copyright © 2003 Cory Capron / Liam Gilchrist
"The Black Marquee"
Lyrics by Cory Capron and Music by Liam Gilchrist
Performed by Cory Capron and Liam Gilchrist, Friday May 30th, 2003

Did you see the ranting charlatan, with his textbook and dead horse?
Maybe the vampire and the librarian, can help him find his course.
Let's watch the last rays of the sun retire, from outside of the coffee house.
As we toast our Italian sodas to the great exile of the louse.

(Chorus)
Downtown Friday,
A little after five.
Oh the sights, we come to see.
Perennial lovers you and I,
Peeking in, the black marquee...

The pirates from the James River, hold their dragons on display.
While Mother Denial's lip quivers, as she leads her kids away.
There's an elephant outside of city hall. Everyone act's like it's not there.
But not believing in elephants ain't gonna make it go anywhere.

(Chorus)

I sure miss those chainsaw jugglers. It really was quite a tragedy.
They left with the Pinocchio smugglers, dressed in fine mahogany.
And the flaming hacky sack kickers, won't come out till New Year's Eve.
But there's still so many things to see, underneath the black marquee.

(Bridge)
With mistletoe words and python arms,
Mother Denial whispers to me,
To forget all of these Friday nights,
For our love, it cannot be.
But who among these red-eyed sailors lost, in the belly of a tearless sea,
Could ever hang his anchor on the wall and say that there's a better girl for me?

(Guitar Solo)

(Chorus)

Let's watch the last rays of the sun retire, from outside of the coffee house,
As we toast our Italian sodas to, the man with the circus mouse...
THIS SCRIPT IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR'S NOTES (Capron):
Liam is my favorite musician to work with. He's very giving and talented. Usually how we work is he'll start playing and all flip through my book of 150 songs till I find something that sort of fits. We really don't have to speak that much, we both just kind of bend and let each other do their thing. When I first wrote "Black Marquee" it was kind of poppy. I have too many angry, depressing, and otherwise low songs in my portfolio, and it was time for a change. The problem was it was kind of obnoxious and the chorus felt off and monotonous. Liam really smoothed it out and gave it an almost bluesy but very feel-good rhythm, which was nice since I'm starting to really fall in love with Van Morrison, Janis Joplin and Motown music. We started working on it at midnight of the 29th and then played it a few times in the parking lot before the show. That was all the time we really needed.

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