Past the MRT Gantry of No Return
This evening, on the tube from work to dinner with agaricus, I had a thought. Well, several. Interlinked. It all started with a recollection of something I previously blogged about: how awesome it would be if Opera Estate Primary School had a school song taken from some grand operatic theme, such as the "Overture" or "Le Chanson du Toréador" from Carmen. Partly because "O welche Lust" didn't sound too good for a Primary School, despite the location being on Fidelio Street.
Which got me thinking, how about switching to more modern stuff, like musicals? Having come from a school whose anthem opened with the lines "The boys and girls of Rosyth School", my thoughts instinctively turned to "This Is The Hour" from Miss Saigon:
This Is The (Assembly) HourThis is the hour
This is our class
We have a hunger
All exams to pass
And from a storm
Pierced with light
Fierce and white
The lightning came
Enlight'ning flame
To end the night
One school to teach us
Each girl, each boy
One voice to lead us
In a song of joy
This is the hour
This is our class
Okay, most of the original lyric is indeed intact. That's just my style; I like making small tweaks for maximal effect.
CAVEAT LECTOR
The rest of this post requires, at minimum, knowledge of the musical Chess. The alternative is to look up the relevant songs online. Youtube has some partial recordings but please, don't listen to Josh Groban. Tommy Körberg is the real thing.
Chess: The Musical Adapted to the Singapore Academic Paper Chase
Which led to me to possiblemaybeperhaps view Chess as an entire musical that could be adjusted to suit an adapted plot revolving around a couple of socially-maladjusted teachers' pets. From rival top schools, both trying to outdo each other in exams and such like. Since the original antagonists didn't even have names, we could simply change "The Russian" and "The American" to, simply, "The Rafflesian" and "The ACSian" 1. Perhaps their seconds - Molokov and Florence - can be re-named, say, Magendiran and ... well ... Florence. 2 But I won't do that here. So it's more The Dean and The Lady Prof (and Svetlana becomes the Ex-Girlfriend). So the Rafflesian and ACSian both go on to academic glory, until they realise that in their single-minded pursuit of professorial tenure, they left behind rather important things like social and emotional development. So the Rafflesian cheats on his primary school sweetheart 3 while serving as a teaching assistant or AIDS researcher, when he gets caught in a nationwide scandal with the ACSian's former teacher who's now the Lady Prof. In this scenario, "Someone Else's Story" would fit right in without any changes to the lyrics.
Endgame
And the musical's "Endgame" would start off, instead of with the choir reciting names of past Chess champions, with the choir reciting names of study subjects:CHOIR
Art; Physics; Law; Albegra; Chemistry; P.E; Dentistry; Science; Econs; Engineering; Mother Tongue; Literature; Bio; Medicine.
THE DEAN
How straightforward the school when one has trust in one's students
And how great the relief having some jocks who believe in
Loyalty, heritage, true to his kind come what may
The ACSIAN
Though it gives me no joy adding to your satisfaction
You can safely assume your late unlamented researcher
Knows if he wins then the only thing won is the Prof
THE DEAN
It's the weak who accept tawdry untruths about freedom
Prostituting themselves, chasing a spurious starlight
Footnotes in papers sufficient to lead them astray
THE LADY PROF
Does the T.A. exist in any science endeavour?
