A Promise
from If I Could Live Long Enough by Tobin Mueller
A promise.
My life is a promise to those who came before us, here.
A promise of time. Of meaning.
That all their work was not in vain;
and all their love…
Their love is a promise to me,
a promise that life is shaped of beauty and sacrifice
whispered from lips… a mother’s lips,
a whispered wish that lives inside.
Inside, would I have pleased her? Bring her joy?
Am I what she would have wanted?
Has my life been worth her death?
Has my life been worth my own living?
Does death diminish all we do?
Does death diminish all our dreams?
Does death take away the meaning life can hold,
all our reasons of being?
Does death kill the promise?
Can we ever know what survives?
What survives this promise that is life, that is life?
I will awake the world!
Shake them from sleep,
from all their weeping,
from petty fears,
into a mother’s promise.
And they will see again
through the eyes of a child.
Through eyes like mine.
Through eyes like mine.
What do they see?
They see you. They see me.
They’ll see a world of change…and promise.
©1995, 2005 Tobin Mueller
This song is from my Off-Broadway musical Creature and features Woody Mankowski singing the part of Victor Frankenstein, Jeff Cox on acoustic bass, Dane Richeson on drums and Doug Schneider on tenor sax. It is a classic example of a musical soliloquy song. A young Victor Frankenstein is visiting his mother's grave (in my show she died giving birth to him) and promises her that his life will be worth her death.
I wrote this when my own mother was dying. It has (as does the entire Creature musical) a great deal of personal significance.
Woody sang an incorrect lyric, making one of the verbs present tense. Instead of singing "brought", he sang, "would I have pleased her? Bring, bring her joy?" I loved it, how to him this question was still immediate, still in the present. So I kept it in and changed the lyric.
This recording is from the 1998 Rain Bather sessions and resulted in the award-winning Rain Bather long-play album. It's been unheard for far too long!
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