ESCALATOR OVER THE HILL
COMPLETE LIBRETTO

by PAUL HAINES

---------
THIS IS HERE...
---------

PHANTOMS:
	[again]

	'mindsweepers'

MULTIPLE PUBLIC MEMBERS:
	O...

VOICE:
	Whatever it is -

MPM:
	O...

VOICE:
	- can't have a name -

MPM:
	Lord -

VOICE:
	- since it makes no difference
	what you call it

VOICE & MPM:
	- Edgar!

	'orchestra'

CALLIOPE BILL:
	So late there is light
	at the edge of the lake.
	Bullfrogs are
	having their throats
	cut.
	You pick hysters -
	Hys -

LION:
	Hysterically at
	your memory.

	'flies'

VIVA:
	Tell the scheme to you?
	Who grow on us like falling hair?
	O Rawalpindi.

MUTANT:
	It's again.

	'bullfrogs'
_________________
_________________
CECIL CLARK'S OLD HOTEL
------------
LIKE ANIMALS
(in the courtyard)
------------

DOCTOR:
	It's in the lobby
	of Cecil Clark's
	that people raised
	for one thing
	like cows
	for milk
	and chickens
	for legs
 	vote for something
	weak
	and to the point
	Riding the escalator
	over the hill

	Vote for something
	weak
	and to the point

---------
ESCALATOR OVER THE HILL
(in the lobby)
---------

CECIL CLARK:
	People who never
	tell anyone anything
	always
	just letting them know
	flooding memory with pumps
	talented teams of onions
	inside the goal
	of the mouth
	itself

ROOMER:
	Escalator over the hill

OPERASINGER:
	Thickening old hotel
	doubletalk with single
	entendre
	the giggling fly
	of a flashing
	pajama
	longed for pleasure
	lost forever
	to a flashing
	that insists
	on a new
	yodelling
	ventriloquist

MEN:
	Escalator over the hill
	Again no choice
	for the poor pale house

ANCIENT ROOMER:
	Riding uneasily

CECIL CLARK & OPERASINGER:
	Over the hill
	Over the hill
	Over the hill

	'hotel lobby band'

Direct pulse
passes by
darts in limiting
the system
all green within
all pale with go
a whistling echo
all for fun
from Sinclair's
blue magic gun

HOTELPEOPLE:
	Escalator over the hill
	Again no choice
	for the poor pale house
	Riding uneasily
	Over the hill
	Over the hill
	Over the hill

---------
STAY AWAKE
---------

	'phantom music'

LEADER:
	Stay awake
	please stay awake

	Stay awake
	please stay awake!

	Please
	stay
	awake!
(accosted by voice)
	Awa -

LOUDSPEAKER:
	Don't keep saying that!

VIVA:
	Only flies in the room giggling
	will appear fo have changed
	as unused women lie uneasily
	in Cecil Clark's old hotel.

---------
GINGER AND DAVID
(in the room)
---------

ROOMER:
	Watery-blue they lie and are lied to.

USED WOMAN:
	Good David the curator is good for her
	Trained for things to come

ROOMER:
	Paid to keep a shirt on his back

CECIL CLARK:
	And his back turned

NURSE:
	Pale Ginger living off premises
	A long walk in the cold

USED WOMAN:
	A sickman she'd sought for the night
	to fuck her to sleep

CECIL CLARK & LEADER:
	To an insisting - 

USED WOMAN:
	Together burdening with belief -

NURSE:
	Amid loudspeakers -

CLARK & LEADER:
	- repellent flash -

WOMAN:
	- their feather-brained pillows -

NURSE:
	- and temporary -

CLARK & LEADER:
	- the flash a nasty thing

WOMAN:
	- two living coldly as one.

NURSE:
	- light.

CLARK & LEADER:
	- Done to time. The man kind.

WOMAN:
	To show she would say she could see
	what that had to do with reality
	without flashing.

---------
SONG TO ANYTHING THAT MOVES
---------

	'hotel lobby band'

It's a long story.
I'm getting dressed.

VIVA:
	Like animals

---------
EOTH THEME
---------

	'hotel lobby band'

_________________
_________________
OFF PREMISES
---------

Two skins better than one
no skin better than none.

