Prologue - WORK SONG
What Have I Done? (Valjean's Soliloquy)
I DREAMED A DREAM
CASTLE ON A CLOUD
DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING
ON MY OWN
DRINK WITH ME (The Night)
EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES
[1815, Toulon, France. The chain gang, overseen by brutal warders, works in the sun.
Prisoners
Look down, look down
Don't look 'em in the eye
Look down, look down,
You're here until you die
The sun is strong
It's hot as hell below
Look down, look down,
There's twenty years to go
I've done no wrong!
Sweet Jesus hear my prayer!
Look down, look down,
Sweet Jesus doesn't care
I know she'll wait,
I know that she'll be true!
Look down, look down,
They've all forgotten you
When I get free ya won't see me
Here for dust!
Look down, look down
Don't look 'em in the eye
How long O Lord
Before you let me die?
Look down, look down,
You'll always be a slave
Look down, look down,
You're standing in your grave
Javert
Now bring me prisoner 24601
Your time is up
And your parole's begun
You know what that means
Valjean
Yes, it means I'm free
Javert
NO!
It means you get
Your yellow ticket-of-leave
You are a theif
Valjean
I stole a loaf of bread!
Javert
You robbed a house!
Valjean
I broke a window pane!
My sister's child was close to death
And we were starving!
Javert
And you will starve again
Unless you learn the meaning of the law.
Valjean
I know the meaning of these 19 years
A slave of the law
Javert
Five years for what you did
The rest because you tried to run
Yes 24601
Valjean
My name is Jean Valjean
Javert
And I am Javert
Do not forget my name
Do not forget me
24601
Chorus
Look down, look down
You will always be a slave
Look down, look down
You're standing in your grave.
Valjean
Freedom is mine. The earth is still.
I feel the wind. I breathe again.
And the sky clears, the world is waiting.
Drink from the pool. How clean the taste
Never forget the years, the waste.
Nor forgive them, for what they've done.
They are the guilty, everyone.
The day begins...
And now lets see
What this new world
Will do for me!
If there's another way to go
I missed it twenty long years ago
My life was a war that could never be won
They gave me a number and murdered Valjean
When they chained me and left me for dead
Just for stealing a mouthful of bread
Yet why did I allow that man
To touch my soul and teach me love?
He treated me like any other
He gave me his trust
He called me brother
My life he claims for God above
Can such things be?
For I had come to hate the world
This world that always hated me
Take an eye for an eye!
Turn your heart into stone!
This is all I have lived for!
This is all I have known!
One word from him and I'd be back
Beneath the lash, upon the rack
Instead he offers me my freedom
I feel my shame inside me like a knife
He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life?
Is there another way to go?
I am reaching, but I fall
And the night is closing in
And I stare into the void
To the whirlpool of my sin
I'll escape now from the world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing now
Another story must begin!
[Fantine is left alone, unemployed and destitute.]
Fantine
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong
I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he'll come to me
That we'll live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So much different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.
[Young Cosette is working as a drudge in the Thenardier's inn at Montfermeil.]
Young Cosette
There is a castle on a cloud,
I like to go there in my sleep,
Aren't any floors for me to sweep,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
There is a room that's full of toys,
There are a hundred boys and girls,
Nobody shouts or talks too loud,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
There is a lady all in white,
Holds me and sings a lullabye,
She's nice to hear and she's soft to touch,
She says "Cosette, I love you very much."
I know a place where no one's lost,
I know a place where no one cries,
Crying at all is not allowed,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
Oh help! I think I hear them now,
and I'm nowhere near finished sweeping and
scrubbing and polishing the floor.
Oh, it's her! It's Madame!
Enjolras
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echos the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
Combeferre
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Courfeyrac
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!!
All
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echos the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
Feuilly
Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!
All
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echos the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
Eponine
And now I'm all alone again
Nowhere to turn, no one to go to
Without a home without a friend
Without a face to say hello to
And now the night is near
I can make believe he's here
Sometimes I walk alone at night
When everybody else is sleeping
I think of him and I'm happy
With the company I'm keeping
The city goes to bed
And I can live inside my head
Own my own
Pretending he's beside me
All alone
I walk with him till morning
Without him
I feel his arms around me
And when I lose my way I close my eyes
And he has found me
In the rain the pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight
And all I see is him and me forever and forever
And I know it's only in my mind
That I'm talking to myself and not to him
And although I know that he is blind
Still I say, there's a way for us
I love him
But when the night is over
He is gone
The river's just a river
Without him
The world around me changes
The trees are bare and everywhere
The streets are full of strangers
I love him
But every day I'm learning
All my life
I've only been pretending
Without me
His world would go on turning
A world that's full of happiness
That I have never known
I love him
I love him
I love him
But only on my own.
[The defenders settle down for the night with wine and a song.]
Enjolras
Marius, rest.
Feuilly
Drink with me
To days gone by
Sing with me
The songs we knew
Prouvaire
Here's to pretty girls
Who went to our heads
Joly
Here's to witty girls
Who went to our beds
All
Here's to them
And here's to you!
Grantaire
Drink with me
To days gone by
Can it be
You fear to die?
Will the world remember you
When you fall?
Could it be your death
Means nothing at all?
Is your life just one more lie?
Men
Drink with me
To days
Gone by
To the life
That used
To be
Let the wine of friendship
Never run dry
Women (in counterpoint)
Drink with me
To days
Gone by
To the life
That used
To be
At the shrine of friendship
Never say die
All
Here's to you
And here's
To me...
Marius
Do I care if I should die
Now she goes across the sea?
Life without Cosette
Means nothing at all
Would you weep, Cosette,
Should Marius fall?
Will you weep,
Cosette,
For me?
[Marius, recovering from his wounds, imagines he's back at the ABC cafe.]
Marius
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone
Here they talked of revolution
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about tomorrow
And tomorrow never came.
From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lowly barricade..
At dawn.
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me.
[The ghosts of those who died on the barricade appear.]
That I live and you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.
[The ghosts fade away.]
Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more...