Who's been known to resist sirens of grants and citations
They will destroy you, not rivals, not age, not success
THE RAFFLESIAN
They all think they see a man who doesn't know
Which course to take, which school to go
Whose teacher's lies caused his decline
Wrecked his grand design
Some are vicious, some are fools
And others blind
To see in me one of their kind
Anyone can be an AIDS researcher
Sooner them than me when they discover
Academic bliss is shelter for their failing
Nothing could be worse than self-denial
Having to rehearse the endless trial
Of a mentor's rather sad demands prevailing
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
As you watch yourself caring
About a minor studying triumph, sharing
Your work with esoterics,
Paranoids, hysterics,
Who don't pay any attention
To what goes on around them
They leave the ones they love the way they found them
A normal person must dismiss you with disgust
And weep for those who trusted you
THE RAFFLESIAN
Nothing you have said is revelation
Take my blues as read, my consolation -
Finding out that I'm my one true obligation
(THE CROWD CHEER)
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND AND THE CROWD
Listen to them shout, they saw you do it
In their minds no doubt, yhat you've been through it
Suffered for your science but in the end a winner
Who could not be stirred, such dedication
We have never heard such an ovation
Skill and guts a model for the young beginner
They're completely enchanted
But they don't take your qualities for granted
It isn't very often that the critics soften
Nonetheless you've won their hearts
How can we begin to appreciate the work that you've put into
Your calling through the years
The blood, the sweat, the tears
The late, late nights, the early starts
There they go again! Your deeds enflame them
Drive them wild, but then who wants to tame them
If they want a part of you who'd really blame them ?
(THE CROWD CHEER LOUDER STILL)
THE RAFFLESIAN
And so you're letting me know -
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
For you're the only one who's never suffered anything at all
THE RAFFLESIAN
How you've hated my success -
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
Well I won't crawl -
And you can slink back to your books and to your tarts
THE RAFFLESIAN
And every poisoned word shows that you never understood
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
Liar!
THE RAFFLESIAN
Never!
BOTH
Nothing you have said is revelation
Take my blues as read, my consolation -
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
Finding out that I'm my only obligation
THE RAFFLESIAN
Is there no one in my life who will not claim
The right to steal my work, my name
My success, my fame, and my freedom?
As you can see, much of the original lyric remains intact here too.
Next up, I guess I'll see what I can do in terms of making school anthems out of songs from Les Misérables ("Do you hear the teachers sing?") or The Phantom of the Opera ("Graduate! Paper chasers on parade! Graduate, get degrees so the world can still employ you!"). Any ideas?
1 ACS a top school, rival of Raffles? Bear with me, this is fiction.
2 If I recall correctly, there was a bursar in RI called Florence when I was there. There's one by the same name now, but they look a heck of a lot different. Or maybe I'm wrong.
3 She was only in Express Stream, then later studied in NTU after getting her Diploma from Republic Polytechnic whereas he got a President's SAFOS Scholarship to, say, Oxbridge.
Which got me thinking, how about switching to more modern stuff, like musicals? Having come from a school whose anthem opened with the lines "The boys and girls of Rosyth School", my thoughts instinctively turned to "This Is The Hour" from Miss Saigon:
This Is The (Assembly) HourThis is the hour
This is our class
We have a hunger
All exams to pass
And from a storm
Pierced with light
Fierce and white
The lightning came
Enlight'ning flame
To end the night
One school to teach us
Each girl, each boy
One voice to lead us
In a song of joy
This is the hour
This is our class
Okay, most of the original lyric is indeed intact. That's just my style; I like making small tweaks for maximal effect.
CAVEAT LECTOR
The rest of this post requires, at minimum, knowledge of the musical Chess. The alternative is to look up the relevant songs online. Youtube has some partial recordings but please, don't listen to Josh Groban. Tommy Körberg is the real thing.
Chess: The Musical Adapted to the Singapore Academic Paper Chase
Which led to me to possiblemaybeperhaps view Chess as an entire musical that could be adjusted to suit an adapted plot revolving around a couple of socially-maladjusted teachers' pets. From rival top schools, both trying to outdo each other in exams and such like. Since the original antagonists didn't even have names, we could simply change "The Russian" and "The American" to, simply, "The Rafflesian" and "The ACSian" 1. Perhaps their seconds - Molokov and Florence - can be re-named, say, Magendiran and ... well ... Florence. 2 But I won't do that here. So it's more The Dean and The Lady Prof (and Svetlana becomes the Ex-Girlfriend). So the Rafflesian and ACSian both go on to academic glory, until they realise that in their single-minded pursuit of professorial tenure, they left behind rather important things like social and emotional development. So the Rafflesian cheats on his primary school sweetheart 3 while serving as a teaching assistant or AIDS researcher, when he gets caught in a nationwide scandal with the ACSian's former teacher who's now the Lady Prof. In this scenario, "Someone Else's Story" would fit right in without any changes to the lyrics.
