you could have belonged

to Steve Earle or Charo or Gwar

I could sell you tomorrow

so bring me back my girl

You'd better bring me back my girl
[BILLIE, as mysteriously as she appeared, is gone]
KERI

What would you like to do with me?

I’d like to kiss you.

Kiss you? But I don’t even know you.

Well, if you’d kiss me, then you’d know me.

Oh.

God.

JEAN whirls and throws himself to the ground again]

Goddammit.

Goddammit.

This is how it is.

Yes, this is how it is.

Goddammit!
[JEAN throws himself to the ground again;

MIKE hesitates a moment; then throws himself to the ground, too,

Imitating JEAN--not that he, MIKE, has any particular agenda about it.
Music.

Heavy guitar rock from male members of the band

MC enters, he sees JEAN and MIKE

and stands watching them out of curiosity.

JEAN and MIKE continue to throw themselves to the ground over and over as they talk/shout.]
JEAN

When I was a boy I thought

I had it made.

My coach said to me

you could be good.
MIKE

damned good

I had the instincts.

I could hit the ball.
MIKE

I could hit the ball.

I could run.

I could run

My dad played football.

My dad played football.

working along at this kind of rhythm

MIKE repeats the words of JEAN that are underlined;

and sometimes he can take just one thought, such as "jerk" or "big man"

and keep yelling it over and over while JEAN goes on with the rest of what he is saying; or sometimes he says it simultaneously with JEAN;

and, pretty soon,

MC joins in still in red dress,

yelling out the words and phrases that are underlined

sometimes simultaneously with JEAN and MIKE, or at different moments,

so it is a chaos of three talking at once,

but we can hear it because it is the same phrase repeated]
Then everybody told me

you’re just a jerk

this macho stuff

big man

and then I thought

my instincts are off

my instincts are all off

but they didn’t

so I hung out with these guys

it wasn’t what I had in mind

and all the fun had gone

pretty soon I couldn’t hit

I couldn’t catch

I was slowing down

while they yell the dialogue,

now MIKE and JEAN picking up phrases from MC to repeat;

although, with the music deafening now,

we can’t hear more than occasional words or phrases]
MC[shouting, as the action continues]

You should have gone to your dad

you think no one could understand

but you can talk about these things

to other men

because, these men,

they understand

because this is what it is to be a man

men know about this

because they have gone through it

and they remember

they know the pain,

they don’t want to talk about it

they try to hide it

but if you open up to them

they’ll open up right back

Girls are socialized

so they want a man to be older

take charge

have money

have status

while they play hard to get

and boys are taught to feel stupid

feel inferior

not as smart as girls

then hormones happen

a boy wants a girl

she plays hard to get

so a boy learns to

talk big

develop a line

take all the risk

hit on women

not take the answer no

look for younger women

go for status jobs

how do the women

handle men like this?

they get more hostile

more aloof

they wear high heels

they diet too much

they hate themselves

they blame the men

the men hate them

it's a vicious circle

it's a vicious circle

so fuck these women

fuck these women

I said to my dad

I don’t want to do this

this isn't me

I felt so ashamed

He said, what do you mean?

your friends out there

they’re doing it

they like it

just get in there

don’t be afraid

you can’t get hurt

if you get hurt

it doesn’t matter

that's how it is

you pick yourself up get on with it

what do you care

because you belong

but I never did belong

it never was for me

Little League never was for me
[The music is drowning out all the speech

VIDEO CLIMAXES makes electronic explosion and goes out

and finally, music comes to an end.

Silence.

MIKE and JEAN are weeping.

MC snatches up his dress from the ground and struts out in a huff.

MIKE kicks the ground over and over—releasing the last spasms of rage, like little aftershocks, to finally settle down.

JEAN watches him.

Finally, MIKE speaks very quietly.]

People think

it’s hard to be a woman;

but it’s not easy

to be a man,

the expectations people have

that a man should be a civilized person

of course I think everyone should be civilized

men and women both

but when push comes to shove

say you have some bad people

who are invading your country

raping your own wives and daughters

and now we see:

