Randy Newman - Faust (Act 2) Lyrics

Lyrics Directory >> R >> Randy Newman Singer Lyrics >> Faust (Act 2) Song Lyrics

Artist:	Randy Newman
Song Title:	Faust (Act 2)
Visits:	916

Print Version

Faust has never been in love except with himself. The Lord decides to send down Cupid to shoot Faust to get a love thing going for the boy. The Lord's personnel resources are staggeringly comprehensive. Cupid shoots Faust at a big St. Patricks Day Easter Bunny festival in South Bend on Easter Sunday. Henry falls in love with Margaret, the poorest, nicest and most beautiful girl in South Bend (Gainsville). The Devil, raging inwardly at the Lord's perfidy (Cupid is after all a mythological figure from a pagan culture), notices Margaret has a friend with her, Martha, the most sophisticated girl in Indiana (Life Has Been Good), and one who has seen action not only at Arlington Park, but at Belmont, Aqueduct and Bay Meadows. The Devil falls for Martha hard; as only a middle-aged man can fall for a beautiful heartless young girl. Believe me. It's the truth. He's headed for trouble (I Gotta Be Your Man). Martha seems to reciprocate his feelings for her (Feels Like Home). It's a trick. Too late. Martha Dumps the Devil (Bleeding All Over The Place). Meanwhile, Margaret, against her better judgment, falls in love with Faust (My Hero). Faust poisons her mother so he can be alone with her, sleeps with Margaret, impregnates her, and with the Devil's help kills Maraget's brother, Valentine, who sees Faust leave his sister's humble little sleep chamber. Henry and the Devil are forced to skip town. They head for a cabin the Devil keeps on Lake Superior near Duluth. They bring their own water and stay a year.

In South Bend, Margaret has Henry's child, and crazed with grief and shame, drowns it in a creek. This is the comic high point of Goethe's original play, and one of the most delightfully urbane moments in all of German literature. In a hilarious courtroom sequence, Margaret is convicted of murder and sentenced to die at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. She sings a lullaby (Sandman's Coming) though her baby is, of course, dead. She sings to a blanket!

Henry attempts to rescue Margaret who is already in the spirit world in spirit but because she was so good in life, the Angels come down and take her off to Heaven even before she is dead. Henry is impressed. He asks the Lord for forgiveness and takes some of the poison he gave Margaret's mother. The Devil laughs, his own move to Heaven seems imminent; he says he's going home to pack. Henry, expiring noisily, with neither dignity nor courage (he tries to induce vomiting to rid himself of the poison) asks again for forgiveness. The Devil laughs, but Lo! The Angels decend. The Lord's voice booms down "he is saved." Henry ascends to Heaven, favoring the Devil with a little wave as he goes. At this point, the impartial observer, if one such could be found, might agree that the Devil has been denied the victory to which he was entitled. Predictably, he is angry, very angry. Then after rage, depression, deep depression. He stands alone inthe cell. Head down, beaten. Even the Lord, watching from above, feels sorry for him.

A wind begins to blow, a warm, dry wind. The Devil's hair is ruffled as the breeze freshens. His cape billows to the east. He wags his tail. He thinks of something that makes him very, very happy (Happy Ending).

Faust (Act 2) Lyrics at Lyricstrue

E-Mail, IM, Text :
Websites & Blogs :
Forums :


Other Randy Newman song Lyrics
A Fool In Love "Look at the light coming over me show me a man whos gentle and kind and I'll show you a loser now, show me a man who takes what he wants..."	A Wedding in Cherokee County "There she is sitting there Out behind the smoke-house in her rocking chair She don't do nothin' She don't say nothin'..."
Back In Time "Tell me doctor, where are we goin this time? Is this the fifties, or 1999? All I wanted to do..... Was play my guitar and sing........."	Back On My Feet Again "Doctor, let me tell you something about myself I'm a college man and I'm very wealthy I've got no time to trifle with trash like you Cause I must be 'bout my business..."
Bad News From Home "High on a cliff in Mexico Staring down at the rocks and the sea below I can hear the church bells ring I can hear the choir..."	Baltimore "Beat-up little seagull On a marble stair Tryin' to find the ocean Lookin' everywhere..."
Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad "Sit by my window and watch the rain I hear it beating on my window pane Well, it makes me so sad Be no one ever hurt this bad..."	Better Off Dead "Musically, this one has a sort of overblown, heavenly quality to it. But lyrically, it's another story of a guy getting himself into a bad relationship that he can't get out of. He says, ";When you fall in love with someone who doesn't love you Someone who treats you so badly it ramifies your head Someone who doesn't want you but won't let you go Someone who thinks you're crazy and tells you so, over and over and over If this happens to you, you're better off dead."; It's exaggerated, but there's a kernel of truth there for so many people. You don't know what bad is until you feel that. I know what I'm talking about because I was once a woman who loved too much. I know some critic is going to think I don't know what the word ramify means, or how to use it. made up an alternate verb form of it here, like a made-up R ..."