Endgame
And the musical's "Endgame" would start off, instead of with the choir reciting names of past Chess champions, with the choir reciting names of study subjects:CHOIR
Art; Physics; Law; Albegra; Chemistry; P.E; Dentistry; Science; Econs; Engineering; Mother Tongue; Literature; Bio; Medicine.
THE DEAN
How straightforward the school when one has trust in one's students
And how great the relief having some jocks who believe in
Loyalty, heritage, true to his kind come what may
The ACSIAN
Though it gives me no joy adding to your satisfaction
You can safely assume your late unlamented researcher
Knows if he wins then the only thing won is the Prof
THE DEAN
It's the weak who accept tawdry untruths about freedom
Prostituting themselves, chasing a spurious starlight
Footnotes in papers sufficient to lead them astray
THE LADY PROF
Does the T.A. exist in any science endeavour?
Who's been known to resist sirens of grants and citations
They will destroy you, not rivals, not age, not success
THE RAFFLESIAN
They all think they see a man who doesn't know
Which course to take, which school to go
Whose teacher's lies caused his decline
Wrecked his grand design
Some are vicious, some are fools
And others blind
To see in me one of their kind
Anyone can be an AIDS researcher
Sooner them than me when they discover
Academic bliss is shelter for their failing
Nothing could be worse than self-denial
Having to rehearse the endless trial
Of a mentor's rather sad demands prevailing
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
As you watch yourself caring
About a minor studying triumph, sharing
Your work with esoterics,
Paranoids, hysterics,
Who don't pay any attention
To what goes on around them
They leave the ones they love the way they found them
A normal person must dismiss you with disgust
And weep for those who trusted you
THE RAFFLESIAN
Nothing you have said is revelation
Take my blues as read, my consolation -
Finding out that I'm my one true obligation
(THE CROWD CHEER)
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND AND THE CROWD
Listen to them shout, they saw you do it
In their minds no doubt, yhat you've been through it
Suffered for your science but in the end a winner
Who could not be stirred, such dedication
We have never heard such an ovation
Skill and guts a model for the young beginner
They're completely enchanted
But they don't take your qualities for granted
It isn't very often that the critics soften
Nonetheless you've won their hearts
How can we begin to appreciate the work that you've put into
Your calling through the years
The blood, the sweat, the tears
The late, late nights, the early starts
There they go again! Your deeds enflame them
Drive them wild, but then who wants to tame them
If they want a part of you who'd really blame them ?
(THE CROWD CHEER LOUDER STILL)
THE RAFFLESIAN
And so you're letting me know -
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
For you're the only one who's never suffered anything at all
THE RAFFLESIAN
How you've hated my success -
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
Well I won't crawl -
And you can slink back to your books and to your tarts
THE RAFFLESIAN
And every poisoned word shows that you never understood
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
Liar!
THE RAFFLESIAN
Never!
BOTH
Nothing you have said is revelation
Take my blues as read, my consolation -
THE EX-GIRLFRIEND
Finding out that I'm my only obligation
THE RAFFLESIAN
Is there no one in my life who will not claim
The right to steal my work, my name
My success, my fame, and my freedom?
As you can see, much of the original lyric remains intact here too.
Next up, I guess I'll see what I can do in terms of making school anthems out of songs from Les Misérables ("Do you hear the teachers sing?") or The Phantom of the Opera ("Graduate! Paper chasers on parade! Graduate, get degrees so the world can still employ you!"). Any ideas?
1 ACS a top school, rival of Raffles? Bear with me, this is fiction.
2 If I recall correctly, there was a bursar in RI called Florence when I was there. There's one by the same name now, but they look a heck of a lot different. Or maybe I'm wrong.
3 She was only in Express Stream, then later studied in NTU after getting her Diploma from Republic Polytechnic whereas he got a President's SAFOS Scholarship to, say, Oxbridge.