All: Sadie, won’t you be mine?
(Brief musical break)
SADIE: I can’t
Cause there’s something in me
Extant
Like a bird that is free
I want romance and loving
But I can’t forego
This endless urge for gaily roving
I would
If I could but I can’t
So I won’t
So you see if you rant
Forever
Forever and a day
I would always be compelled to say “nay, nay”
For I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
ALL MEN: (Get up and do simple movements while singing)
Sadie
I love you so, I love you so, I love you so-O-o-oh
Sadie
How well you know, how well you know, how well you know
Why don’t you flee with me
To faraway places
Kick off the traces
Bay-hay-hay-hay-hay-bee
Sadie
I’m in despair
I never met another
That I’d rather make a mother
Than Sadie
Be my lady Mi-ne
(Now they go into a dance routine while Sadie watches. When their routine is almost over, Johnny (as the hero) comes on stage right reading a book. He does not notice her but she pretends to draw him in by pulling her fingers magically towards the bench so that he follows them and sits down at the other end of the bench. The men see this when they are finished and making various signs of heartbreak they break up into little groups.)
SADIE: (Casts little side glances and then clears her throat. He looks at her but then back at his book. She frowns and then smiles. She drops her handkerchief on the ground. He does not notice and she picks it up with a frown with the end of her umbrella. Then she draws it through the air and he smells the perfume on it. He looks up at her.)
Won’t you come a little closer
Little closer, sir to me,
If you do then you will know, sir,
What the meaning is of ecstasy
I promise not to bite your head off
I’m as gentle as can be
So won’t you move a little closer, closer
Little closer, sir, to me.
JOHNNY: (coolly)
Whether it’s December or it’s June
I’m immune
From nature and her tricks
From winsome smiles
and girlish wiles
From sparkling eyes
And breathless sighs
And all the things that mix
A fellows mind until he doesn’t know
If there is snow
Or grass upon the ground
So all your invitations
To the rest may be occasions
But this boy has been around.
SADIE: (Moves closer and sings. He tries to read but by the end of the song he does what she asks.)
You’ve never kissed me.
You’ve never known me
You’ve never held me
Close in your arms.
You’ve never kissed me
Because I’ve never flown
So I could always be
Close to your charms.
So if you kiss me
And I will know if it’s true
That I will never see
More than friendship from you.
So as it narrows down
There’s only one guarantee
That I meant nothing to you
And that’s for you-to-kiss-me.
(She is right by him and gives him a long lingering kiss.)
JOHNNY: (Sits dumbly on the bench staring ahead. Then he starts to sing weakly.)
I didn’t know what I was talking about
I hadn’t the slightest idea that I’d find
Romance so exciting
So wonderfully rare
That my heart would be fighting
To jump out of the frigid-air.
If I had once ever suspected that love
Could sail any heart in the blue shy above,
I’d have given up the struggle
And let my locked heart out
I didn’t know what I was talking about.
Sadie. I love you. Marry me.
SADIE: I can’t.
JOHNNY: Why?
SADIE: I don’t know. There’s just something holding me back.
(She begins to sing “I Can’t” and Johnny joins in with her. Both songs are sung in unison per lead sheet. While they sing – towards the end of the song – a Spaniard comes walking out onto stage right with sombrero, guitar, bright sash, et al. Johnny does not notice him until the end of the song, the Spaniard offers her his hand and she smiles, rises and walks off at left upstage.)
JOHNNY: (Looks dazed at this occurrence. He stares at where they have exited and then gets up. He wanders over to where all the men are watching. He looks at them, and shrugs his shoulders with his arms raised, palms up.) I don’t get it.
ALL: (Ala “Good Evening Friends”) You never will…
JOHNNY: (He sits down on another bench and stares at the stage.)
ALL: (Group around him and start singing to the tune of “Come a Little Closer”… with changes for difference in meter of words.)
Welcome to the club we call it
Those who’ve sat too close incorporate
If a fellow flops at love, then he
Should do well in our fraternity
We’re the flotsam and the jetsam
On the sea of sweet romance
We’re the guys who sat too close to Sadie
And only got a kick in the pants.