this happens all the time

all around the world

and then a person wants a man

who can defend his home

there's no such thing as good guys and bad guys

only guys

and they kill people

but if you are a man who doesn't want to be a bad guy

and you try not to be a bad guy

it doesn't matter

because even if it is possible to be good

and you are good

when push comes to shove

and people need defending

then no one wants a good guy any more

who can go to his target like a bullet

burst all bonds

his blood hot

howling up the bank

rage in his heart

screaming

with every urge to vomit

the ground moving beneath his feet

the earth alive with pounding

the cry hammering in his heart

like tanked up motors turned loose

with no brakes to hold them
this noxious world
and then when it’s over

suddenly

a man is expected to put it away

carry on with life

as though he didn’t have such impulses

or to know that, if he does

he is a despicable person

and so it may be that when a man turns to this violence

in his life

or in the midst of war

he should be esteemed for this

for informing his wife

about what it is that civilization really contains

the impulse to hurt side by side with the gentleness

the use of force as well as tenderness

the presence of coercion and necessity

because it has just been a luxury for her really

not to have to act on this impulse or even feel it

to let a man do it for her

so that she can stand aside and deplore it

whereas in reality

it is an inextricable part of the civilization in which she lives

on which she depends

that provides her a long life, longer usually than her husband,

and food and clothes

dining out in restaurants

and going on vacations to the oceanside

so that when a man turns it against her

he is showing her a different sort of civilized behavior really

that she should know and feel intimately

as he does

to know the truth of how it is to live on earth

to know this is part not just of him

but also of her life

not go through life denying it

pretending it belongs to another

rather knowing it as her own

feeling it as her own

feeling it as a part of life as intense as love

as lovely in its way as kindness

because to know this pain

is to know the whole of life

before we die

and not just some pretty piece of it

to know who we are

both of us together

this is a gift that a man can give a woman.

A cowboy hat and rope might drop from the ceiling or get thrown to JEAN from the wings.

VIDEO; Spaghetti Western image of a lone horse & rider silhouetted by the setting sun coming closer & closer as the song progresses.]
JEAN [sings PAPA WAS A RODEO to MIKE]

I like your twisted point of view, Mike

I like your questioning eyebrows

You've made it pretty clear what you like

It's only fair to tell you now

that I leave early in the morning

and I won't be back till next year

I see that kiss-me pucker forming

but maybe you should plug it with a beer cause
(C): Papa was a rodeo

Mama was a rock'n'roll band

I could play guitar and rope a steer

before I learned to stand

Home was anywhere with diesel gas

Love was a trucker's hand

Never stuck around long enough

for a one-night stand

Before you kiss me you should know

Papa was a rodeo

looks like a thousand swirling eyes

They make me think I shouldn't be here at all

You know, every minute someone dies

What are we doing in this dive bar

How can you live in a place like this

Why don't you just get into my car

and I'll take you away I'll take that kiss now, but...

(C)
[BILLIE enters unseen and looks on.]
And now it's 55 years later

We've had the romance of the century

After all these years wrestling gators

I still feel like crying

when I think of what you said to me...
MIKE [sings back to JEAN]

(C)
JEAN [Sings]

What a coincidence, your

Papa was a rodeo

too…
[Throughout the third verse JEAN circles closer to MIKE. JEAN ropes MIKE or places cowboy hat on him and they are about to kiss… Autumn leaves stop falling, there is a gust of wind.

MC enters singing wearing a bow tie and a silver sequined speedo.
MC [sings IT’S A CRIME]

(C): It's a crime to fall in love

heart and mind and soul in love It's a

crime to fall in love so hard so hard

I shouldn't have bothered cause you're just like all the others,

now I know and I won't do that again

I should have guessed that you'd be just like all the rest,

but now I know not to go through that again

I'm still crying all night and all day but if

I show it someone lock me away cause...
BILLIE & MC [sing]

(C)
MIKE[sings]

My Mama said gently, you can buy her a Bently,

but my child she'll only drive it away I didn't listen

cause my brain was missing and I only found it today

I was a man but now I'm only a child

and if it kills me I am going to smile because...
[Video plays lion taming footage and other taming beast scenes]
MIKE, MC, BILLIE, VIVA [sing]

(C)
ANDY[sings]

You won't be hearing from me anymore

cause I can't see through my tears anymore

If it takes years to be any more

than a jellyfish

I will not tell you this, becuase..
EVERYONE [sings]

(C)
[KERI comes from behind the bandstand, behind the couch, hangs from a rope from above and rips into YEAH OH YEAH on guitar. BILLIE grabs MIKES clothes, taunts him with them, and runs out. JEAN is left blindfolded and in a daze.]

KERI [sings mega rock ballad, Yeah! oh Yeah! to JEAN]

Are you out of love with me?

Are you longing to be free?

Do I drive you up a tree?

Yeah! Oh, yeah!

Do I drive you up the wall?

Do you dread every phone call?

Can you not stand me at all?

Yeah! Oh, yeah!

Though I need you more than air

is it true you just don't care?

Are you having an affair?

Yeah! Oh, yeah!

When we met I thought

money was everything

so I let you buy the house,

the car, the ring

but I can't take your perpetual whining

and you can't sing

I though if we live apart

we could made a brand-new start

Do you want to break my heart?

Yeah! Oh, yeah!

I've enjoyed making you

miserable for years

found peace of mind in

playing on your fears

How I loved to catch your gold

and silver tears, but now my dear

What a dark and dreary life

Are you reaching for a knife?

Could you really kill your wife?

Yeah! Oh, yeah!

Oh, I die, I die, I die!

So it's over, you and I

Was my whole life just a lie?

Yeah! Oh, yeah!

Piano begins softly for BUSBY BERKELY DREAMS.

MIKE stands center in the light of old 8mm movies of “Busby Berkeley Dreams” projected on the back wall. Only MIKE’s head & shoulders are lit so that his shadow is cast on the screen.]
MIKE [sings