Zombie Tap (from the Zombie musical, including Prelude)

 PRELUDE

(SPOTLIGHT on face of NARRATOR. Skeletal, ominous, grinning and clacking jaw. Hooded. The archetypal Death figure. Scythe, if you want)

NARRATOR’s PRELUDE:

I’ll give you some advice that I was taught once by a prodigy:

“Never trust a cannibal who wants to have you round for tea

And never give out favours to a man who lives in misery

He won’t know who to trust.”

You’ll find me in the breaths between the mutters of profanity.

I’m there inside your curses and your hallowed mediocrity,

And best of all for most of you, you’ll never get a sight of me

I watch you turn to dust.

Attractive though you think you are, your self-obsession just bores me,

I’m way past all that squelching silliness of sexuality,

My desiccated dreams are as repellent as morality.

Perhaps you smell their musk?

So here’s our tale of odious manipulative frippery,

Take time to check your chains are loose enough to clap our reverie.

Your prayers are out of date now. Are you burning for eternity

Beginning with our show?

And safe, still night, there is no time to talk of ravished royalty;

There is no underaged princess to sing to on her balcony,

No Capulets to copulate, no Montagues tonight. My fee

Is far too high, and, oh,

Oh, by the end of this torment, you’ll not have learned a thing, you see,

And if you’re wondering who granted me this rash authority

Just look into the mirror and consider this philosophy

I’m me, but even so

I think you probably know.

Keep up if you are slow.

This is the status quo:

I’m you

And you

And you

And maybe

You

Yes

You

(exit)

(Fade to black)

(syncopated flapper jazz, descending vocal melody by semitones, end of each (a capella and spoken) third line has either a clean ‘2-3-4’ break or a jazzy resolution back to the fifth then down to the root for start of next verse) I just realised it also sounds a bit like the verses of Something 4 the Weekend by SFA so that’s a good reference to the music if and when I write it bye ta

Spoken Word Intro over sust 7thish chord eg

F#CDGBF#

…and in the aftermath of the apocalypse, the nuclear winds that had blown destruction and death upon the planet whistled at their achievement before fading away

Left behind was darkness personified. A landscape where all withered; poisoned plumes of dust dulled the sky, and all was dead.

And yet, in the distance, something stirred; an underside revealed itself, inexorably belching in the face of this madness. An apparition, ghastly and neither live nor dead, began to snide into this new non-world. Ribboned and rotten skin flapped free upon its glistening, horrendous skull as the monster began to address a world in which all hope was gone, a world perhaps in which the monster was all that could ever stir, a cursed landscape where time and energy had curved in on themselves once and for all

And the monster said:

Come, come, whatever must you think of me?

I’m dancing out this rhythm on the skullbones of my enemies

And did I ever tell ya oh that all my best friends are cats?

I rue the day that you were ever sent to me

I’d rather have placenta and the comfort of lobotomy

Drooling in the horsehair of an armchair don’t seem so bad

My feet are cursed, you know my friend it seems to me

They’re twitching of their own accord, and oh it feels to me

That all they want to do is kick on their heels and tap

Watch this:

(Zombie tap solo)

Soft shoe, a tribal-toed technology

Resounding through the ages to the beatcount of eternity

Listen to my syncopated motivated running flaps

Dear dead Fred Astaire is watching carefully

I put him in a spiky cage so he could see me properly

Hot-step, time-step, paradiddle, hot and fast

His grave is burnt, I have to say that one was me,

I couldn’t have him coming back to life again to challenge me

There can only ever be a-one-king of tap

It’s me!

(zombie tap solo)

Fade Out:

Ya-da, da-da-da-da- daddle-dee

Diddle-didlle-diddy ba-pa-da-pa-da-pa-dappadee

One two three four, now you’re getting good at that

Ta-ta, tiddle-tiddle-taddle-tee

Bapadaba-dibble-dibble-scabadabadabadee

That’s right now, let your feet ring out the scat

Zing zang, zatadata batadee,

Zig zag, rag-tag skiffle shuffle clickadee

Join with me forever in the dancing of the zombie tap

Verse 1: maj7 shape on EAD, starting on F# and up by semintones x3

2: C maj shape on ADGBE, start C, James Bond C-C#-D#C# x3

3 back to V1 add B7shape plus maj 3^rd little finger on G string. Syncopate rhythm around that for a few bars (ie stop time, for the zombie tap solo)

Same again, except longer solo and mess about with some other chords like D (maj7 add MIN 3rd). All is in 4/4 but lots of space for tapping solo, and interjections on offbeats – different ones each time – with the music.

Then into 3^rd section as before, repeat 3^rd (zing zang), maybe with syncopated stop time tutti at the end, strong and final ba-ba-baba-BA! Type thing

Underneath the Zing Zang some spoken word:

And things began to stir, and bones creaked, and the grounds cracked from below as an army of tattered, sightless, crumpled and undead heathen awoke

And as the earth span ever faster on its axis toward the sun that would soon engulf it, this batallion of zombies roared and rampaged and tapdanced in a perfect Fibonnaci sequence

And the ancient one, Barbelo herself, saw what her son had done, and at the last, forgave God the sins he had wreaked on a world he lost control of within hours of creation. Maybe the lad was learning, after all.