(They take him in their midst and all exit stage right as Sadie and the Spaniard come on stage left, arm in arm. She sits down on the bench and he kneels before it.)
SPANIARD: Senorita where I come from
This can only mean one thing.
You and I are going to marry
I’ll go now to get the ring.
We will live in hacienda
We will eat tortilla beans.
We will raise a great big family.
That’s what this means
(He gets up and they start dancing to “Sadie” in a tango beat. At the end of the dance she kisses him lightly, and he falls back in a faint to be caught by two chorus men, who have rushed on stage just at the right moment. They drag him off stage right. Sadie wanders over to bench and sits down, arranging her hair and primping. At this point a very well dressed Englishman with a monocle and all the graces comes on from left upstage. He walks over to her in a manner that indicates he expects to be knighted or at least to ascent very shortly. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket, puts it down carefully and kneels down gingerly.)
ENGLISHMAN:
I’ve crossed the Atlantic Ocean
To extend my propositions
I think that we’d be happy
Under marital conditions
Sadie, please marry me
Sadie please say you’ll be
The Lady Sadie Tudor Fitzhugh the Seventh
or is it the eleventh
I really cannot recall
But Sadie I promise you.
That half of our children’s blood will be absolutely blue.
For I’m extremely wealthy
And my family quite healthy
So dear Sadie
Be my lady mine.
(He rises carefully and they dance a waltz to the melody of “Sadie.” At the end she kisses him. He gives a loud English laugh, passes out and is carried off right downstage by two chorus members, who again have appeared just in time.)
SADIE: (Repeats her performance that happened after she kissed the Spaniard.)
(Enter a Russian dressed boldly and extravagantly. He comes on stage left with long strides and throws himself before her.)
RUSSIAN: Sadie, won’t you be mine
Sadie, you’re looking fine
I think that you will be an adequate modder
I’ll be the fodder
Let’s be off for the Kremlin.
Sadie, your life will be
Full of sweet ecstasy
Cause you’ve never been kissed
Til you’ve been kissed by a Communist
Sadie be my laddie mine.
(He starts to dance violently and at the end of the dance he is so tired that he collapses and is dragged off the stage.)
SADIE: (Sighs and leans back on the bench. The lights grow dimmer as if it were later in the day. She starts to sing slowly and unhappily. As she sings, the chorus men, Johnny and the other
three slowly come out and hum in the background, as they stand there looking at her.)
There doesn’t seem to be
anyone for me
I guess it’s all because
of my perversity.
But I keep searching
Hoping that I’ll find
The man who fills my dreams
Fills my searching mind.
So I’ll go on and on
Reaching for a star (she starts off stage)
And breaking hearts because
That’s what hearts are for.
I know I’m callous inside
I haven’t denied
It’s true
But I will search for my dre-am
Until I can see him
Until I can really know.
(She stands for a moment at the edge of the stage left downstage. Then after they all sing slowly “Sadie we love you sooooo,” she twirls her parasol a little and exits.)
(Curtain)
* * * *
Also indicated in the schedule for Act II are the three songs I put under Act I. Four if you add the following. (I played a dance number to this melody in Act I.)
MY HEART TELLS ME DIFFERENT
I can try to say
that your going away
didn’t do a thing to me
But my heart tells me different.
Tells me differently
I can make believe
that I never will grieve
for a love that cannot be
but me heart tells me different
tells me differently (You thought I couldn’t spell. Ha-ha to you.)
You can’t ever argue
with a beat that can drag you down
and walk all over your dreams
You ain’t got a chance
If you play with romance
to extremes.
And when sometimes I find
that I really don’t mind
for a moment I’m almost free
Then my heart tells me different
Different – Differently.
Not too bad a lyric. And the music is rather interesting. Too bad I can’t remember where they went.
* * * *
One more song before I left M.U. in June ’49 with a bachelor of journalism degree.
To Mary.
MARY
You meet her.
You smile and hold her hand
and you greet her.
You start to understand
that you’ve never
met anyone like her before.
Her style is
the soul of style that wins you
Her smile is
the kind that makes your heart
begin to beat
as it never would beat before
and she has eyes
that sparkle and shine for you
with her embrace around you
The corner she holds
is always brighter
because she brings sunshine
in beside her
Who loves her
is hardly to blame
And Mary is her name.
