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out of date now.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 3rd 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 3rd
section as before, repeat 3rd (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.
