#mobydickmusical

[bloodygranuaile]

In for some sort of theater experience, pray for me #mobydickmusical #mobydickart (at American Repertory Theater) https://www.instagram.com/p/B68l5Uogc8y/?igshid=sraaszyio33y

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Moby Dick “Part 1: The Doubloon” workshop, Baryshnikov Arts Center 

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Moby Dick musical lyrics: The Pacific

- These are not official lyrics, they’re transcribed by me.

- Source novel quotes for the lyrics, and notes, are under the cut.

THE PACIFIC

Track: 21

Characters: Ishmael* (solo with backing vocals)

Range: D3-E4**

As heard on Dave Malloy’s SoundCloud 

[ISHMAEL]*

Three years at sea

The day becomes the night, the night becomes the day

The drowsy wind blows

And the tranced ship rolls

We vacantly gaze on the infinity of waves

And the cadence of our gaze becomes our thoughts among the waves

And no one grew into anything new

We just became the worse of what we were

No one grew into anything new

We just became the worse of what we were

Three years at sea

No news, no gazettes

No startling accounts of the common place

Deluding us into excitement

No bankrupt securities, no decisions on dinner

A sublime uneventfulness

And no one grew into anything new

We just became the worse of what we were

No one grew into anything new

We just became the worse of what we were

Joy and sorrow, hope and fear

Have been ground to finest dust

Powered in the clamped mortar of our captain’s iron soul

Beneath us lurk the many monsters of the sea

The horrors in the mirk wait for me

And I thought I could just dip my toes in

I didn’t think I would lose my soul in this silver asylum

But I let myself disappear

I let myself disappear

(No one grew into anything new

We just became the worst of what we were

No one grew…)

Oh, lull me to sleep

Oh, opiate, vacant waves

Oh, lull me to sleep

Oh, opiate, vacant waves

Oh, lull me to sleep

Oh, opiate, vacant waves

Oh, lull me to sleep

Oh, opiate, vacant waves

SOURCE QUOTES AND NOTES

This song has been previewed both on Dave’s SoundCloud, and performed by Shoba Narayan at her 54 Below show. **These obviously have different ranges, as well as just slightly different lyrics. For both, I’ve taken Dave for the authority on this. 

*I’m also not 100% certain this song is sung by Ishmael, but this uncertainty is mostly because of Shoba performing it while Ishmael is a baritenor. Just based on the song itself, I think it’d be a reasonable assumption Ishmael sings it.

Though the song is named after Ch 111 The Pacific, and the mood/imagery is somewhat similar to the chapter, the lyrics aren’t at all sourced from it. They mostly follow Ch 36 The Mast-Head, with a little bit of Ch 130 The Hat. Dave’s “no one grew [...] of what we were” refrain seems to be all his own. 

Ch 35 The Mast-Head

In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, [...] There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner—for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.

///

For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber. 

///

But lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. 

Ch 130 The Hat

Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul.

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Moby Dick musical workshop cast: Starr Busby

Starr Busby has played Starbuck, the Pequod’s first mate, in both the Part I workshop at Baryshnikov Arts Center and the full show workshop at The Public Theater. She also performed Starbuck’s solo “Dusk” at the second Jack Alive benefit concert.

Far as I’m aware, Moby Dick was Starr’s first time being involved in one of Dave’s shows, though since then she’s been part of the Octet workshop.

She’s a songwriter, and you can find her on Spotify and Soundcloud. Here’s a video of her performing an original song, “The One”, probably my favourite song/performance of hers: 

And, here’s a video of her performing “Joyful Noise” by Great Comet’s own Shaina Taub:

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This was from Dave’s Great Comet Instagram takeover, well over a year ago, yet I somehow only noticed it the other day?

“Far too self conscious to do video on the train. This is my reading today, doing research for Fedallah in Moby Dick. In the novel he is a bit of a caricature, a Middle Eastern magical demon, which does not feel so good to have in a contemporary adaptation. So trying to read up a bit, to be able to write him more realistically and empathetically.

(P.S. in the novel he is Zoroastrian, but making him Muslim seems a bit more relevant for a piece that is discussing multiculturalism in America today.)”

