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    • AN ASSORTMENT OF LYRICS
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    • THE STONEWALLYA KID
    • A STRING OF BANJOS
    • BOOZE
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BOOZE

Tom’s own description: 
Booze is a mélange of strange bedfellows, preachers and bootleggers who find it in their mutual interest in the summer of 1947 to see that Alabama remains predominately dry in a local option election.The narrative is fictional insofar as locale, circumstance and character are concerned, although the Tupelo Tornado, as one of the characters is called, was inspired by and took his name from an
actual “Texas Tornado”working the temperance hustings in the late 1940s.

The story: An actor just out of the Navy is hired to impersonate the bogus son of the radio evangelist head of the Foundation for Sober Christian Values in a caravan touring the state to whoop up enthusiasm and support for the dry cause. The evangelist, having a bum leg, can’t jump around as is his characteristic wont. Thus the invention of a son to do the whooping and down-with-demon-rum sermonizing for him. 

In this narrative the only wet county in the state of Alabama (think Russell County and Phoenix City) is ruled by a Dixie mafia kingpin, an ex-Broadway producer and former Al Capone protégé. He supports financially and calls the strategy shots for Sober Christian Values, the organization in the vanguard of the dry movement. 

The relationship of the gangster and the preacher becomes complicated when the evangelist discovers that the woman to whom he was once engaged is now being pursued by the gangster and is as well one of the gangster’s most important bootleggers. 

Further complications ensue when the small town reporter, granddaughter of the woman in question, interviews the actor and falls in love with him, later discovering him to be an actor playing a role, a discovery she is of two minds about.                    
 
                                                                                                  * * *
 In the first decade of the twenty-first century there remains in Alabama and elsewhere in the South pockets of dry counties and towns. Although some churches have begun to take a moderate stand on drinking, there are those who denounce the increased call for legalization of alcohol as, “An unprecedented attack on the family.” 
 
In the vanguard of those pushing for legalization are Wal-Mart, grocery chains like Kroeger, Safeway and Albertson’s, and restaurant groups representing Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Chili’s Grill and Bar. 

In dry areas of Texas, diners who wish to have wine or beer with their meal or a cocktail prior to it can do so only if they become members of the establishment’s “club.” 
 
Which recalls the author’s experience having a beer with a friend in the Hilton Hotel restaurant in downtown El Paso in the mid-1940s. No problem ordering the beer. The only caveat was that food had to be on the table at the same time as any alcoholic beverage.  If you didn’t order food to go along with your drink, a rotating sandwich found its way to your table where it remained until you left. The sandwich would then migrate to another table.


BOOZE 
 
EVANGELIST BILLY  (SINGS)

 Booze - 
 I’m talkin’ ‘bout booze, 
 Too many happy hours 
 And goodbye, your manly powers, 
 Out they’ll ooze. 
 I’m talkin’ ‘bout booze. 

 As BILLY continues with the song in one portion of the stage, it overlaps with . . .                      
 
New York rehearsal room audition of the same song by a young singer emulating the TV evangelist. The song becomes a duet. Holding the audition is LOU LOMBARD and two bodyguards, FLASH & PAN. LOU wears a light gray, exquisitely tailored double-breasted gabardine suit, white gardenia in its lapel. His hat is an appropriate Fedora. He toys with a cigar. 

The singer is GARY LOWE, his piano accompanist is RAFE MARTINO. 
 
BILLY/GARY  (SING) 

 Booze - 
 I’m talkin’ ‘bout booze. 
You’ll miss the hugs and kisses,          
She’ll say, “Choose.”                           
Her lovin’ or booze.                             
 
Now as a sacrament it’s fine,            
Turning water into wine.       
 In small doses it’s benign.                    
But, holy Moses, 
You suppose It’s
      not booze?                                      

 Booze - 
You drink it you lose,                          
Lose your wives like all the others,    
And your kids go with their mothers,  
And what’s more - 
Yes, there’s more - 
You’ll lose your dignity, 
 Your manliness, 
Your shirt and, gee, 
Perhaps your shoes - 
I’m talkin’ 'bout booze. 


CLEAN CUT, CREW CUT 

Country singer/evangelist BILLY PETTIGREW has just met the young man who is to portray his son in the temperance caravan. With Billy and GARY LOWE are Gary’s friend RAFE MARTINO and Billy’s shapely young assistant AGNES DE SADE, known as SADIE. Billy offers wine to aallin the group. Gary is surprised. He had thought Mr. Pettigrew was a teetotaler. Billy says that wine moderately taken is good for the system. The Bible says so. However, immoderately taken . . . 

BILLY

Booze cost me the loss of the woman I most loved in all the  world. 

(He looks at a framed photograph of himself as a young WW1 soldier resting on the sideboard.He hands it to GARY. Simultaneously the photo is blown up and projected to enable the audience to see what GARY does.) 

GARY 

 You, sir? 

BILLY  (Again correcting him) 

Dad. You forget - call me Dad. The big one. Well, the big one before the last big one. 

(SINGS) 

Clean cut, crew cut, 
A cut above the other boys. 
I hardly ever tinkered with 
A thing but tinker toys - 
But then they took me in the service 
Where I learned to smoke and drink. 
Bad habits followed quickly 
And I teetered on the brink,
And soon the toys I tinkered with . . .
Are exactly what you think! 
 
(The projected photograph disappears) 
 
SADIE (SINGS, tongue in cheek) 

Hallet was a flesh pot, what? 

GARY  (SPEAKS, music continuing under) 
 
Hallet?

SADIE

When Billy got the calling he changed his name to Billy. Every evangelist worth his salt is named Billy. 

