Hadestown Epic Lyrics
Hadestown Epic Lyrics
#1Hadestown Epic Lyrics
Posted: 4/23/19 at 12:56pm
I asked this question in the wrong thread. I'm hoping this will make it easier to answer. I'm very curious about how the Epics in Hadestown evolved over time. Having seen the show early in previews (and being from out of town where I can't get back to see it again), and I would love to know how they finally settled in the Broadway production. I've included some background from the other versions I've sean and/or heard:
2010 Concept Album
Original lyrics:
Heavy and hard is the heart of the king
King of iron, king of steel
The heart of the king loves everything
Like the hammer loves the nail
But the heart of a man is a simple one
Small and soft, flesh and blood
And all that it loves is a woman
A woman is all that it loves
And Hades is King of the scythe and the sword
He covers the world in the color of rust
He scrapes the sky and scars the earth
And he comes down heavy and hard on us
But even that hardest of hearts unhardened
Suddenly, when he saw her there
Persephone in her mother’s garden
Sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair
The smell of the flowers she held in her hand
And the pollen that fell from her fingertips
And suddenly Hades was only a man
With a taste of nectar upon his lips, singing:
La la la la la la la…
2016 NYTW
Begins just as the concept album, but adds this powerful coda to the end:
And what has become of the heart of that man,
Now that the man is King?
What has become of the heart of that man,
Now that he has everything?
The more he has, the more he holds,
The greater the weight of the world on his shoulders
See how he labors beneath that load
Afraid to look up, and afraid to let go
And he keeps his head low, and he keeps his back bending
He grows so afraid that he'll lose what he owns
But what he doesn't know is that what he's defending
Is already gone
Where is the treasure inside your chest?
Where is your pleasure? Where is your youth?
Where is the man with his hat in his hands?
Who stands in the garden with nothing to lose, singing:
La la la la la la la…
2018 London
Begins with a new preface and then re-orders some lines from the old first stanza:
In the beginning, there used to be a woman and a man,
I don’t know how their story ends, but that’s how it began
King of iron, king of steel
Heavy and hard is the heart of a king
Hear how it pounds like a hammer and nail
See how he rails against everything
It skips a few of the old stanzas and then mildly alters a few lyrics before adding these new lyrics:
He didn’t know how, and he didn’t know why
But he knew he wanted to take her home
When he saw her alone there against the sky
Like someone he had always known
The sun rose and fell in his chest when he held her
He felt the earth move without and within
And there no words for the way he felt
So he opened his mouth and started to sing:
La la la la la la la…
After the worker’s chorus picks up the tune, it resumes and concludes more or less as before.
2019 Broadway
When I saw it on April 4, almost none of the song remained. Orpheus sang a largely free-form speech about how Hades saw a woman, loved her, and wanted to take her home. The message of the song was basically, “Without her, he has nothing. He’s just a poor boy like me.” An effective message, but it didn’t have much of a melody or drive. It felt more like extemporaneous recitative. It still included the “La la la la la la la…” and came to a point with the following lyrics (as best I can remember them):
Where is the treasure inside your chest?
Where is your pleasure? Where is your youth?
Where is the man standing in the garden
With love in his heart but with nothing to lose
Singing: La la la la la la la…
Can anyone who saw the show multiple times throughout previews or after it was frozen speak to this? Did I catch the show on a weird night when they were trying something new, and did they end up with something that again rises to the occasion of being “a song so beautiful that it could change the world”? It would thrill me if they did! Feel free to PM me any details you can share.
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