---------
BUSINESSMEN
(in the music hall)
---------

JACK:
	Businessmen deeply awake
	sleeping like spinning tops
	corner the smalltown mastoid market
	their uvulas hopping mad
	beneath boney earache profits
	punished by being kept alive
	sure of the past at last
	always a little sorry
	about reality

JACK I (an issue forever):
	Worshipping whatever they find
	at their feet

JACK II:
	Suspicion bursting innocently

I & II:
	upon the guilty

	'Jack's traveling band'

Are they looking for something
they can't find
or are they looking for something
they haven't got?

	'phantom music'

Impatience's high patience
politics nothing to look at
when someone is talking to you.

JACK I:
	Drifting into hypnosis -

JACK II:
	Outstaring the therapist to outstare -

I:
	- eyelids cataleptic -

II:
	- the therapist or so it would seem -

I:
	- widely open and fixed -

II:
	- bodies so tired they can't come clean -

I:
	- raging pale with endurance -

II:
	- all insurance a murder plot -

I:
	- all the way to the hill

II:
	- a goat not something easily got

I & II:
	The sun deeper and deeper in debt
	exposing their rancidly calm minds
	to moonlight.

---------
GINGER AND DAVID THEME
---------

	'orchestra'

It wasn't all she wrote
she didn't write.


---------
WHY
---------

GINGER (given over to His Friends):
	Why
	has never been
	too good to you
	so you show aloud
	what why
	never did for you
	and wait.
	Star bright
	star bright
	where is the night?

HIS FRIENDS:
	We get our water
	and you get yours.

GINGER:
	David
	lying there chewing
	in bed a string
	knotted about his neck
	what is there
	for an escalator
	to bring to him?
	His fears
	as unnatural
	as he was able
	his mind
	a chair
	looking
	for the table
	his stomach full of worms
	his head full of

GINGER & HIS FRIENDS:
	other people's stomachs.

HIS FRIENDS:
	Here comes the lamb.

GINGER:
	Nurses dyeing their hair
	don't care
	if the horse is locked
	the house still there.
	It doesn't seem
	to matter to them
	the traces
	of horses
	and pineapple
	and cheese
	so many ingredients
	in the soup

HIS FRIENDS (on their sides):
	No room for a spoon.

Dreams as long as roads

GINGER:
	Don't let no five and dime baby
	wreck your million dollar heart
	your million dollar heart!

LION:
	It's not what you can say
	It's not what you can see
	It's not what you can do

	It's not what you do say
	It's not what you do see
	It's not what you do do

_________________
_________________
CECIL CLARK'S
---------
DETECTIVE WRITER DAUGHTER
(in the courtyard)
---------

JACK:
	Detective writer of English
	she was once the Queen of Sweden.

	Her father's horse was something like a house
	Dad was a German where they lived.

	One time the leader was murdered
	and they all threw fits
	harmonious with the times.
	
	Everybody in the house was sick
	Their faces were like that.

LEADER:
	All everybody saw was one thing
	and it kept looking at them.

JACK or LEADER:
	Everything was comfortable beforehand
	Things were melancholy and industrial.

	Ginger hoped never to see that pale house again
	She was tired of people disliking her
	for how interesting she was.

While in the street
there's Ginger
wagging her tail
between my legs
(the only lesson
I've learned
is the one
I'm learning)
and in the street
there are goats
and horses
and there are cars
with horns.

LEADER:
	She had a hard time forgetting the house

JACK:
	Everybody it seemed was killing horses.

VIVA:
	Smalltown agonist for whom exactness
	is that which hair is flesh to
	He influences her to suit his character.

---------
DOCTOR WHY
(in the hallway of her room)
---------

JACK:
	Clear
	vacancy
	Clear
	everything's all right
	Clear
	Everything's just fine
	the doctor is here
	and they're getting
	the head back in.

GINGER:
	Nurses dyeing their hair
	don't care
	if the horse is locked
	the house still there.
	It doesn't seem
	to matter to them
	the traces
	of horses

GINGER & JACK:
	and pineapple
	and cheese
	so many ingredients
	in the soup

(on the hardwood floor)

	No room for a spoon.

---------
SLOW DANCE (Transductory Music)
---------

	'orchestra'

Little pony soldier
is
all wall
protected by a wall

Of all the awful
things
that could fall
on him

He didn't know if
he was insane
or if he was
behind the time.

Behind the wall
his downfall was his
getting.

It's...

