The Wiz

©2016 Larry Krone

 

Once there was a girl who lived on a farm

In a story written by L. Frank Baum

She was a restless kind of girl with a bee in her bonnet

She wore a pinafore dress with blue gingham on it

 

And you wouldn’t believe what happened to her

She met a talking scarecrow in a cornfield of birds

And a nice metal man with an oil drum chest

And a big nervous lion came on the scene next

 

They made a movie about her with songs and dances

But she still couldn’t figure how to get back to Kansas

She and all her new friends killed the bad witch together

And she left at the end, yeah, that’s what I remember

 

In a St. Louis theater from the second mezzanine

I saw the first live musical that I’d ever seen

It was about a little girl on a farm in Kansas State

And she and all her friends could sing really great

 

There was a tin man, lion, and a scarecrow

Just like the book and movie and then something more

There was a dancing tornado on the attack

And everyone down on the stage there was black

 

And just like the movie and the book in the end

I was crying, too with Dorothy and her friends

It was the same old story but everything new

And I thought I remembered, yeah, that I saw it with you

 

He’s the Wiz and he lives in Oz

I think that I loved it because

They said it so funky that you had to hear it

You can do anything, yeah, if you can feel your spirit

 

Now I know there’s something inside me that can save my own soul

It’s in there all the time like my brain, heart, and home

I wonder what would happen here and now if you tried to

Maybe you could find something that you need inside you

 

Cause if you haven’t noticed I’m standing right here

With one more click of my heels I’ll disappear

I’ll leave the mean moving trees and the witches who doubt you

For a world full of love that I’ll find without you

 

Can’t you feel a brand new day, can’t you try?

If that girl on the farm can change her whole life then why oh why can’t I? Why can’t I?