88697-83212-2

Delores Hall and Florence Tarlow (“If Wishes Were Horses”)

 1 . FEE FI FO FUM
Linda Hopkins
NOW I LAY ME 1:16
Delores Hall, Carl Hall, Allan Nicholls

2 . HUSHABY / MY MOTHER SAID 2:53

Paulette Ellen Jones

3 . NUB OF THE NATION 1:50

Cast

4 . URBAN MARY
Cast
CITY LIFE
Florence Tarlow
ONE MISTY MOISTY MORNING
Larry Marshall
IF WISHES WERE HORSES 4:51
Delores Hall

5 . DEEP IN THE NIGHT 4:58

Linda Hopkins

6 . JEREMIAH OBADIAH 0:57

Larry Marshall

7 . RIDDLE SONG 2:03

Cast
Linda Hopkins (“Fee Fi Fo Fum”)
 8 . SHADOW OF THE SUN 3:00 13 . IT’S MY BELIEF 3:43
Cast Linda Hopkins

9 . BOYS AND GIRLS COME OUT TO PLAY 14 . STREET SERMON 6:02

Cast Carl Hall
LUCY LOCKETT
15 . THE GREAT IF
Fluffer Hirsch
Carl Hall
WISDOM
ON THIS ROCK
Larry Marshall
Cast
THE HOOKER (“YOU MAKE IT YOUR WAY”) 3:53
THE GREAT IF (REPRISE) 4:44
Joy Garrett
Cast
10 . LAW AND ORDER 3:07
Note: The absence of audio in the left channel for eight seconds at the beginning of Track 10 (“Law and Order”)
Delores Hall has been retained from the original LP and cassette masters of this recording.

11 . THE DEALER (“YOU PUSH IT YOUR WAY”) 2:40

Allan Nicholls

12 . KINDNESS
Allan Nicholls
AS I WENT OVER
Allan Nicholls
APARTMENT HOUSE
Cast Original Producers: Pete Spargo and Manny Kellem . Musical Arrangements by Gordon Harrell .
THERE WAS A LITTLE MAN Vocal Arrangements by Helen Miller . Conducted by Gordon Harrell . Other Arrangers: Horrace Ott, Bernie Hoffer,
Bill Goldstein, Lee Holdridge, Larry Fallon . Recorded on January 23, 1972, at RCA Studio C, NYC
Cast Transfer Engineer: Brian Losch . Mastering/Restoration: John Fredenberg, Long Tail Audio LLC, NYC
WHO KILLED NOBODY 6:17 Design Direction: Roxanne Slimak . Graphic Design: Elisabeth Ladwig . Photos by Bert Andrews . Cover art by Lenny Meyer
Project Direction: David Foil . Original album LSO-1171, released 1972 . All songs published by Sunbeam Music, Inc. (BMI)
Cast
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 file and alphabetizing them! (Weak The second scene introduces Florence

I
joke from those beginning days: “All the
songs from As I Went Over the Precinct
to Zity Life.”) We presented the whole
crazy caboodle to Tom O’Horgan and
nner City has been described as a non-stop musical lift, somehow his head put it all together,
and we wound up with our show about
the fastest moving show ever to hit Broadway. Well, when you
the perils and pleasures of being alive
have nine beautifully loving and lunatic people under today and not giving up hope that we
can all survive and make our cities safe
Tom O’Horgan’s demonic direction, plus fifty-five musical for living and loving and neighborliness
numbers plus high-speed costume and scenery changes – ! and regreening.
Tarlow as Urban Mary: “Mary, Mary,
Urban Mary, how does your sidewalk
grow? With chewing gum wads and
cigarette butts, with popsicle sticks and
potato chip bags,”* and so on and so
excrementa. Into a subway scene that’s
funny, but it hurts a little when you laugh.
And then from the dank lower depths
to a gloriously soaring blue sky high as
Delores Hall elaborates on IF WISHES
WERE HORSES.

It started out simply enough with a book:
The Inner City Mother Goose, a collec-
tion not of nursery rhymes for tiny tots,
but satire for unadulterated adults,
thereby following in the tradition of the
original Mother Goose rhymes back in
the eighteenth century when Little Jack
Horner, Mary Mary Quite Contrary,
Who Killed Cock Robin and other char-
acters were invented as sophisticated
political and social commentary on the
times. I wanted to say something about
the urgent concerns of our own age,
and so I set my book in the heart of
where the liveliest action is – inside the
Inner City, for this, as the opening num-
ber sings, “This is the Nub of the Nation.”
Next Helen Miller managed miraculous-
ly to set the poems to music, every one
of them, the light and the heavy, the
long and the short (sample of the short-
est: “There was a crooked man/And
he did very well”).* Then I wrote more
words and Helen wrote more music
until at one point we counted up seventy-
three songs: the only way we could
keep them straight was by buying a big
NUB OF THE NATION opens the show,
with Linda Hopkins rocking and remi-
niscing about the neighborhood’s
changing ways, and local residents
chanting “Now I lay me down to sleep/
I pray the double lock will keep;/May
no brick through the window break/
And no one rob me till I wake.”* We meet
Paulette Ellen Jones who tells a young
girl’s pregnant story in song, MY
MOTHER SAID. And on to ripoffs by
slumlords, and Fluffer Hirsch putting
down schlock merchants, winding up
with FEE FI FO FUM.
Next comes a very private kind of scene
as Linda Hopkins recalls the loves of her
life and ponders, “If you had to have
one man, just one man in the house for
the rest of your life, who would it be?”
Her soulful response takes place DEEP IN
THE NIGHT.
Change of scene as a public official
enters to give a cynical explanation of
how our taxes are spent, and after a
quick visit to a welfare center, a poverty
program storefront that’s closing down
and an overcrowded school, he tries to
persuade the people to fall for his silver

