It Isn't for Me to Say, - Topical song from rice's - Evangeline, or the belle of acadia

In the latest addition to the Longfellow Chorus Evangeline YouTube playlist of our April 2 & 3 production in Portland, Maine, Kaitlyn Costello Fain (Gabriel) sings the topical song, "It isn't for Me to Say!" from act 3, scene 1, with help from Antonio Rocha, Mark Williams and Donata Cucinotta. The libretto from the original act 3 has been lost, but the songs still exist in the 1877 Evangeline piano vocal score. So the Longfellow Chorus artistic staff re-created a short act 3 libretto in order to provide a simple template for presentation of the existing act 3 songs. The topical song has a long history in the US. Those of us of a certain age will remember the topical songs of Tom Lehrer, such as "Send in the Marines" (1965) and "Pollution" (1965). But appearing in the 1877 Evangeline piano vocal score, "It Isn't for Me to Say" sounds exactly like something Tom Lehrer would have sung had he lived a hundred years earlier, and, according to the first verse, the topical song was already outdated in 1877. (You can connect Evangeline librettist John Cheever Goodwin, 1850–1912, to Lehrer through Harvard.) This was one of my first Evangeline orchestrations, and I highlighted trombone for satirical effect. I take responsibility for composing the verses about Bill and Hillary Clinton, and about the G.O.P. and global warming, but I regret that my verse about investment bankers couldn't fit into the show, and that I did not make an attempt at verses about Trump and Bernie Sanders. There is no end to new material for a good topical song! — Charles Kaufmann

EVANGELINE: So this is act 3. Where are we now? GABRIEL: Arizona, Vangie. That makes perfect sense. Oh, golly! (“gully”) — look down there at that canyon! BASIL: Must be full of gold –– silver –– uranium. Gab, give us that song, with all of your pluck, Lampooning the things that don’t quite add up. GABRIEL: They say that topical verses / Are sadly behind the times, That the public have grown weary / Of their merry conceit and rhymes; They may be right, it may be so. They may have had their day, But I’m going to try the experiment — It isn’t for me to say. It isn’t for me to say — It isn’t for me to say, I’m going to leave it all to you, It isn’t for me to say. They say that all good citizens / Should into politics go, And take a lively int’rest in / Their country’s weal and woe; To be out all night and come home drunk May help the cause some way; I’m not a politician, so— It isn’t for me to say. It isn’t for me to say — It isn’t for me to say, Why politics makes one’s hat too small, It isn’t for me to say. We read that Global Warming / Is the crisis of the era, But folks there in the G.O.P. / Seem visually impairèd. They keep one eye on the price of coal, Which may be quite OK; Or it may be idiotic quite — It isn’t for me to say. It isn’t for me to say — It isn’t for me to say. You remember, of course, what the Vatican said, But it isn’t for me to say. They say that Hillary Clinton / Will be Prez of the U.S.A, And a woman prez might be the thing, / To keep this country great; To see Bill at home with nothing to do, ’T would rather be quite gay; He’d make a fine First Lady, I think — But it isn’t for me to say. It isn’t for me to say — It isn’t for me to say, Behind a great woman should stand a great man, But it isn’t for me to say. The kindness of your reception / I very deeply feel, And I couldn’t, if I desired to try, / My gratitude conceal. Some slight return I may be able To make you all some day, But what ’twill be you must wait and see — It isn’t for me to say. It isn’t for me to say — It isn’t for me to say. I'm going to leave it all up to you, It isn’t for me to say.