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Moby Dick musical lyrics: Dusk

- These are not official lyrics, they’re transcribed by me. 

- Source novel quotes for the lyrics, and notes, are under the cut.

DUSK

Track: 19

Characters: Starbuck (solo)

Range: A3-D5

As performed by Starr Busby/ Eisa Davis April 9 2018

Dusk

The Sun sinks away

Twilight’s last goodbye before the darkness

God, please light my way

Tell me how to get through this

Dusk

My soul is more than matched

She’s beaten blue and black

By a madman, he shouts and screams

He drilled deep down, blasted all my reason out of me

Terrible and cruel old man

Yet in his eyes I see a sadness

Shrivels me up, tears me in two

God, please help me help this man

I can’t leave him

Something has tied me to this man and I’ve no knife to cut the line

Something has tied me to this man and I’ve no knife to cut the line

Something has tied to this man

I hope

That the waters are wide enough

That the voids are vast enough

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

I hope

That God hides that whale like a goldfish

That God hides that whale like a goldfish

SOURCE QUOTES AND NOTES

The lyrics are for the mostly close to the novel (the chapter Dusk is written as a monologue for Starbuck), with some added phrases. 

The first verse with the description of the literal dusk and metaphorical tie-in isn’t from the book. It’s added to replicate the structure of Ahab’s solo earlier in the show, Sunset. 

The other main difference is honing in on, or adding, specific emotive language so we feel all the more pity for Starbuck’s situation. 

...I also feel like these kind of changes for this song will make more sense when we’ve heard how Dave portrays The Cabin, the previous song based on a chapter in which Starbuck confronts Ahab, ending in Ahab threatening Starbuck with a gun. Dusk in the book isn’t actually connected with this interaction at all (it happens long before it) so changing the lyrics to emotionally reflect that seems pretty reasonable just in itself. Then you add trying to create a specific emotional reception to that. 

Ch 38 Dusk

My soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. 

Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him, he cries;—aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside [...] 

[...]  Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, - as wild, untutored things are forced to feed - Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!

And other vaguely similar bits and pieces, potentially:

Ch 36 The Quarter-Deck

"God keep me! - keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.

Ch 51 The Spirit-Spout

Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.

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Thanks you for transcribing all of this ! I was wondering where do you find all of the music ?

No worries!!

I’ve got a folder with audios of all the previewed songs here.

The Sermon, Cetology and Dusk were from YouTube videos of the Jack Alive concert which then got deleted (a shame, but happy I had the foresight to save the audio at least), but the rest are from video or audio sources which should all be posted on this blog. 

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Moby Dick musical lyrics: Sunset

- These are not official lyrics, they’re transcribed by me. 

- Source novel quotes for the lyrics are under the cut.

SUNSET 

Track: 9

Character: Ahab (solo with backing vocals)

Range: A2-F4 (as performed by Dave Malloy Dec 8 2018)

Sunset

The warm waves blush like wine

The blue, the gold

The sun goes down and my soul mounts up

My pipe

What business have I with this pipe?

Mild white vapors for mild white hair

Not torn gray locks like mine

Time was, when the sunset soothed

Time was, when my pipe’s smoke charmed

No more

This lovely light

It lights not me

Loveliness is anguish

I am damned in the midst of paradise

This crown I wear made of iron not gold, is so heavy

Its jagged edge, it beats against my brain

But the men I lead, their souls are sold, they’re ready

To burn and bleed and hunt until you’re slain

You knocked me down

Then you ran and hid

Ahab’s compliments to you

But now Ahab’s up again

My soul is grooved to run on iron rails

I will rush through hearts of mountains

Over gorges, under raging riverbeds

Now, see if he can swerve me

My soul is grooved to run on iron rails

I will rush through hearts of mountains

Over gorges, under raging riverbeds

Now, see if he can swerve me

As the sun goes down

I will throw my pipe into the sea

Now, see if you can swerve me

This lovely light

It lights not me

Loveliness is anguish

I am damned in the midst of paradise

SOURCE QUOTES

Ch 30 The Pipe

"How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring,—aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more—"

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea.

Ch 37 Sunset

Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon,—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron—that I know—not gold. 'Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain- battering fight!

Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise!

///

No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!