No More
from Hard Place To Find by Tobin Mueller
NO MORE by Stephen Sondheim
from "Into The Woods"
(edited, with alterations to make more applicable to its context here)
Son:
No more questions, please.
No more tests.
No more curses you can't undo, left by fathers you never knew.
No more quests.
No more feelings. Time to shut the door.
Just no more.
Father:
Running away, let's do it.
Free from the ties that bind.
No more despair, or burdens to bear,
Out there in the yonder.
Running away, go to it.
Where did you have in mind?
Have to take care... unless there's a 'where',
You'll only be wandering blind.
Just more questions... different kind.
Where are we to go?
Where are we ever to go?
Running away, we'll do it.
Why sit around, resigned?
Trouble is, son, the farther you run,
The more you'll feel undefined.
For what you have left undone, and more,
What you've left behind.
We disappoint, we leave a mess, we die, but we don't.
We disappoint in turn, I guess. Forget, though, we won't.
Like father, like son.
Like father...
Son:
No more giants waging war!
Can't we just pursue our lives, with our children and our wives,
'Til that happy day arrives, how do you ignore
All the windmills, all the curses,
All the roads, all the lies, the false hopes, the good-bye's,
The reverses,
All the wondering what even worse is still in store!
All the children.
All the giants..
No more.
Song Notes: Placing this song so abruptly following Alfie is intentional. Just when you think you have discovered "What's it all about," tragedy or loss or error intervene and bring something akin to humility. And, perhaps, a desire for escape. A want for it all to simply stop.
This song has personal significance in that I've played the part of The Baker in Sondheim's Into The Woods twice. I consider this the fulcrum point in the show.
In real life, however, yelling "No more" never works. Life, for the living, never stops. The Father suggests running away, like a mischevious conscience in the Son's ear. But I never thought the Father was serious. I always imagined he was cautionary, ironic. He was speaking from experience, as someone who ran away, but wanted something different for his son. He also wanted his son to understand the urge, that moment when running away seems the best option. And, perhaps, to be forgiven.
Musically, the Father patter section uses a piano figure that I use in my children's show To Save The Planet. Using it again, here, to underscore the Father's call to run away... well, it made me smile.
I changed a few lyrics to give the song more significance in the context of this album. I substituted "windmills" and "roads" for "witches" and "wolves" and altered other details, deleting some lines altogether in order to balance it better as a stand-alone song. As with the liberties I took arranging Being Alive on my earlier album Song of Myself, I hope Sondheim will enjoy my adaptation and homage.
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