To repeat myself, I should have been nicer to her. She was a warm, affectionate human being. I have not forgotten her.
* * * *
After I returned to Brooklyn, I continued writing songs. Why, I don’t know. I had no market for them. I did have a market for my story writing which I now concentrated on. I sold a couple of short-shorts before moving to Los Angeles in 1951. I remember my friend Spencer commenting in awe as we ambled down a Manhattan street, “Fifty dollars for a short story! Wow!”
That kind of awe diminished for us as time progressed.
But the song writing went on. The lyrics – as usual – fluctuated between positive and negative. (Which, in brief, probably reflected my mind.)
WITHOUT ROMANCE
(In D-flat minor no less. Five flats!)
Without romance
The world would be empty
Without romance
the world would be cold. (Partially positive)
For only love can make
a dream for you.
And only love can make
That dream come true.
And though you find
That love isn’t easy
who love are blind
Your heart will be told
But with no one to care
you haven’t a chance
of finding happiness
without romance.
Well, the music is pretty cool. D-flat minor? Good God. And still, I kept going.
PITY MY HEART
Verse:
Love is just
an up and down affair
Fluctuating night and day
Love is always
unpredictable
alternating sad and gay. (It meant something different in those days.)
Chorus:
Pity my heart
for the time it’s had
Please, darling
Pity my heart
All of the rounds
from glad to sad (Negative)
My heart has known form the start.
Please treat it gently.
It’s not very strong
after the treatment
it’s had all along
And the worst time of all
is when we’re apart.
So be kind and
pity my heart.
How lugubrious can you get? I get close.
* * * *
The next one was better. More Cole Porterish.
BLUE TEMPTATION
Verse:
Night! Stars!
Shining in a dark blue sky!
Love! Ours!
Breathless moments
Passing by!
Chorus:
The night
is blue temptation
When you are in my arms.
I yield
to blue temptation
that finds its meaning
in your charms.
And here we are together
as we were meant to be
And all those magic
moments of bliss
Will always remain with me
Blue temptation!
A bit more positive. As was:
ANYTIME
Anytime
any one
wants to smile at me
I’ll be more than glad
to smile right back again
Any clime
In the sun
or in the rain
I’ll be more than glad
to smile right back at them
For a smile
doesn’t cost you a thing
It’s free
and the market is good
supply and demand
don’t agree
for smiles
are as scarce as can be
So my friend
it’s the easiest
thing you can do
but that little smile
makes life worthwhile
for you
That little smile
can make life
worthwhile for you!
At the end of that song I wrote finis. I love it
. Delightfully gauche.
* * * *
My next two songs went downhill again.
I TRIED TO SMILE
Verse:
I can smile at a movie
Laugh at a pun
Always enjoy
some casual fun.
There’s only one thing
I can’t do
Summon a smile
when they talk about you.
Chorus:
I tried to smile.
Act unconcerned.
I tried to hide
How much I yearned.
To have you back again
To hold you near.
And never let you go
But only know
That you were always there.
I tried to smile
The sham is poor
My mind and I
Just can’t ignore
the lovely constancies
of memories
that linger all the while
My heart showed through
When I tried to smile.
And:
THE BEAT IS BLUE
Verse:
There’s the beat
of the jungle tom-tom
When the tropical day
is through
There’s the beat of rain
On the window pane
And the beat of my heart
for you
Chorus:
But the beat is blue
yes, the beat is blue
The beat should be gay
and forever should stay
that way
but the beat is blue
Oh, the beat is blue.
It should constantly be
Something vibrant and free
But for me
The beat, yeas the beat is blue.
In the night
When the light
has died.
It will steal
and reveal
what’s inside
It is hopeless to try
and evade it.
For after all
it’s your own heart
that made it.
Oh, that beat of blue
Endless beat of blue
The intricate plays
of romance and its ways
will last
with the beat of blue
When the beat is blue.
When the beat is blue
And the beat is blue!
* * * *
One more. I couldn’t seem to stop.
Lyrics Page 3
