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Yet if I should get married.

from Corso's Marriage (2011) by Thomas Oboe Lee

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lyrics

Yet if I should get married and it's Connecticut and snow 

and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn, 

up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me,
finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man 

knowledged with responsibility
O what would that be like! 

Surely I'd give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus 

For a rattle a bag of broken Bach records 

Tack Della Francesca all over its crib 

Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib 

And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon


No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father 

not rural not snow no quiet window 

but hot smelly New York City 

seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls 

a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!
And five nose running brats in love with Batman
And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired 

like those hag masses of the 18th century 
all wanting to come in and watch TV 

[And] the landlord wants his rent 

Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus 

Impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking-- 

No! I should not get married and I should never get married! 

But--imagine if I were to marry a beautiful sophisticated woman 

tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves 

holding a cigarette holder in one hand and highball in the other 

and we lived high up a penthouse with a huge window
from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days 

No I can't imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream—

credits

from Corso's Marriage (2011), released June 12, 2012
Tim Krol, baritone
Holly Chatham, piano

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about

Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more

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