Viva la Vida - The Musical! (Act 2)
(Following on from Part 1, we here complete Drobbingdon’s musical based upon Viva la Vida/Prospekt’s March by Coldplay.)
Act 2, Scene 1
Three years have passed. The revolution was successful: the FOX was overthrown. Drobbingdon, the leader of the revolution, has become leader of the land, with Prospekt his deputy.
In a hut in Violet Hill, now the capital of England, a small group watch Drobbingdon’s latest broadcast on an old TV…
Drobbingdon: When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse
When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
But the complaints rise, and Drobbingdon is forced to address the people.
Drobbingdon: The FOX is defeated, we no longer get sick, we are free! Why then are the people unhappy?
Voice in the crowd: Because we are still poor!
Drobbingdon: Our misfortunes are due to an unseen conspiracy…
Oh no, I see, a spider web is tangled up with me,
And I lost my head, the thought of all the stupid things I said,
I never meant to cause you trouble,
And I never meant to do you wrong,
And i, well if I ever caused you trouble,
Oh no, I never meant to do you harm.
Oh no I see, a spider web and its me in the middle,
So I twist and turn, here I am in my little bubble,
They spun a web for me,
They spun a web for me…
The crowd cheer and cry for his blood.
Crowd: Im gonna buy this place and burn it down
Im gonna put it six feet underground
He said Im gonna buy this place and watch it fall
Stand here beside me baby in the crumbling walls
Because Im gonna buy this place and see it burn
Do back the things it did to you in return
Prospekt (to Drobbingdon): All the movements you’re starting to make
See me crumble and fall on my face
And I know the mistakes that I made
See it all disappear without a trace
And they call as they beckon you on
They say start as you mean to go on
Start as you mean to go on
Crowd: Stand here beside me baby watch the orange glow
Some’ll laugh and some just sit and cry
But you just sit down there and you wonder why
So Im gonna buy a gun and start a war
If you can tell me something worth fighting for
Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head
Scene 2
In the central tower in Violet Hill, Drobbingdon’s control centre. Outside, they hear the roar of the crowd grow nearer and louder.
Drobbingdon: So meet me by the bridge, meet me by the lane
When am I going to see that pretty face again
Meet me on the road, meet me where I said
Blame it all upon a rush of blood to the head…
Prospekt: You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you? Your lost love? Well, Drobbingdon, she’s not gone completely.
Drobbingdon: What are you saying to me?
Prospekt: My powers seem to have grown lately. Let me tell you about it…
Those who are dead are not dead
They’re just living my head
And since I fell for that spell
I am living there as well
Our time is so short and I’m sure
There must be something more
Drobbingdon is revived, filled with new hope. Just because he is in a bad position, he is not finished…
Drobbingdon: Just because you’re losing, doesn’t mean you’ve lost.
Prospekt: But is to have had and lost better than not to have had at all?
The crowd now batter his door, but Hero still mourns his lost love…
Drobbingdon (thinking again of his lost love): All winter we got carried away
Over on the rooftops, let’s get married
All summer we just hurried
So come over, just be patient and don’t worry
No I don’t want to battle from beginning to end
I don’t want to cycle and recycle revenge
I don’t want to follow death and all of his friends
The door collapses with a deafening crack, and the crowd rush in. He knows he cannot take action against the crowd, so he runs to the rooftop edge. He turns to see Prospekt being seized by the mob…
Drobbingdon: Smoke is rising from the houses
People Burying their dead
I ask somebody what the time is
But time doesn’t matter to them yet
People talking without speaking
Trying to take what they can get
I ask you if you remember
Propekt, how could I forget?
Drums…
Here it comes…
Don’t you wish that life could be as simple,
As fish swimming round in a barrel.
While you’ve got the gun?
Oh and I’ll run
Here it comes…
We’re just two little figures in a soup bowl
Trying to get the other’s under control
When I wasn’t one…
Prospekt: Here I lie, on my own in a seperate sky.
I don’t want to die on my own, here, tonight…
The crowd set upon Prospekt, and kill him. As they turn to Drobbingdon, he jumps. As he falls, his life flashes before his eyes.
Drobbingdon: I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
“Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!”
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn’t believe what I’d become
Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?
For some reason I can’t explain
I know Saint Peter will call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world
He finds himself floating above the ground. Time has stopped. He wants to die, waits for it, but it seems that the universe has different plans…
Let me go, boys let me go
Push my boat from the highest cliff to the sea below
Rocks are waiting, boys rocks await
Swoop down from the sky and catch me like a bird of prey,
Now my feet won’t touch the ground
Now my head won’t stop
You wait a lifetime to be found
Now my feet won’t touch the ground
Finally, he is reunited with his love. They melt together into infinity…
Locusts will lift me up,
I’m just a prisoner in a reign of love.
Locusts will let us stop,
I wish I’d spoken to the reign of love…
THE END
August 25 2009 09:35 am | Church History and Interpretation and Music and news and site news
BrotherOb / ACTZERO on 02 Sep 2009 at 6:27 am #
That is most touching I must say. Especially the end part where Drobbingdon is reunited with his true love. Oils well that ends well, right Popeye? At least now you can rest assured knowing life has given you a few more years of pain and suffering here on earth before you too are re-made in the image of all things which have no face now.
But I come with greater tales to share… the Earth Form know as Kurt Cobain Again has emailed back to say his friends call him Gibby and he’s coming to the big city next week to jump off a bridge like Dad and can I help him?
So we are going to play and see what happens. Also, my mothers cat, who I always suspected of having magical powers (the cat not mum) has revealed them to me. Lawrence the Magic Cat may never live on Violet Hill, but is quite happy under my bed all day where he only has to fight off the raccoons in his dreams and not real hungry ones like when mum was alive.
What Lawrence revealed to me in a vision just after his evening repast is: I now understand the relationship between signal strenth and distortion, or just use your gtr vol to control it all, especially with the tonelab. I guess that’s what happens when you play through headphones for too long and get lost with too many knobs to twirl. Sort of lie looking for your glasses when you are wearing them.
So I will get some seriously strange music up on myspace very soon I hope, before I die maybe.
Meanwhile, I heard once some quote attributed to/from Chris Martin like: “When I write a song I have “”no idea”" what it is about?” Is it possible to write lyrics and in the end they just mean “no idea”? What does APDD have to say? No idea either? Perhaps Chris was being sacrosanctily sarcasmic?
So may the Chris be with you as we dream ourselves untethered into the fields of antiquity looking for clues on how long before it is we find home again if ever we do?
drobbingdon on 04 Sep 2009 at 10:52 am #
Indeed, Brotherob, it is only right that the Holy CM should remain unaware of the meaning of his lyrics. For are they not the thoughts of God, transmitted through him? Does a radio need to understand the words it receives? It is his very ability to channel the words without seeking to understand - to pollute them with the earthbound rationality of the mere human - that makes him such a great prophet.
trollytrolltroll on 23 Oct 2009 at 8:40 am #
I’m going to find you, then eat you, so you can stop with this stupidity. Have you so lost faith in humanity that you choose to worship your fellow man?
YOU SICKEN ME.
drobbingdon on 23 Oct 2009 at 9:24 am #
Worshipping a man shows a lack of faith in humanity? I’m sorry, that makes no sense. Away and be sick somewhere else.