---------
SMALLTOWN AGONIST
---------

DAVID (lying there chewing in bed
a string knotted about his neck):
	Ginger pleading
	given over to His Friends
	who choose for her everything
	he would want them to do
	Everything around in circles
	and some things even seeming to
	drying up on their sides

ROOMER:
	Or slowly coming to grips
	with being grabbed by the lips

DAVID:
	Ginger thinking flies -

NURSE:
	All green within

DAVID:
	- Ginger seeing flies take off
	just to land -

NURSE:
	All pale with go

DAVID:
	- on her wholewheat baby body -

NURSE:
	A whistling echo

DAVID:
	- an isolated thread
	tied to face blood

	Some socialist stationwagon solution

DOCTOR:
	Mastering whims in the meadow
	or in hotels next to men
	who own them
	packed so tightly in their skins

ROOMER:
	Hear the crowd to words
	Feel the arrogance to solutions
	scream the loss in situations

DAVID:
	Ginger bites them
	to isolate qualities
	before they got ignored
	She'd close her eyes
	while opening up the door
	and waste no costly muscles guessing
	by biting anyone on the bathroom floor

THERAPIST:
	Day after day after day

DAVID:
	Making dogs

NURSE I:
	E pluribus unum

DAVID:
	Making do

NURSE II:
	E pluribus unum

NURSE I:
	E pluribus unum

NURSE II:
	E pluribus unum

DAVID:
	Making money

NURSE I:
	E pluribus unum

	'orchestra'

Little pony soldier
for whom time
is the mind of the universe
backing up to park on him

DAVID:
	Selling nude photographs
	of Joe DiMagio.

_________________
_________________
IN THE MEADOW OR IN HOTELS
---------

Oh how beautifully the goatsuckers whirl
serving our uncertainty

---------
END OF HEAD
---------

MUTANT:
	They check her flavor
	by sticking straws into her eyes
	In some flux she couldn't touch
	In some exludible muddle
	whose imaginary future
	welcomed a continuing past
	past it.

---------
OVER HER HEAD
---------

LEADER (in rain):
	Over her head
	a greasy flag
	its stripes a grin
	about her hips
	Its stars lettuce seeds
	she says she'll use
	to have her candy washed.

	'hotel lobby band'

Is she really supposed to do
what she pretends to do
under circumstances
she can't imagine?

GINGER (slowly coming to grips
with being grabbed by the lips):
	High on ice cream
	and not melting
	Mouths to feel
	but not be felt

LEADER:
	With no kissing beneath the belt!

Women kept naked in the rain
their honor miraculously afloat
big ragged sunflower climbing cunts

GINGER:
	What she can't stand

MEN:
	What - stand

WOMEN:
	What she can't stand

YODELLING VENTRILOQUIST:
	What she can't stand

GINGER:
	he doesn't want

MEN:
	he - want

WOMEN:
	he doesn't want

YODELLING VENTRILOQUIST:
	he does not want

GINGER:
	Holding her down

MEN:
	Hold - down

WOMEN:
	Holding her down

YODELLING VENTRILOQUIST:
	Holding her down

GINGER:
	she holds him up

MEN:
	she - up

WOMEN:
	she holds him up

YODELLING VENTRILOQUIST:
	she holds him up

GINGER:
	Something implicit in the time -

WOMEN:
	Something implicit -

MEN:
	Something - 

GINGER:
	- in the unsightly poultry -

WOMEN:
	- in the unsightly poultry -

MEN:
	- in her -

GINGER:
	- of her eyes

WOMEN:
	- of her eyes

MEN:
	- eye.

LEADER:
	Ginger a pale saucer

GINGER:
	Singing to mice
	born dead in traps

GINGER & LEADER:
	Contemplating suicide
	as protection from fraud
	Escalator over the hill.

---------
LITTLE PONY SOLDIER
---------

LEADER:
	He knew we all know
	where we are from
	although no one yet has said
	the secret kept instead

JACK:
	Little pony soldier

LEADER:
	A shot sooner or later

JACK:
	unpacking his hellos

LEADER:
	 raw hands and pounding heart

JACK:
	What he might say

LEADER:
	 like policemen at home

JACK:
	doing no harm left unsaid

DOCTOR & LEADER:
	Nothing takes time but you
	waiting for change

It's so far and my watching you
amounts to a quarter of a mile
at a dime a time

JACK I:
	Little pony soldier

JACK II:
	A shot sooner or later

I:
	buried there in front of me

II:
	save a life
	give all your blood

I:
	Buried right here -

II:
	any next cloud elsewhere

I:
	- his special clear death
	rung ringing yet

II:
	She steals rocket fuel
	you will too

I & II:
	It's not up to you

I:
	Getting out of here - 

II:
	Gentle little words

I:
	- to protect -

II:
	Gentle little mistakes

I:
	- the secret source -

II:
	Gentle little minds

I:
	- and yet ...

