Bright Lights, Big City (musical)
Bright Lights, Big City (1999) is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Paul Scott Goodman. It is based on the movie by the same name, which is based on the book of the same name.
Jamie
[edit]- I am not the kind of guy who should be in a place like this at this time of the morning, Sunday morning, 6 am. --"Bright Lights, Big City"
- I'm a menace to myself, dancing this close to heartbreak. --"Bright Lights, Big City"
- And all you need is one more popper, one more vodka, one more topsy-turvey, hunky-dory, manic, panic, magic high. --"Back in the City"
- Battered and bruised as this carton of milk. --"Sunday Morning, 6 AM"
- I'm just a boy in the city, Clara -- give a boy a break. --"Fact and Fiction"
- I hate the French. I hate them all. From Toulouse Lau-fucking-Trec to Charles de Gaulle. I can't stand the way they put that little thing above the "e", I hate the French... --"I Hate the French"
- From out of the blue, it's green for go, I'm in the pink... Kissing a philosopher really colors the way you think. --"What a Perfect Feeling"
- It's that psycho-killer look, it's the fact that I mistook myself for someone else. --"Camera Wall"
- If I lie down, I might die. --"Camera Wall"
- Isn't it amazing? Isn't it incredible? Quite alarming, this feeling of not feeling anything at all. --"Stay in My Life"
- One day there's a Sunday coming up when my typer might be hyper with the fire of a novel once again. -- "Wordfall"
Tad
[edit]- Monsterous events are scheduled for tonight! --"Back in the City" (repeated in "Back in the City, Part 2" and "Monsterous Events")
- And I stand on my tiptoes and scream at the rooftops, "Hey did you miss me? Come over and kiss me!" --"Back in the City"
- I'm talking female confection, I'm talking something soft and sweet. I'm talking electricity, feminanity, it's better than drugs. --"Odeon"
- My breath is baited, I'm wet with anticiptation. --"Monsterous Events are Scheduled"
Vicky
[edit]- Think of what the world could be if we could just be kind to each other. Kindness, there's not enough kindness in the world. --"Kindness"
- You're a writer -- write me a letter. --"What a Perfect Feeling"
- I got your letter yesterday, you write so beautifully Jamie. There is poetry spilling from you -- stay in my life. --"Stay In My Life"
- And the words will fall again -- catch them, Jamie. --"Stay in My Life"
Amanda
[edit]- The smell of fresh baked bread turns me on. --"Sunday Morning 6 AM"
- The cat walk, the bitch talk, the ulcers, the menopause at 25. --"To Model"
- The flashbulbs, the camera wall, the media, the big cocaine in the upstairs lounge! To model, to model is to get me high... --"To Model"
- Mama said don't marry you, they'll run off like they always do, like all her husbands did before. Mommy's now on husband number four. Men always leave. --"To Model"
- I can be a vixen, I can be a vamp, a princess or a junkie, virgin or a tramp. Bend me, shape me, any way you want me -- image me up and the camera will tell you who I am. --"Camera Wall"
- Inside I'm a mess, I'm higher than a kite, please tell me is it day or night? And, god, I hate this dress. --"Camera Wall"
- Plastic features, plastic beauty, plastic me. --"Camera Wall"
Other
[edit]- Chorus: Flying too fast, running to free, happy just to be in heartbreak. Jumping too far, crashing the ledge, dancing on the edge of heartbreak. --"Back in the City"
- Chorus: The more impossible it is to get in, the more we want to explore. --"Back in the City"
- Coke Girl: The drugs make you feel the music, and the music makes you want more drugs. --"Back in the City"
- Jamie and Ensemble: Are you willing to be killing all the dreams that you are having? Skipping, dipping, slipping, sliding, when you really should be flying from heartbreak. --"Back in the City"
- Mary O'Brien McCann: Please, can you find me? Please, don't go. --"Sunday Morning 6 AM" (repeated in "Coma Baby" and "Missing")
- Ensemble: Save us from the teenage, the terrorist, the lottery winners, sicko creeps, Elizabeth Taylors, life on other planets, Janet, spontaneous human combustion, dammit. --"Coma Baby"
- Coma Baby and Ensemble: We've all got our problems, baby. --"Coma Baby"
- Coma Baby and Ensemble: You have got to rise above it, move on up; shimmy, shimmy, gimme, gimme, feel me fatal. Fire and metal, rocks and straw, rim shaw, richashay, do anything you feel. --"Coma Baby"