BILLY (SINGS) 

Well sir, well sir, 
The letter that I wrote to Mae - 
The woman I was promised to 
Before I went away -
Told her of my fall from grace.
It happened by a ruse -
Buddies took me to a party 
Where hard liquor I refuse. 
An innocent, I cannot tell 
The punch is punched with booze! 

SADIE (SINGS) 

Hallet was a fleshpot now, 
Hallet was an old sot now. 

BILLY is amused by her mordant spin on the event. 
 
BILLY  (SINGS) 

Plastered, plastered, 
I went to find a cheap hotel. 
My conscience hurt me something fierce. 
I thought I’d pray a spell. 
But at the door I heard a-knockin’ 
And I smelled some sweet perfume. 
It happened oh, so quickly - 
There she was, right in the room! 
A naked woman. Let it be – 
You know she sealed my doom!
 
SADIE  (SINGS) 

Hallet was a fleshpot now, 
Hallet was an old sot now, 
The victim of an old plot, 
In hell to sure as hell rot now. 

BILLY  (SINGS) 

Clean cut, crew cut, 
Why I was once a boy scout. 
I tried my level best 
To throw the floozy out,
But she got me in a bear hug, 
Under covers I was caught, 
I struggled, how I struggled, 
But my struggles came to naught. 
She had me, and I had her - 
And what Jesus must have thought! 

SADIE  (SINGS, her teasing broader) 

How valiantly he fought, 
The victim of an old plot,
To sure as hell in hell rot now. 

GARY  (SPEAKS) 

Plot?

 SADIE  (SINGS) 

One month, two months, 
I needn’t spell the problem out. 
Hallet’s little goose was cooked - 
A seed, you know, will sprout. 

BILLY  (SINGS) 

She’s pregnant, I’m the father, 
So she tells me. What to do? 
I write to Mae, quite sickly, 
“Dear, I cannot marry you,” 
And all because of liquor . . . 
Look what liquor made me do.!

SADIE  (SINGS) 

Hallet was fleshpot now, 
Hallet was an old sot now, 
The victim of an old plot, 
The daddy of a wee tot now. 

BILLY  (SPEAKS)

Except the child wasn’t mine. Which I learned after I’d married the tramp. After Mae Rose had married another, which broke my heart, as I’d broken hers. 

(SINGS, with SADIE) 

Clean cut, crew cut, 
It’s a fact -
Intoxicated, 
Stimulated 
To a rash and unprecedented act.


MEN OF DISTINCTION 

The show wagon curtain OPENS to reveal a bum (RAFE) costumed as a former gentleman, wearing a shabby tail and top hat, carrying a cane, a man of former distinction reduced to the haberdashery of Skid Row. 
 
RAFE  (SINGS) 

I was a doctor! 

GARY (Entering, his costume reflective of reduced circumstance) SINGS) 

I was a lawyer! 

SADIE  (This man’s former Indian finery is tattered and torn) SINGS) 

I was an Indian chief!

 (ALL)  

Before our downfall. 

RAFE  (SINGS) 

A promising doctor. 

GARY  (SINGS) 

A promising lawyer. 

SADIE  (SINGS) 

And a promising Indian chief. 

(ALL) 

Before our downfall 

We had benefits 
As befits 
Men of our position. 
But it’s sad 
I guess we had 
Too much ambition,
Ambition, 
Ambition. 

We tried too hard to be 
Men of distinction. 
Oh, would you look at us now. 
We tried too hard to be 
Socially acceptable.
We thought 
We ought 
To be more respectable. 
We tried too hard to be 
Satisfied gentlemen, 
Genteel gentility, plus. 
We tried to appear 
Urbane and urbanized 
In swallow-tail coats, 
Properly bourbonized. 
We tried too hard to be 
Men of distinction. 
Oh, would you look at us,
Hey, would you look at us, 
Say, would you look at us now. 
 
COVERED WAGON IN THE SKY 

This song is virtual homage to Charles and Nick Kenny, and Billy Hill, whose songs if written today would be relegated to country labels and singers, but were quite prominently Hit Parade in the third decade of the Twentieth Century, songs like “In the Chapel in The Moonlight,” “There’s A Gold Mine In The Sky” and “The Last Round-Up.”  [Note: this was the first of his songs that Tom shared with me, way back in the 1960s, and I was charmed by the lyric and his melody. I grew up on this sort of song, and it still makes me smile. This song and the one that follows are excellent examples of how Tom could delve into his trunk and find any number of songs for a current project.]

I like to sit and watch the clouds
Up in the sky
And let my
Imagination play. 
I saw a covered wagon rolling by 
Just the other day. 

There’s a new trail in the makin’,
 There’s a journey we’ll be takin’,
In a covered wagon in the sky. 

With old friends to ride beside us
 And the Western stars to guide us 
In our covered wagon in the sky. 

There’ll be green, green pastures 
Nestled in the gray, 
And there’ll be true happiness
And sunshine all the way. 

You and I, we’ll be together 
And we’ll ride along forever 
In that covered wagon in the sky. 
 
MY BLUSHING BRIDE 

Hear my father laughing, 
See my mother crying 
When I introduce you 
As my blushing bride. 

Not what they expected. 
More than they expected. 
More than I expected, 
Standing by your side. 

Hear a cousin whisper,
“Where did he find that one?” 
Love like mine for “that one” 
Cannot be denied. 

Wedding march beginning, 
Music sweet and winning, 
And I’m Lohengrinning 
For my blushing bride. 

Rescuing this from oblivion, the storage box where I had deposited and forgotten about it, I fortuitously found the perfect place for it in Booze. I especially like the “Lohengrinning” line. My tune is nice too, if little Walter Donaldson.


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