Mary Jane

C                           F               G
Lights out and overture and curtain, if you please.
C                             F              G
Stage right: the Penitent discovered, on her knees;
F                 C         F             G
Her air of humble piety resembles glitter paste.
F       C                F            G
Claxon. Enter crowd with torches; she rises,
am                C              am           em
And in a scene of drama high and questionable taste,
F    C   F        C  F                G
Hastily, gracefully, tumbles down the stairs
F   C  G   C   F  C    F
Why do you put on such airs,

Chorus:
     C      F                   C
Mary Jane?  Come down from your cloud,
     C      F               G
Mary Jane.  Join the common crowd,
     C          F                C
Mary Jane.  You say we should be proud,
        F                  G
But the scenes that you invent
         C               am
Reveal a less-than-charitable intent.
F            C            G
Excuse me if I complain,
     C
Mary Jane.

Act Two: A garden.  Night.  A sound of creaking gears.
Trumpets.  From the reliquery the Baroness appears,
Attended by her entourage and weary with the weight
Of tomes that none can carry save herself.
They gather round her, faces marked by mingled love and hate,
Awe-posessed, unredressed, waiting for the nod.
Who passed on and made you Goddess,

Chorus


em
am              em           am                 em
The scenery is chewable, the spotlight all your own;
        F               C               F               G
You can suffer for your art and you can suffer for your sins.
    am                   em              F      C
But when those tears are plagarized, the comedy begins:
F           C                 F                      F C F G
Turn up the house lights; the audience have all gone home!

Enter Pagliacci with her ennui on her sleeve;
Exit one ingenue, but somewhat less naive.
Damnation was the best thing that you ever did for me
I don't regret a single line I didn't read.
She vanishes.  Lightning.  Curtain on Act Three.
Curtain call, exeunt all, run back to the womb;
Just who has a crush on whom,

Chorus II:
     C      F                   C
Mary Jane?  Come down from your cloud,
     C      F               G
Mary Jane.  Join the common crowd,
     C          F                C
Mary Jane.  You say we should be proud,
        F                  G
But the scenes that you invent
         C               am
Reveal a less-than-charitable intent.
F            C            G
Excuse me if I complain,
     am
Mary Jane.
F                C
You've become an awful pain,
G    C
Mary Jane.
Ow!