Ragtime Lyrics

(Darkness. We hear the sound of a doorknob turning and a door swinging open.)

1. RAGTIME (Opening)

(We see the silhouette of THE LITTLE BOY as he stands in the shaft of light from the open door.

THE LITTLE BOY's footsteps echo as he walks down the shaft of light to a stereopticon viewer on the floor. He picks it up and brings it to his eyes.

Two scrims, each with an image of a large Victorian house, its inhabitants and neighbours, descend, merge and leap into three-dimension.) 

THE LITTLE BOY
In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview 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.

(People of New Rochelle are revealed.)

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE
The skies were blue and hazy
Rarely a storm. Barely a chill.

WOMEN
La la la la la...

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE
The afternoons were lazy, Everyone warm. Everything still.

MEN
La la la la la...

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE
And there was distant music
Simple and somehow sublime
Giving the nation
A new syncopation
The people called it Ragtime!

(FATHER steps forward, a strong, commanding figure.)

FATHER
Father was well-off. Very well-off. His considerable income was derived from the manufacture of fireworks and bunting and other accoutrements of patriotism. Father was also something of an amateur explorer.

(MOTHER steps forward, a gracious, appealing woman.)

MOTHER
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.

YOUNGER BROTHER
Mother's Younger Brother worked at Father's fireworks factory. He was a genius at explosives. But he was also a young man in search of something to believe in. His sister wondered when he would find it.

GRANDFATHER
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.

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE
The days were gently tinted
Lavender pink, lemon and lime.

MOTHER
Ladies with parasols.

YOUNGER BROTHER
Fellows with tennis balls

FATHER
There were gazebos, and...
(Spoken) There were no Negroes. 

PEOPLE OF HARLEM
And everything was Ragtime!

1b. RAGTIME (Harlem)

(COALHOUSE WALKER, JR. is playing for a lively crowd of dancers.)

PEOPLE OF HARLEM
Listen to that Ragtime!

COALHOUSE
In Harlem, men and women of colour 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.

SARAH
One young woman thought Coalhouse played just for her. Her name was Sarah.

PEOPLE OF HARLEM
Oooooh...

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
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 with Negroes who lived less than exemplary lives.

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE
Ladies with parasols,
Fellows with tennis balls.
There were no Negroes
And there were no immigrants. 

(IMMIGRANTS are in a line to board a rag ship bound for America. 

TATEH and THE LITTLE GIRL join them. They, to, are, poorly clothed and undernourished. THE LITTLE GIRL is the same age as THE LITTLE BOY. TATEH looks old and we will think he is THE LITTLE GIRL's grandfather.) 

TATEH
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. 

(HARRY HOUDINI appears above the crowd)

LITTLE BOY
Houdini! Look, it's Houdini!

CROWD
Ooh...aah!
Ooh...aah! 

(HOUDINI spins in the air. He throws the strait jacket to the crowd below. HOUDINI'S MOTHER frees him.) 

HOUDINI
Harry Houdini was one immigrant who made an art of escape. He was a headliner in the top vaudeville circuits. 

(HOUDINI'S MOTHER points with pride) 

HOUDINI'S MOTHER
Ich bin die Mutter des grossen Houdinis!

HOUDINI
He made his mother proud. But for all his achievements, he knew he was only an illusionist. He wanted to believe there was more...
(He notices THE LITTLE BOY.)
Hello, Sonny

THE LITTLE BOY
Warn the Duke!

HOUDINI
What did you say? 

(CROWD silently applauds. The moment is broken as HOUDINI is enveloped by his crowd of admirers.)

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE
And there was distant music
Changing the tune, changing the time.

PEOPLE OF HARLEM
Giving the nation
A new syncopation

ALL
La la la

MEN
La, la, la, la...

J.P. MORGAN
Certain men make a country great.

HENRY FORD
They can't help it.

MORGAN
At the very apex of the American pyramid --

FORD
--that's the very tip-top!--

MORGAN
--like Pharaohs reincarnate, stood J.P. Morgan.

FORD
And Henry Ford.

MORGAN
All men are born equal.

FORD
But the cream rises to the top.

EMMA GOLDMAN
Let me at those sons of bitches! These men are the demons who are sucking your very souls dry! I hate them!

MORGAN
Someone should arrest that woman!

(MORGAN and FORD move away.)

EMMA GOLDMAN
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.

(EVELYN NESBIT appears, dressed in her costume from MAMZELLE CHAMPAGNE.)

1c. RAGTIME (Evelyn)

EVELYN NESBIT
La la la la
La la la la la
Whee!

EMMA
But America was watching another drama.

EVELYN NESBIT
Evelyn Nesbit was the most beautiful woman in America. If she wore her hair in curls, every woman wore her hair in curls.

STANFORD WHITE
Her lover was the eminent architect, Stanford White, designer of the Pennsylvania Station on 33rd Street.

HARRY K. THAW
Her husband, the eccentric millionaire, Harry K. Thaw, was a violent man.

EVELYN
After her husband shot her lover, Evelyn became the biggest attraction in vaudeville since Tom Thumb.

(The music grows eerie, echoing.)

NEW ROCHELLE WOMEN
La la la la la 

(THAW takes aim at WHITE with a small revolver.) 

MEN
Bang!

NEW ROCHELLE WOMEN
La la la

MEN
Bang!

NEW ROCHELLE WOMEN
La

MEN
Bang!

(EMMA GOLDMAN steps forward.)

1d. RAGTIME (Emma Windup)

EMMA GOLDMAN
And although the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906...

ALL
And there ninety four years to go!

EMMA
Whee!

ALL
And there was music playing,
Catching a nation in its prime
Beggar and millionaire
Everyone, everywhere!
Moving to the Ragtime!

1e. RAGTIME (Dance)

(The dance swirls around our three principals--MOTHER, TATEH and COALHOUSE--increasing in intensity. BLACKS, WHITES and IMMIGRANTS find themselves in moments of contact or confrontation; there is the potential for violence. The dance swells to a crescendo.) 

1f. RAGTIME (Conclusion)

And there was distant music
Skipping a beat, singing a dream

WOMEN
La la la la la 

ALL
A strange, insistent music
Putting out heat, picking up steam

MEN
La la la la la

ALL
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!