II:
	She once noticed him
	enough to say
	close enough to know
	he'd undressed
	and dressed again

I:
	Not so -

II:
	somewhere along -

I:
	- long ago

II:
	- his way

DOCTOR & LEADER:
	The diamond on his ankle
	with its felt out.

_________________
_________________
IN FLUX
---------
OH SAY CAN YOU DO?
---------

CALLIOPE BILL:
	Don't do it if you haven't done it
	You'll do it anyway
	It's all up to you
	And you might as well face it
	It's not up to you anyway

---------
HOLIDAY IN RISK
---------

LEADER:
	Birds grow in the sky
	they settle on the badminton net
	they shake it when they leave the net
	It's never nearly over yet.

CECIL CLARK:
	Holiday in risk
	on a little fast.

LEADERS II & III:
	That glancing stare, ach!

CECIL CLARK:
	Hands wet so technically

LEADERS II & III:
	So true

LEADER I:
	Something so true
	it cannot be a rule
	you don't break it

CECIL CLARK:
	It breaks you.

LEADER:
	Break it

CECIL CLARK:
	It breaks you.

LEADER:
	Break it

	In fear you ask what I think
	confusion your secret goal
	In fear I'll think as you.

CECIL CLARK & LEADER:
	Staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying
	staying just the
	same
	same
	same
	same
	same
	same
	on a little

LEADER:
	fast.

LEADERS II & III:
	So he guessed and guessed
	and lied the rest

CECIL CLARK:
	A drifting lion
	on a roaring raft

	'bird'

As though poetry
had anything
to do with it.

VIVA:
	Confusing what's right
	with what's right
	and what's wrong
	with what's wrong

LEADER:
	Stop refusing to explain
	Give up explaining.

---------
HOLIDAY IN RISK THEME
---------

	'hotel lobby band'

If I believe I am you
(since I do)
who is wrong
again?

Not that that
might be the same
(for that might be)
but not THAT that.

---------
A.I.R.
---------

	'desert band of musicians'

---------
RAWALPINDI BLUES
---------

JACK:
	You got to give up
	what you don't want
	to get what you do

HIS FRIENDS:
	What will we ever do
	with you?

JACK & PARROT:
	Rawalpindi blues

JACK:
	Fountain lions fighting
	for the view
	lonelier fish
	in hats
	Parrots so green
	they make the sky seem
	blue.
	Look in my eyes.

HIS FRIENDS:
	And let me stay away
	from you.

JACK & PARROT:
	Rawalpindi blues

Breakneck teeth
baby-faced finger
pretending an end
a mockery of Ginger
in a gooey robe.
It's again it's
again it's
again.

	'Jack's traveling band'

Nurses dying their hair
don't care
if the horse it locked
the house still there.
It doesn't seem
to matter to them
the traces
of horses
and pineapple
and cheese
and stiff caterpillars
on crackers
kept track
in a field
by an informant monkey
smoking eel
in the middle
of a lake
his treading eyes
the chemical surprise
between day and night
so late there is light
at the edge of the lake.
Bullfrogs are
having their throats
cut.
You pick hysterically
at your memory.

O Rawalpindi!

JACK:
	When we were alone
	when she'd grab me
	by my wishbone
	as though
	as though it alone
	were real
	Ginger'd wish
	and we'd win
	and the bone
	would come true.

HIS FRIENDS & DESERT WOMEN:
	What will we ever do
	with you?

	What will we ever do
	with you?

	What will we ever do
	with you?

	'desert band'

SAND SHEPHERD:
	[again]

---------
END OF RAWALPINDI
---------

GINGER II:
	She came this way
	not an hour ago.

	She came this way
	not an hour ago.

JACK:
	It's again

GINGER II:
	She came this way -

JACK:
	It's again

GINGER II:
	- not an hour ago.

JACK:
	It's again

GINGER II:
	She came this way -

JACK:
	and again

GINGER II:
	- not an hour ago.

