Broadway Cast Recording & Stephen Flaherty
Broadway Cast Recording & Stephen Flaherty - Prologue: Ragtime lyrics
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In 1902, Father built a house at the crest of The Brodview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York And it seemed for some years thereafter That all the family's days would be warm and fair The skies were blue and hazy Rarely a storm, barely a chill The afternoons were lazy Everyone warm, everything still And there was distant music Simple and somehow sublime Giving the nation a new syncopation The people called it ragtime Father was well-off, very well-off His considerable income was derived from The manufacture of fireworks and bunting Other accouterments of patriotism Father was also something of an amateur explorer The house on the hill in New Rochelle was Mother's domain She took pleasure in making it comfortable for the men of her family And often told herself how fortunate she was to be so protected And provided for by her husband Mother's younger brother worked at Father's fireworks factory He was a genius at explosives, he was also a young man In search of something to believe in His sister wondered when he would find it Grandfather had been a professor of Greek and Latin Now retired and living with his daughter and her family He was thoroughly irritated by everything The days were gently tinted Lavender pink, lemon and lime Ladies with parasols Fellows with tennis balls There were gazebos And there were no Negroes And everything was ragtime Listen to that ragtime In Harlem, men and women of color forgot their troubles And danced and reveled to the music of Coalhouse Walker, Jr This was a music that was theirs And no one else's One young woman thought Coalhouse played just for her Her name was Sarah Booker T. Washington was the most famous Negro in the country He counseled friendship between the races And spoke of the promise of the future He had no patience for Negroes who lived less than exemplary lives Ladies with parasols Fellows with tennis balls There were no Negroes And there were no immigrants In Latvia, a man dreamed of a new life for his little girl It would be a long journey, a terrible one He would not lose her as he had her mother His name was Tateh, he never spoke of his wife The little girl was all he had now Together, they would escape Houdini Look it's Houdini Ohh aah Ohh aah Harry Houdini was one immigrant Who made and art of escape He was a headliner in the top Vaudeville circuits Ich bin die Mutter des grossen Houdinis He mad his Mother proud But for all his achievements He knew he was only an illusionist He wanted to believe there was more Hello, sonny Warn the Duke What did you say? And there was distant music Changing the tune, changing the time Giving the nation a new syncopation Certain men make a country great They can't help it At the very apex of the American Pyramid That's the very tip-top Like Pharoahs reincarnate, stood J.P. Morgan And Henry Ford All men are born equal But the cream rises to the top Let me at those sons of bitches These men are the demons who are sucking your very souls dry I hate them Someone should arrest that woman The radical anarchist Emma Goldman Fought against the ravages of American capitalism As she watched her fellow immigrants' hopes Turn to despair on the Lower East Side But America was watching another drama Evelyn Nesbit was the most beautiful woman in America If she wore her hair in curls, every woman wore her hair in curls Her lover was the eminent architect, Stanford White Designer of the Pennsylvania Station on 33rd street Her husband, the eccentric millionaire, Harry K. Thaw Was a violent man After her husband shot her lover Evelyn became the biggest attraction in Vaudeville since Tom Thumb Bang Bang Bang And although the newspapers called the shooting 'The crime of the century', Goldman knew it was only 1906 And there were ninety-four years to go And there was music playing Catching a nation in its prime Beggar and millionaire Everyone, everywhere Moving to the ragtime And there was distant music Skipping a beat, singing a dream A strange, insistent music Putting out heat, picking up steam The sound of distant thunder Suddenly starting to climb It was the music of something beginning An era exploding, a century spinning In riches and rags and in rhythm and rhyme The people called it ragtime Ragtime, ragtime, ragtime