- Theresa: Well, son, we'd like to get to Bolivia right away... --"Odeon"
- Pot Girl: Seems like I've spent about half my life in bathrooms lately. --"Odeon"
- Ensemble: I wanna have sex tonight. --"Odeon"
- Ensemble: Can you make me come? --"Odeon"
- Theresa: Would you be less quiet if you had the chance? --"Odeon"
- Ensemble: Make me forget my whole life sucks, and a million fucks won't make that right. --"Odeon"
- Mom: A terrible screamer, a beautiful dreamer, a looker out of windows. --"Happy Birthday Darling"
- Coma Baby: Coma baby, coma baby, still I lie in Mommy's tummy. Warm in here, I think I want to stay. Mommy's crying, Mommy's dying, Mommy might not even last the day. --"Missing"
- Mary O'Brien McCann: I met a man with a plan, he took my shivering hand, now I'm gone... --"Missing"
- Clara: Four lithium carbonate tablets a day and I'm swell -- like hell. --"My Son"
- Blues Man: And every other person has a job except you, every other person has a life except you, isn't that depressing, baby? --"Wednesday"
- Blues Man: See, the point that I am making is that all the days are taken except the one right in the middle of this freaky whack-a-diddle of a week. --"Wednesday"
- Jamie and Blues Man: Drain-o, drain-o for the brain-o, drift away your Wednesdays. --"Wednesday"
- Chuck Bean: There's Versace with Oscar De La Renta, for Simon de BonBon and Duran Duran Duran -- hey, are you hungry like the wolf? --"Camera Wall"
- Michael: Psychologically speaking, that was way beyond control. --"Heart and Soul"
- Michael and Vicky: The heart leans towards mercy and the soul leans towards love. And my heart and soul in my dream of life loves you. --"Heart and Soul"
- Mom: Are you still holding my hand? Promise you'll never let go. --"Are You Still Holding My Hand"
Dialogue
[edit]- Tad: Are we ready to roll?
- Ensemble: Where are we rolling?
- Tad: Into the heart of the night. --"Bright Lights, Big City" (repeated in "Odeon")
- Coke Girl: You got any blow?
- Jamie: Is Stevie Wonder blind? --"Bright Lights, Big City"
- Clara: I need it on my desk tomorrow at nine.
- Ensemble: Fact!
- Clara: Can you handle it, Jamie?
- Jamie: I can handle it, Clara.
- Secretary: Fiction! --"Fact and Fiction"
- Jamie: I hate the French.
- Secretary: He hates the French.
- Jamie: I hate the French.
- Secretary: I hate the French!
- Both: We hate the French! --"I Hate The French"
- Amanda: My career is really taking off here.
- Jamie: Since when is modeling a fucking career? --"Brother"
- Girl #1: See him?
- Girl #2: Yeah?
- Girl #1: Did him.
- Girl #2: Nice. See her?
- Girl #1: Yeah?
- Girl #2: Did her.
- Girl #1: Ew! Did him.
- Girl #2: Did her.
- Girl #1: Did him.
- Girl #2: Did her. --"Odeon"
- Pot Girl: Got any smoke?
- Jamie: Can Bob Hope tell a joke?
- Pot Girl: Bob who?
- Jamie: I'll get something for you.
- Pot Girl: Hurry up, my mother's gonna kill me.
- Jamie: Your mother?
- Pot Girl: Come on! -- "Odeon"
- Jamie: I'm Vicky!
- Vicky: No, you're Jamie.
- Jamie: Right, you're Vicky.
- Vicky: And you're Jamie... --"What a Perfect Feeling"
- Jamie: You send me reeling.
- Jamie and Vicky: What a perfect feeling... --"What a Perfect Feeling"
- Blues Man: Uncut Peruvian flake, the closest you get to God these days.
- Jamie: How much?
- Blues Man: Fifty and a half.
- Jamie: Wanna taste? --"Wednesday"
- Michael: Hey, Mr Wonderful, who galloped in from New York for the last act of Mom's life? With your stupid rented sports car and your stupid model wife!
- Jamie: Shut up!
- Michael: Like it was some New York party you didn't mind being late for!
- Jamie: Shut up!
- Michael: You never had to exert yourself for anything -- school, girls, awards, fancy jobs, they all just fell in your lap!
- Jamie: Shut the fuck up! --"Brother, Part Two"
- Mary O'Brien McCann: I am gone
- Coma Baby: I am warm
- Both: I am gone/warm... --"Mummies at the Met"
- Jamie: Look at the words falling from the sky...
- Statue of Liberty: Heartbreak.
- Coke Girl: Sad.
- Tad: Drugs.
- Clara: Fact.
- Secretary: Fiction.
- Blues Man: Cocaine.
- Tad: Monsterous.
- Amanda: Model.
- Michael: Mother, brother.
- Coma Baby: Missing.
- Mary O'Brien McCann: Find me.
- Statue of Liberty: Sunday.
- Vicky: Philosophy.
- Clara: Fact.
- Secretary: Fiction.
- Mom: Happy birthday darling.
- All: [repeated] Bright lights, big city!
- Jamie: Bright lights, big city.... Bright lights, big city.