6 7
 bag full of – what? Listen to the RIDDLE
SONG. And then the bright shiny stuff is
taken away and people are left with the
reality of just a SHADOW OF THE SUN.
Act Two opens with a sequence ironical-
ly titled WISDOM. “Summer Nights”
In the Inner City: “Too much heat, junk
on the street, fire alarms, patrol cars
and payoffs and pickups in bars.”*
Followed by “Winter Nights”: “Not
enough heat, junk on the street, fire
alarms, patrol cars and pickups and
payoffs in bars.”* The wise old Judge
sits in his court and lets the john go free,
while THE HOOKER is brought in and she
sings her own brand of street smarts:
Joy Garrett, with “You Make It Your
Way, I’ll Make It Mine, and That’s Fine.”
Larry Marshall intones “The cow jumped
over the moon/On the street in the after-
noon./The junkie laughed to see such
sport/With his bag and his needle and
spoon.”* Allan Nicholls as THE DEALER
then ticks off Madison Avenue with
“You Push It Your Way, I’ll Push It Mine,
and That’s Fine.” And The Pickpocket,
Carl Hall, gives it to Big Business as he
8 9
explains why “You Steal It Your Way,
I’ll Steal It Mine, and That’s Fine.” Delores
Hall then takes over LAW AND ORDER.
In another ironically titled sequence,
KINDNESS, the cop on the beat takes
care of the local pusher and versa-vice.
Then THERE WAS A LITTLE MAN and “it’s
so easy to get a gun and shoot anyone,
anyone, anyone...”* into a climaxing
question: WHO KILLED NOBODY?
Out of her grief, Linda Hopkins sum-
mons up the strength to go on with IT’S
MY BELIEF. She’s followed by Carl Hall,
in a STREET SERMON that’s an Inner City
State of the Union message: his “Do I be
God” plans to make the city “good
enough for my grand and heavenly self”
and to “open an annex to the post office
and sell dope like stamps. Eight cents
a lick. Price a fix so you can afford to
buy it instead of ripping me off, mug-
ging and messing me. Then I’d take
care of the bitey rats and bitty roaches,
and build a high-rising high rise where
there’s room enough for people! Lay
your head down on a cloud pillow,
it get too bumpy, sprinkle a little moon
water on it and iron it all out. Really get
fresh atmosphere up therel”* Carl then
sings his melodic message of hope: THE
GREAT IF. And finally the cast, all togeth-
er, in front of the vision of a new city
built not upon dreams and lies but upon
the solid foundation of what we now
have: ON THIS ROCK. “I am a city wom-
an, I am a city man, On This Rock I make
my stand. No lock, no gate, no fear,
no hate can drive me away/Here I stay
where I feel the most alive … in this
crazy crowded greatest show on earth,
in this manic, magic, mad menagerie.
I am a stubborn woman, I am a stubborn
man/On This Rock I Make My Stand!”*
Dear friends, may you be encouraged
to make your own stand, and may we
all help one another to make THE GREAT
IF The Great Reality.
With Inner City love and stubbornness,
EVE MERRIAM
Taken from the original
liner notes for LSO--1171
* All lyrics copyright © 1971 and 1972 by Sunbeam Music Inc. (A
Metromedia Company). Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Consists of previously released material.
훿 2011 Sony Music Entertainment / Originally released 1972 Sony
Music Entertainment / MASTERWORKS and MASTERWORKS
BROADWAY & Design are registered trademarks of Sony Music
Entertainment.
masterworksbroadway.com
Clockwise from top left: Joy Garrett (“The Hooker”); Fluffer Hirsch (“Riddle Song”); (Kneeling
l. ro r.) Carl Hall, Delores Hall, Larry Marshall (Back row l. to r.) Joy Garrett, Linda Hopkins,
Florence Tarlow, Paulette Ellen Jones, Allan Nicholls, Fluffer Hirsch (Finale: “On This Rock” / Clockwise from top: Delores Hall (“Law and Order”); Allan Nicholls (“Kindness”); Paulette Ellen Jones
“The Great If”); Carl Hall (“Street Sermon”) (“Hushabye Baby” / “My Mother Said”); Larry Marshall (“Jeremiah Obadiah”)