The Great Seattle Fire
I became interested in songwriting while we were working on the MOHAI move and renovation, and I suggested we present the Seattle Fire exhibit as a mini-musical. Andrea Weatherhead loved the idea and proposed an object theater, an entertainment using sound and lighting effects to showcase various historical artifacts. I wrote the lyrics, and Sue Ennis and Andrea wrote the music. For The Museum of History and Industry. Produced by Weatherhead Experience Design Group.
See a video of the experience.
| tap tap tap tap...tap tap tap | |
| typewriter, speaking: | Destruction...desolation... all of Seattle...no... most of...part of... the heart of Seattle. |
| typewriter, singing: | Times like these motivate my keys. Tragic events bring the city to its knees. |
| tap tap tap tap... | |
| In ’89, the sixth of June, fire broke out in the afternoon. | |
| tap tap tap... | |
| But how did it happen? Who is to blame? Seattle was growing, then went up in flames. | |
| publishing artifact: | I’ve figured it out. |
| typewriter: | What’d ya got? |
| publishing artifact: | The fire began in a careless pot. |
| typewriter: | A pot? |
| publishing artifact: | In a carpentry shop. |
| typewriter & artifact: | They let it get hot. Too hot! |
| front page, speaking: | Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Glue pot destroys Seattle! |
| glue pot: | Don’t blame me, I’m just a glue pot. What possible good does pointing fingers do? Don’t blame me, I’m just a glue pot, Blame the glue. |
| publishing artifacts: | The glue? The glue! It boiled over and burned! |
| glue chunk, speaking: | Hold on a minute! Hold on! (music stops) I’m inflammable! |
| publishing artifacts, speaking: | So you admit it! |
| glue chunk, speaking: | I mean nonflammable! |
| publishing artifacts, speaking: | Oh... (pause) |
| glue pot, speaking: | What does an ignorant hunk of glue know, anyway? |
| publishing artifacts: | It boiled over and burned Boiled over and burned! They doused it with a bucket of water which spread it around and made it burn hotter. It boiled over and burned! |
| burn artifacts: (cups, doll, marbles, etc.) | It burned up the shavings and burned up the chairs, It burned up the tables and burned up the stairs. It fed on the whiskey in Meyers’s shop (oh, the humanity!), And coming out stronger it burned down the block. |
| fire hat: | Fire! Fire! |
| ding ding ding | |
| fire artifacts: (fire hat, nozzle, bucket, etc.) | We’re the citizen volunteer fire crew Stand back! We’re coming through! It’s time to show what we can do Stand back! Stand back, I say! Stand back! |
| ding ding ding | |
| fire artifacts: | We are the few, the happy few who will put this fire down and be the talk of the town Stand back! We’re the citizen fire crew! |
| ding ding ding | |
| fire hat: | Once more into the breach! |
| (sounds of fire fighting and roaring fire) | |
| fire artifacts: | Oh no! Oh my! The tide is out, the hydrants are dry! Oh no! Oh my! |
| fire hat: | Pick up a bucket and do your best Save what you can and damn the rest. |
| burn artifacts: | The opera house crumbled, the Denny block fell. The Colman block looked like a vision of hell. |
| (crescendo of fire, then quiet) | |
| front page, speaking: | Extra! Extra! Twenty-eight blocks destroyed. |
| typewriter: | Thank God no one died! |
| publishing artifact: | Thank God none were lost! |
| typewriter: | We’ll take it in stride! |
| publishing artifact: | We’ll shoulder the cost! |
| burned doll & melted marbles: | You seem overjoyed, but what about us? Our home was destroyed, our life is a mess. |
| they cry | |
| burned doll: | Whatever happened to my pretty, pretty dress? Where is the girl who held me dear? |
| melted marbles: | No more ring game, no more bouncer, No more knuckle down and knocking clear. |
| typewriter: | Buck up, children, dry your eyes. Blessings sometimes arrive in disguise. Fire is nasty and fire is cruel, but it’s perfect for urban renewal. |
| commerce artifact A: | Let’s put up a tent and take in some rent. Commerce can’t stop for a minute. Tell the banker, the tailor, and the grocery seller to set up their businesses in it. |
| commerce artifact: | It’s time for a change, we’ve got a clean slate, Let’s set some rules now, before it’s too late. We’ll make the streets wider and build buildings higher and write a strict code pertaining to fire. |
| typewriter: | The buildings that burned were a haphazard mix, for each one of stone there were ten made of sticks. This time around we will start from the ground and build up And this time we’ll build them with bricks. |
| fire hat, speaking | And we’ll have a real fire department! |
| reconstruction artifact | And a real municipal water system! |
| front page, speaking: | Read all about it! Seattle rebuilds in record time! |
| all: | We were tested by fire, but came out on top, Now most of Seattle is new. Fire burned us to ashes, but just like that bird, Up from the ashes we flew. (flew!) Up from the ashes we flew. |
Image: Mural of Seattle's Great Fire of 1889, by Rudolph Zallinger, 1953. Museum of History and Industry, Seattle. Found at http://www.historylink.org/File/8173