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Dear Diary

Song Cycle by Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021)

1. Stuporman
 (Sung text)

Language: Multiple Languages 
A specter is haunting the world, 
a ghost of something once alive, now become a curse.
Capitalism: a system that should have died a hundred years ago,
but which is able to keep itself alive with the debraining machine.
The debraining machine! The great leveller! Which turns us all into stuporman!
Yes, even you can be stuporman! And you! And you! And you!
All of us, plugged in together, in step, gleichgeschaltet,
heading for zombieland!
Stumpfsinn, Stumpfsinn, du mein Vergnügen,
Stumpfsinn, Stumpfsinn, du mein Lust!
Please, Lord, let me not become a robot.
Let me at last become a Mensch.

Text Authorship:

  • by Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021), written 2014

Go to the general single-text view

Line breaks and capitalization are formatted arbitrarily. The score in which the text appears is distributed under a Performance Restricted Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license.


Researcher for this page: Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

2. Names
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The unnamable one commands Adam 
to give names to all his creatures.
No sooner does he do so than 
he begins also to destroy them.
Adam has not yet named all of the creatures, 
but already he is destroying them.
Who, then, will give them names?
Tricholoma Equestre!
Bicyclus Ignobilis!
Nemopilema Nomurai!
Mephitis Mephitis!
Nanoarchaeum Equitans...

Text Authorship:

  • by Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021), written 2014

Go to the general single-text view

Line breaks and capitalization are formatted arbitrarily. The score in which the text appears is distributed under a Performance Restricted Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license.


Researcher for this page: Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

3. No Good
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
What did you learn in school today?
I learned that I'm no good.
Who told you that?
The teacher.
Don't believe it!
Don't believe it.
If I can't believe the teacher, 
why do I have to go to school?
Because if you don't, I will be punished.
Isn't there a place where we can live 
where I don't have to go to school,
and you will not be punished?
No.
Then the world is no good.
Tell that to the teacher.

Text Authorship:

  • by Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021), written 2014

Go to the general single-text view

Line breaks and capitalization are formatted arbitrarily. The score in which the text appears is distributed under a Performance Restricted Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license.


Researcher for this page: Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

4. Samson
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Samson: He went down to Gaza to get revenge.
He lost his wife. He lost his eyes. He lost his life.
But— he killed three thousand Philistines!
He only wants to do to them what they did to him.
Was it such a good deal? Who can say?
All the parties are dead and gone. It's someone else now...

Text Authorship:

  • by Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021), written 2014

Go to the general single-text view

Line breaks and capitalization are formatted arbitrarily. The score in which the text appears is distributed under a Performance Restricted Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license.


Researcher for this page: Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

5. Thanks
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Dear Diary:
I know you don't care but I have to say it anyhow
thank you for being there when I needed you.
For listening to my cried when both heaven and earth were deaf
for giving me words of comfort when those I loved said nothing.
You are my voice
thanks to you I exist.

Text Authorship:

  • by Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021), written 2014

Go to the general single-text view

Line breaks and capitalization are formatted arbitrarily. The score in which the text appears is distributed under a Performance Restricted Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license.


Researcher for this page: Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]
Total word count: 352
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