JACK:
	[again]

GINGER II:
	[again]

JACK:
	It's again


	'Jack's traveling band'


GINGER II:
	[again]


	'desert band'


HIS FRIENDS:
	You make real any step being
	what it is you mean

JACK:
	There lies in your eyes
	a pretense of sence
	bringing up differences
	to be rid of them.

HIS FRIENDS:
	Even trying to show
	you believe what you know
	you don't listen.

JACK:
	Any intrusion for you
	to hear
	entering you forceably

JACK II:
	Yodelling goodbye

JACK I:
	In one ear
	and not out
	the other.

JACK II:
	Your face
	to understand you

JACK I & II:
	Trying to leave its place
	to close your eyes
	for the two
	of you.


	'traveling & desert bands'

__________________
__________________
OVER THE HILL
---------
END OF ANIMALS
---------

DOCTOR:
	Is it even to you
	the scheme should be told
	pleasing her so long
	in the courtyard
	on the farm
	in the hallway
	of her room
	bloodying her vertebrae
	for hours
	during her face?

HOTEL PEOPLE:
	Have Ginger snuck
	into a house?
	Have Ginger told
	to wait?
	Until a real house
	comes along?

DOCTOR:
	That buying the little
	one means
	the big one comes
	free?

---------
...AND IT'S AGAIN
---------

DAD:
	Ach!

	'orchestra'

LOUDSPEAKER:
	I'm riding the escalator

	I'm riding the escalator
	over the hill

	'phantom music'

Of radio otters
full of your form
which is multiple
does it matter
if it doesn't take
an act to be?
To be thanking the window
to elave it in confusion
to be opened in closed
and to tell the season
by what's being eaten?

VIVA:
	If this time
	the parrots seem green
	and it's true
	what last time was does
	it matter
	it this time
	it's not?

	'yodelling ventriloquist'

LOUDSPEAKER:
	Hey!  Don't keep saying that!

MULTIPLE PUBLIC MEMBERS:
	O ...

VOICE:
	Blindmen don't bluff

MPM:
	O ...

VOICE:
	Blindmen don't get the blues.

MPM:
	Lord

VOICE II:
	O Rawalpindi

JACK I & II:
	It's again

	It's again

	It's again

	and again

	[again]

GINGER II:
	[again]

JACK I & II:
	It's again


	'desert band'

SAND SHEPHERD:
	[again]

So late at night
there is light
with all probable things
upon you
a day begins for you
you do not want it.
Only the humor it takes
to keep things
from becoming funny.
Since you couldn't mean it more
if you meant it
confusing what's right
with what's right
and what's wrong
with what's wrong
staying the way
no one on Earth
could make you be
not for you
not for me

O! Rawalpindi

BLINDMAN (closer than the ear can hear):
	Oh
	how
	beaut...

	'the confessions of Calliope Bill'

VIVA I:
	Popular explanations of pregnancy

VIVA II:
	Popular explanations of pregnancy

VIVA I:
	horribly disguised and as narrow

VIVA II:
	horribly disguised and as narrow

VIVA I:
	and as tan as beer

CALLIOPE BILL:
	as narrow and as tan as beer

VIVA II:
	and as tan as beer

MUTANT:
	The hectic silhouettes of chins

VIVA I:
	The hectic silhouettes of chins

VIVA II:
	The hectic silhouettes of chins

MUTANT:
	answering

VIVA I:
	ans -

LION:
	Answering

MUTANT:
	answering

CALLIOPE BILL:
	answering

MUTANT II:
	Closer than the ear can hear

	it's again

LION:
	Again

BLINDMAN:
	Again

MUTANT I:
	It's again

LION:
	and again

BLINDMAN:
	and again

MUTANT I:
	and again

SPEAKERS:
	Silent mindsweepers
	keepers of the sea
	rough so gregariously
	and absolutely guilty

MULTIPLE PUBLIC MEMBERS:
	Again
	Again
	Again
	Again

JACK:
	It's again

MPM:
	Again
	Again

JACK:
	and again

MPM:
	Again
	Again

JACK:
	and again

MPM I:
	Again
	Again

MPM II:
	Again
	Again

JACK:
	and again

MPM I:
	Again
	Again

MPM II:
	Again
	Again

JACK:
	Again

MPM I:
	Again
	Again

MPM II:
	Again
	Again

JACK:
	[again]

MPM I:
	Again
	Again

MPM II:
	Again
	Again

MPM I & II:
	Again
	Again
	Again
	Again


© 1971 Paul Haines
Provided for educational purposes only.