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lyrics

(needs to be updated)

ZHŌNG YÌ
Guang!

GUANG
Huh?

ZHŌNG YÌ
You’ve been in here way too long, so
“How To Get Out Of An Elevator” is the name of this song.

GUANG
So how do I get out?

ZHŌNG YÌ
First—

GUANG
Wait. Who are you?

ZHŌNG YÌ
I’m General Tso.

GUANG
So?

ZHŌNG YÌ
No, not just Tso. I’m a General too.

GUANG
People’s Army?

ZHŌNG YÌ
Homeland Security. And I have a special jam I wanna do. It’s called “How To Get Out Of An American Jam When The Blueberry Is You.”
We’ll report you, then detain you, take you to court, and then arraign you,
and if you can’t afford a lawyer, it’s much shorter, we just deport you – hey!

GUANG
I can’t just disappear.
There’s too much
riding on my life.
Who will help my son and wife
pay the loans that I still owe,
and owe,
and owe?

ZHŌNG YÌ
Wow, your life sucks. I was just kidding, though.
General Tso is just an alias. In Hong Kong, they think
folks like me and you are aliens just like they do here,
but my new identity means homeland security
for me: even though I was a foreign-born man,
now I can be secure in my new homeland. Hey!

GUANG
Zhōng Yì? It’s / you?

ZHŌNG YÌ
Used to be. I got rich in Hong Kong.
Life can be a bitch but that’s not the name of this song.

GUANG
How could you disappear
on your son?
In his dying breath,
he gave me all that he had left,
GUANG (cont’d)
so I breathed in his life,
his dream,
his debt.

ZHŌNG YÌ
Yes, and who’s fault was that? Not mine.
If you had left him back in Fuzhou, he would’ve been fine.
You try to save people, that’s when you hurt them.

GUANG
(Considering) But it’s selfish to desert them.

ZHŌNG YÌ
Guang. You’ll be helpless as long as you send each cent to someone else.
It’s not selfish to want to make something of yourself.
I have a new family now. Three kids. Two cars.
Life is beautiful once we decide to make it ours.
America means freedom. Think you’re trapped by debt? Wrong.
Forget

GUANG
Ming and Wang Yue?

ZHŌNG YÌ
Yes. What’s taken you so long?
Liberate yourself from your family! This is where you belong!
And “How To Get Out Of Obligation” is the name of this song!

ZHŌNG YÌ & GUANG
“How To Get Out Of Obligation” is the name of this song!

GUANG
If I could let / them go,

ZHŌNG YÌ
Let them go.

GUANG
who knows who I / could be,

ZHŌNG YÌ
Let them go.

GUANG
what I’d do - if I were / free.

ZHŌNG YÌ
Let them go.

GUANG
How can I...

ZHŌNG YÌ
Let them...

GUANG
Go.

credits

from Stuck Elevator, released November 3, 2013

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Byron Au Yong Seattle, Washington

Byron Au Yong composes songs of dislocation, music for a changing world.

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